SUCCESSOR ANNOUNCED

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27057, 16 April 1949, Page 6

SUCCESSOR ANNOUNCED

DIRECTOR OF BROADCASTING MR WILLIAM YATES APPOINTED PA WELLINGTON, Apl. 14. Mr William Yates, who has been assistant director for the past five years, has been appointed to succeed Mr J. Shelley as Director of Broadcasting. This was announced last night by the Minister of Broadcasting, Mr Jones, who confirmed that Mr Shelley was retiring after 13 years as head of the department. The Minister said that Mr Yates had had wide and varied experience in broadcasting, and had occupied a number of important positions in the broadcasting service since he joined it in 1934. Recently, Mr Yates returned from a visit to England, Canada and the United States, where he had been studying up-to-date methods of broadcasting administration and overseas trends in broadcasting technique. Paying a .tribute to the retiring director, Mr Jones said he had steered broadcasting in New Zealand through a difficult period in its development. His foresight and judgment had enabled many problems encountered by other broadcasting organisations to be successfully overcome until New Zealand now possessed a broadcasting organisation held in high esteem. “In addition to his activities in the broadcasting field,” Mr Jones said, “Mr Shelley has built up an impressive record of achievements in the cultural life of the community. As first professor of education in New Zealand he exercised considerable influence in educational theory and practice. He was one of the originators of what is now the Country Library Service, and was intimately concerned with the. activities of the Workers’ Education Association and initiated the summer school movement in New Zealand.”

Mr Yates, who was born in England in 1898, cams' to New Zealand in 1912, and joined the Education Department in 1914. He was later accountant to the Unemployment Board. In 1934 he was appointed supervisor of plays to the National Broadcasting Board. He has written scripts and has also broadcast as an artist.