RADIO LINK

Evening Star, Issue 24137, 6 March 1942, Page 2

RADIO LINK

N.Z. NEWS FOR AMERICAN PEOPLE (P.A.) AUCKLAND, March 5. The intention of the National Broadcasting Comapny of New York to establish a radio telephone service in New Zealand for the purpose of giving the American people a Dominion news service by .radio was revealed to-day by Mr Merviu Iv. Slosberg, one of its correspondents, who has arrived in Auckland. A similar service has been operating in Australia for fully a year, Mr Slosberg said, and it bad increased its activities considerably since the extension of the war to the Pacific zones. “ People in the United States are clamouring for news of New Zealand, especially since the creation of the Auzac area,” he stated. “ There is a dearth of New Zealand news in the States, and it is to correct that lack that this service is proposed. We want to find out what you New Zealanders are doing, what you want, and to put the whole of the New Zealand story before the American people.” Tbc National Broadcasting Company’s organisation in Australia was headed by Mr Martin Agronsky, who was in Singapore and the Netherlands East Indies theatre of hostilities prior to that, continued Mr Slosberg. The radio-telephone news service in Sydney had been extended since the beginning of this year, and was now on a regular basis of from four to seven broadcasts a week. The actual talk given by the company’s representative lasted from two to *lO minutes, the average being about four minutes.

The reception by American listeners, he added, was reported to be very satisfactory. The talks were given in Sydney and picked up in San Francisco, and broadcast to about 40,000,000 listeners, Every prominent angle of Australian news was covered, with special attention being given to the war effort o the Commonwealth, and the situation arising from the war. Provided that the same facilities could bo arranged in New Zealand, news of the part which its people were playing in tho war would be eagerly received by the American listening public. The service would bo a further link in the relationship between tho peoples engaged in a common purpose.