New Zealand Listener

The contemporary reception was equally passionate.

If you look at materials from the New Zealand Listener, because these broadcasts were syndicated and loved globally, you see critics praising the sheer immersion these productions achieved.

The audiences didn't feel like they were listening to a reading of a book.

They felt like they were eavesdropping on reality.

[chuckles]

And neither is Simon Wilson, writer for The Listener, Substack's At Hometown.

Kia ora, Simon, how are you?

Kia ora.

Fantastic [laughs].

Wow.

If it goes well tomorrow, if the listeners are up for drum and bass, then we'll do it.

[laughs]

So no, that's good scrutiny.

Also a, a story in The Listener by the, uh, Nights regular, the great Daniel McLachlan, about, um, well, on, on sort of policies that do and don't make the cut.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's in not the latest fresh out edition but the one that ev- actually covers this week.

I think those shows that grew out of the place and used more real people seem to me the pioneering sort of ethos that would lead to reality television.

Diana Wichtel, who wrote about TV for decades in The Listener and elsewhere, arrived in New Zealand from Canada in the 1960s as a teenager already obsessed with TV.

What she found on our local screens back then didn't look all that different from the reality telly of today.

I mean, when I came here, there were shows that I would now kind of include just because they were trying to be about real people and, you know, Country Calendar, for instance.

If you were good citizens and endured and watched, I'd love to hear your feedback.

Seriously, there's some really good pieces in The Listener where Daniel McLachlan has gone through and is looking at policy and each party's response to it, and the experts are giving their opinions on whether it's good, bad, or ugly policy.

There are hour-long debates with the different spokespeople on, on their f- portfolios.

I've got the hours with the party leaders.

How are you? Good.

And Simon Wilson, writer for The Listener, writer at Substack Hotel.

Simon, how are you? I am

very well, Wallace.

Yeah.

Probably best known for her magazine photography for the New Zealand Listener.

But laterally, she's done fantastic books and, of course, was an artist to Antarctica herself and documented Shackleton's huts and so on.

But, you know, her eye is just superb.