WOMEN ANNOUNCERS

Evening Post, Volume CXXI, Issue 130, 3 June 1936, Page 15

WOMEN ANNOUNCERS

"PHO" OGENIC" FACES (From "The Post's" Representative.) LONDON, May 16. The 8.8.C. announces that Miss Jasmine Blight and Miss Elizabeth Cowell have been appointed hostess-announc-ers on the staff of the television department. Thenceforth, until the opening of the television service at the Alexandra Palace, they will make frequent appearances in the lighter sound programmes of the dance music type in order to become accustomed to the microphone.

Miss Blight, who is 22 years of age, has had three years' stage and film experience, playing in "Julius Caesar" at His Majesty's Theatre, in the Chariot revue "Please!" and other West End productions. She has visited America, Italy, and Switzerland, and speaks French fluently.

Miss Cowell, who is 23, has travelled extensively abroad and speaks French and German. Her main "indoor" interest is ballet.

These ladies were chosen from among the 1122 applicants who answered the 8.8. G. advertisement for the two posts of television announcer and hostess. The first selection was made from letters and photographs, and all applicants who were considered to have a possible chance were interviewed by a selection board. Of these the best four were given a sound audition. A final test by high definition television confirmed that Miss Blight and Miss Cowell, besides possessing the necessary qualifications of personality, tact, and charm, had "photogenic" faces, suited to the television medium. As a result of the decision to combine the posts of television hostess and announcer, they will make their television appearances at the Alexandra Palace alternately. While one is announcing the other will be acting as hostess, the latter greeting the artists and helping them to become acclimatised to the unusual atmosphere of the television studios. Television announcements will probably have to be memorised, the speaker dispensing with .notes {jefore the scanner.