"Local record production began in 1949. Shortly afterwards, the New Zealand Broadcasting Service (these days known as Radio New Zealand), which controlled almost all radio in the country, established its Purchasing Committee. This group of between four and six employees from the music section of the Wellington Head Office would meet regularly to audition records for airplay.
The discs the committee considered acceptable would then be bought from the record companies in multiple units and distributed to the various regional stations; there, they would be played at the discretion of the individual programmers. This process remained in place until 1988 when the fourth Labour government undertook its deregulation of the radio market.
The discs the committee considered acceptable would then be bought from the record companies in multiple units and distributed to the various regional stations; there, they would be played at the discretion of the individual programmers. This process remained in place until 1988 when the fourth Labour government undertook its deregulation of the radio market.
A set of memos from the Purchasing Committee, held in the audiovisual archive Ngā Taonga Sound and Vision, provide some insights into the decisions that were made over nearly four decades.....
In 1954 a series of events, reported in lurid headlines, fed into a public impression that juvenile immorality was on the rise. In June there was the brutal killing by Christchurch teens Pauline Parker and Juliet Hulme of Parker’s mother, Honora. The following month the Lower Hutt Magistrates Court heard about “a shocking degree of immoral conduct which spread into sexual orgies” between underage youths of 13 upwards. The court was told these teens would meet in milk bars, where they would arrange their sexual liaisons. Some of the teens rode motorcycles.
As a direct response to the Hutt Valley cases, a special government committee was appointed to look into moral delinquency in children and adolescents, and a copy of their findings was delivered to every New Zealand home. This became known as the Mazengarb Report, after the committee’s chairman Oswald Chettle Mazengarb QC.
In 1954 a series of events, reported in lurid headlines, fed into a public impression that juvenile immorality was on the rise. In June there was the brutal killing by Christchurch teens Pauline Parker and Juliet Hulme of Parker’s mother, Honora. The following month the Lower Hutt Magistrates Court heard about “a shocking degree of immoral conduct which spread into sexual orgies” between underage youths of 13 upwards. The court was told these teens would meet in milk bars, where they would arrange their sexual liaisons. Some of the teens rode motorcycles.
As a direct response to the Hutt Valley cases, a special government committee was appointed to look into moral delinquency in children and adolescents, and a copy of their findings was delivered to every New Zealand home. This became known as the Mazengarb Report, after the committee’s chairman Oswald Chettle Mazengarb QC.
... 'Sexy Ways’ (Hank Ballard and the Midnighters) seemed to mirror the incidents that had sparked the Mazengarb Report, and the Purchasing Committee promptly banned them.
But it could be the sound as much as the lyrics that kept records off the airwaves. “Noisy, coarse and crude” was the committee’s verdict on Hank Ballard.
But it could be the sound as much as the lyrics that kept records off the airwaves. “Noisy, coarse and crude” was the committee’s verdict on Hank Ballard.
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