December 22 2004

A new web site (www.radioheritage.net ) has been launched to celebrate the
story of radio broadcasting in the Pacific region, and to provide a home for
a wide variety of radio heritage activities, exhibitions, archiving,
research and advocacy projects covering New Zealand, Australia, the Pacific
Islands and reaching as far as countries around the Pacific Rim.

'Radio has a long history in the Pacific' says Radio Heritage Foundation
chairman David Ricquish.

'In fact, it's even claimed by some biographers that "Rutherford began what
Marconi completed" in which case, New Zealand is the real home of radio
broadcasting in the modern age'

Whether New Zealand's Lord Rutherford was indeed the true father of radio
instead of Marconi is one of the hundreds of fascinating topics the Radio
Heritage Foundation plans to investigate in the near future.

Currently, www.radioheritage.net contains information about various projects
which the Foundation has underway, highlights radio heritage issues, and a
selection of articles from its on-line archives project.

'We have hundreds of articles and thousands of images already available from
our collections' says David Ricquish, and we'll be bringing these on-line as
fast as resources allow. Our definition of "heritage" is anything up to a
nano-second ago, so contemporary radio issues are as important to us as
those of the 1920's or any other era' he adds.

'Radio has touched every aspect of our lives for almost a century now' says
David Ricquish. "It has a social history, cultural, artistic, technological,
heritage, genealogy and entertainment context' he says, 'and this web site,
and indeed, the whole project, helps us understand just what the impact of
radio on our lives continues to be in the new digital era.'

The Radio Heritage Foundation is a non-profit charity based in Wellington,
New Zealand. Board members include prominent broadcasters from New Zealand,
Australia and Europe and a growing number of contributors and volunteers loc
ated across the Pacific from the USA, Canada and Japan, to Australia and New
Zealand.

ENDS

For more information contact:
David Ricquish T: +64 21 631 337
Email: