"Action: Immediate and Continuing:

"(i) After the report had been studied Station Managers and other responsible officers were asked to take interim action to ensure that the spirit of the Committee's conclusions in regard to a certain type of song was reflected in their programmes. They were also asked to let us know, with reasons, of any serial features running at their stations which they think should be considered for withdrawal or later time placement.

"(ii) Two married women of senior status on our staff have been selected to sit in alternation on the Standard Recordings Purchasing Committee and the Features Purchasing Committee. They will not be able to hear with every auditioning officer all episodes of features or all single recordings of songs. To duplicate auditioning staff for this purpose would require the full-time service of five or six married women. Either one, however, will with the Committee study reports, agreeing to acceptance or rejection, and help to guide auditioning and purchasing policy. Doubtful cases brought up by auditioning officers will be heard by them as well as by other senior officers.

"(iii) The time allotted to features classified as suitable for playing when large audiences of children may be expected to be listening has been from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m.; it is now to be from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. There may be differences of opinion from time to time on suitability of features for this classification as we have a considerable number of public judges of our decisions, but we shall do our best. All auditioning officers will be fully alert to their responsibility.

"(iv) Opportunity was taken at a conference in Wellington at the end of last month of the senior programme organizers of all stations throughout the country to discuss fully their responsibilities towards the matters raised in the Committee's report. They also discussed the draft of a revised code of instructions to auditioning officers and others, and this code is now being circulated.

"(v) An extension of present procedure on popular song records was decided upon for Head Office auditioning officers. Records will be wholly rejected, or passed for general use, or passed with the reservation that they are to be programmed with special care (i.e., as to time placement, frequency, etc.)."

"The following further action is to be taken:

"(i) The issue of the code referred to above will give effect to the Service's desire for the consistent wholesomeness of programmes, the need to aim constantly to maintain standards in programmes of all kinds at the highest appropriate level, and the need to exercise discretion in programming material which might be rendered objectionable by repetition, inappropriate time placement, or standard and style of performance.

"(ii) Some of the dramatic features at present running will be reauditioned if it is thought that they may be out of tune with the present atmosphere or the revised time classification. Even with additional assistance this task may take about six months. There may be some financial loss if many episodes are to be discarded or if the withdrawal of episodes or alteration of time classification creates difficulties in providing replacement programmes at short notice for sponsors. It is relevant here to note the difference between ourselves and film or book censors. After censoring we must ourselves face the financial result of our actions and the administrative difficulty of finding substitute and less objectionable material.

"(iii) Suppliers of transcribed programmes in Australia are to be advised of the implications of the report so far as it is likely to affect our future purchasing policy.

"There has been a tendency amongst our critics (I do not refer here to the Committee) to make insufficient allowance for the considerable part played by broadcasting in serving the public good in the spheres of information, education, the arts, and community services. As Sir William Haley, formerly Director-General of the B.B.C. and now Editor of the Times said in a recent lecture on The Public Influence of Broadcasting and the Press: 'It is, of course, possible to counter all this by raising one's eyebrows at some of the variety programmes. They are the other side of the medal. But one must look at the whole'."

(1) The officers of the New Zealand Broadcasting Service have studied in a properly co-operative spirit the suggestions and recommendations of the Mazengarb Committee, and that

(2) They are alive to the responsibilities that rest upon them as a Department of State charged with the task of operating a most important medium of public entertainment, information and instruction, and that

(3) They have, over the years, worked out for themselves a code of procedure under which a high and commendable standard of broadcasting has been, and is being, maintained, and that

(4) They are taking all reasonable and practicable steps to give effect to the suggestions put forward by the Mazengarb Committee, and that

(5) We express the hope that the utmost vigilance should be exercised over the choice, content, and timing of programmes—especially over those designed for the extended hours set apart for juvenile listeners—and that every effort be made to maintain the high standard that the Service has set for itself. We recommend, too, that during the hours set apart for children there should be a complete absence of features that can fairly be regarded as being unsuitable for or injurious to young people.

"A further recommendation contained in the report is to the following effect:

"In the view of this Department the objective of the recommendation is good and should be followed up by appropriate action. There are several Departments concerned from different angles, and it would seem that the recommendation could best be implemented by whichever Department is charged with the general oversight of matters relating to moral delinquency. It would then be merely a matter of administrative action for that Department to call periodical meetings of the appropriate officers concerned with censorship."