Compass - First Five Years of Television

[Gordon] Dryden, in our interview, made a slashing, fiery attack upon the NZBC. He criticised the amount of 'pap' that went on air, resented the lack of controversy, and tore into the Government-servant administration in the corporation...I had my doubts about whether our vetting committee would allow us to use the interview, but most of it went on.

– Assistant Producer Gordon Bick, in his 1968 book The Compass File, page 88

To aid impartiality we hired Dr RJ Harrison, a political science lecturer at Victoria University of Wellington, to 'front' and assist us with the script ... An outsider such as Dr Harrison, would, we thought, have much more freedom to give a frank opinion.

– Assistant Producer Gordon Bick, in his 1968 book The Compass File, page 85

Our immediate thought was, would we get away with a critical, controversial programme looking at ourselves? Or would the heavy hand of a vetting committee forestall any honest appraisal of the NZBC Television Service?

– Assistant Producer Gordon Bick, in his 1968 book The Compass File, page 82

It's now five years since television was introduced to New Zealand, and to mark the occasion we thought we'd make an assessment over that period . . . we went outside the corporation, and asked Dr Reg Harrison, a senior lecturer in political science at Victoria University, to write and present his own views of television in New Zealand . . He could go anywhere, question anyone.

– Alan Morris introduces this programme

Britian has had regular television since 1936, and America since 1939 . . . By 1955, caution was beginning to look like chronic indecision, so the government set up a caucus commitee to investigate and advise.

– Reg Harrison outlines the slow introduction of television to New Zealand

...the do-it-yourselfers have been active all over the country. Translators and mini-translators have bought television to hundreds of isolated places, even if they were began in the face of official opposition.

– Reg Harrison on regions taking transmission into their own hands