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towards the end of the year. In these sessions the announcers were encouraged to include interesting material quite apart from the advertising matter, and every attempt was made to secure interest by way of interviews with women visiting from overseas. Controversial Broadcasting.—Towards the end of the year a start was made with a weekly session entitled "ZB Citizens' Forum." This session was conducted from public halls in the four main centres with a competent citizen as chairman. A panel of speakers was selected to support and attack the subject being discussed, and comment was permitted from the audience. No scripts were used by the speakers, but a great deal of preliminary work had to be handled by the station and chairman. Some of the subjects debated were : " Should Large-scale Immigration be Encouraged " ; " Should We Have a Staggered Forty-hour Week " ; "Do New Zealand Men Lack a Clothes Sense " ; " Should War Memorials Take the Form of Playing-fields " ; " What Can be Done to Prevent the Exodus of Highly Trained New Zealanders Overseas " ; " What Should We do to Check Rising Prices"; "Is Our Education System Satisfactory"; " Should Import Restrictions be Continued " ; " New Zealand and the Movies " ; " Should Married Women Work " ; "Do You Believe in Miracles Sports Sessions.—As in previous years, the Commercial network concentrated on the provision of an efficient sports result service, broadcasting results as received. On Saturday afternoons and holidays half-hourly summaries were broadcast. Sports sessions of general interest to sportsmen were also broadcast, in which the special announcers were encouraged to bring to the microphone people prominent in various sporting fields. These broadcasts included such items as the welcome back to New Zealand of the 1947 All Black Rugby Team ; interviews with Tom Heeney; Doug Harris, New Zealand athlete ; and Horace Lindrum on billiards. Other broadcasts featured Bos Murphy on the eve of his departure from New Zealand ; Dorrie Leslie, Olympic Games Starter ; and the South African Soccer Team. Special arrangements were also made by the Commercial Division to carry the full commentary on the world's heavyweight title fight between Joe Louis and Joe Walcott. The entire commentary was taken from the ringside to Wellington by radio telephone, and rebroadcast by all ZB stations. Coverage was also given to the overseas activities of the New Zealand boxer, Bos Murphy, interviews and summaries of his fights being brought to listeners. From Sydney a special programme featuring the All Blacks during their Australian visit was broadcast, while members of the Australian Women's Cricket Team and the Fijian Cricket Team also appeared before the ZB microphones. Services Session. —The Services' Sessions on the ZB stations were identified with those organizations working for the welfare of returned men and women from both wars. The outstanding highlight of the year was the visit of Field-Marshal Yiscount Montgomery, who broadcast greetings. Concert parties were taken to hospitals, and some broadcasts actually originated from hospital wards. Special dawn Anzac programmes were broadcast, together with special broadcasts later in the day. The session was available to Service organizations for notices of meetings, postponements, &c., and leaders of these organizations were accorded time on the air to broadcast in connection with their work. Feature Programmes. —During the year 10,132 quarter-hour programmes were auditioned, comprising 137 series. The countries of origin were as follows: 80 Australian ; 32 New Zealand ; 15 American ; 9 Great Britain; 1 Canadian. In each case the American programmes are merely continuation rights of features purchased some considerable time ago. No new American feature programme has been purchased since 10th September, 1946. It is interesting to note that a British firm is entering the feature business, and some of their programmes have been purchased by the Commerical Division. This is the first time that feature material from the British Isles has been available for sponsorship in New Zealand.

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