Talkback

Your comments on TV and radio

CORO CARE

Coronation Street’s status as the longest-running TV drama says it all. Who cares if we are behind the UK? We, the viewers, are enjoying the ride. We enjoy the brilliance of the scriptwriting: Tracey’s one-liners, Ken’s pompous speeches, the Rovers’ pub gossip, the street-bench revelations, the workroom natter. There’s nothing like it.

We do not want to fastforward through the drama and miss out on the brilliance of the scriptwriting. Yes, we can opt to watch it on daily viewing. However, over 65-year-olds are not all sitting in rest-home lounges watching daytime episodes. Most seniors these days are still active, some working into their 80s or being volunteers.

TVNZ should get in touch with its viewers and leave Coronation Street alone. To do justice to the best drama ever produced, how about providing daily evening episodes as well as repeats during the day?

Valerie Somerville (St Albans, Christchurch) LISTING LOSS

As a long-time listener to RNZ National’s morning programmes, I find the lack of information in the Listener annoying on programmes such as The Reading, which is part of Nine to Noon with Kathryn Ryan. Ryan

As I can’t wind back the radio if I miss titles or names of speakers, and, at 87, am not computer-savvy enough to find the Nine to Noon programmes online, I feel very frustrated and miss some very interesting speakers.

Margaret Davies (Dunedin)

We sympathise, but RNZ National no longer schedules programmes as far ahead as it used to and as we are working roughly two weeks ahead, specific programme information is not always available. RNZ National tells us that it will include information on The Reading, if it is available.

CROSSING THE LINE

What’s with the interrogative tone on RNZ? Listening to a 1pm news bulletin on RNZ National recently, I was struck when I heard Katrina Batten read, “… the Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern admits that the Government has more work to do on child poverty”.

The PM admits? The online Oxford dictionary defines admit as “confess to be true or to be the case”. In whose view was the PM confessing? Since we didn’t hear whatever led to the comment, it surely could have been reported that she “said” rather than that she “admitted”, thus taking any hint of partiality out of the question.

What has happened to careful reviewing and editing of news bulletins? Frances Burton-Brown ( Whitby, Porirua)