Noumea's Sets

Australian Tv

Beats The Local

Variety To

Noumea's Sets

From Fred Dunne in Noumea.

Regular transmissions over Noumea’s new television station began on October 19 after the Governor of New Caledonia, Mr.

Jean Risterucci, had officially opened the station.

L>UT for several weeks before the -■-* official opening date, people who had invested in TV sets had been picking up programmes from Rock hampton, Queensland, about 1,000 miles due west, and also from Sydney, 1,069 miles to the south-west.

At first, reception was reported to be confined to Australian-made sets with especially-mounted aerials.

But later, French-made sets with ordinary aerials also picked up the programmes.

The image and sound were both excellent in the early hours of the evening, but later the image faded.

Reports published in the local Press on the reception of Australian TV awakened great interest in tele vision in Noumea, and many people who had said they would not buy sets just to watch a couple of hours of local programmes began to have second thoughts on the subject.

Before the Noumea station began its regular transmissions, test programmes were screened for several weeks from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. The regular pro grammes are from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m.

The inauguration of TV has, of course, made Noumea’s cinema pro pritors extremely unhappy.

Some time ago, to offset the advent of TV, the proprietors began screen ing only one film, whereas they had always previously had double features.

The idea of this move was gradually to retard the starting time of their programmes so that ultimately they would begin after 9 p.m. when the TV sessions had been expected to end.

However, news that the TV sessions would last until 10 o’clock ruined that idea, and the cinemas for half the week, anyway, have reverted to double bills.

• An Australian TV technician, Mr.

Nixon, demonstrates the reception of Australian TV programmes on a set in a Noumea shop window.

Photo: "Corail".