Grunt Machine - Paul Holmes

English radio is terrible, but America undoubtedly leads the world in radio with their ideas, their music, their formatting, and we copy that to a great extent...

– Paul Holmes on influences to New Zealand radio

I don't think it has a future because I don't think it was going anywhere anyway. It was something that was invented, I don't know, by American disc jockeys, by American record companies and their branches in New Zealand and in Britain . . . It was very much of a thing of the 60s . . . when rock'n'roll was really taking off and suddenly 45s became the main records.

– Paul Holmes is asked if the top 20 has a future

Programmes that do deal in the Top 20 don't have big audience ratings throughout the country . . . People just don't listen to the hit parade anymore.

– Paul Holmes on audience ratings for hit parade style shows

Each Tuesday morning Lynne Clifton rings up the same four record shops, and gets their top record sales, then averages the figures and these become the Top 20. Each record company sends their new releases to the radio station, and every new record is listened to.

– The narrator on how the top 20 is created

It was neat for a disc jockey to be able to say this is the number one selling record, and you do a big number about it. But it doesn't apply any more, It doesn't matter, because people are into albums now. People aren't quite into singles so much.

– Paul Holmes on changes in how people listen to music