TVNZ make a mockumentary of their own decline

So, for a 50th Anniversary of television broadcasting in New Zealand, TVNZ did a mock celebrity game show with heavily forced product placement.

It would be nice to think this was a spoof, but sadly TVNZ could not have done a better demonstration of what is wrong with our publicly owned broadcaster if they tried.

The programme could have been so much more - they had a treasure trove of New Zealand cultural history at their fingertips. A means to show how TVNZ has not only been a camera lens, but involved in New Zealand life itself. Dig out clips of those old programmes no one has seen for years, even if people don't know what it is they can still laugh at the haircuts.

It was like TVNZ went to Te Papa only to read the trashy magazines in the waiting area. They really sold themselves short.

The answer to this disaster may be in the demographics. The only ratings that matter are the eyes attached to the 18 to 35 year olds - the olds don't really count. Hopefully the ratings are senstive enough to pick up the large number of TVs that went off before the first half hour was up - mine certainly did.

TVNZ did use a few clips from old shows and news broadcasts, but they were so short one could have blinked and missed them. Perhaps the advertisers were worried the public might remember what real public broadcasting looked like....

Well might I just scrape into the 18 to 35 age bracket, yet I remember TVNZ when it was a real public broadcaster.
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To make matters worse, Tumeke reports the Minister of Broadcasting Johnathan Coleman ordered TVNZ to deliver a new channel exclusively on the Sky pay TV platform, thereby undermining investment in TVNZ's own Freeview platform. "It is hardly conceivable that a more tragic and self-destructive present could be opened on such an anniversary. To use the Head of Digital's own assessment it will mean a "slow suicide" of the TVNZ digital channels (whose charter funding is set to run out in a few years). Great news for the SKY shareholders and another concocted reason to sell off the state broadcaster, so we can see why the National government did it."

Against the Current also suggests John Key's government is readying TVNZ for sale.

No more Scrutiny confirmed

The CEO of Triangle Television has confirmed that the current affairs interview show Scrutiny has been cancelled. Here is the reply I received from Jim Blackman of Triangle TV/Stratos

"Hi Joe – Thank you for this supportive email – we really appreciate it – and I have to say I was delighted to read your Scrutiny column. We are sorry to have lost Scrutiny too, but unfortunately it is a sign of the times

News and current affairs are a priority for us – but unlike the “major” players we are tightly constrained by the almighty dollar – especially in these times – to give you an idea – the TOTAL NZoA funding available for 13 regional channels last year was about 850,000 – and thats paper thin...OOOOH But thats been raised for next year they will say – to 1.5 million ---- still of course among the 13 channels....... thats the equivalent of about an hour and a half of prime time doco on the main broadcasters!!!!

The problem is that we need to try to make cloth fit and we have to assess costs all the way along.

I want to assure you that we are working on a replacement show which we hope you will find equally thought provoking – all I can say is “watch this space”

So while it is pleasing that Triangle are working on a replacement show, it still can not hurt to let Triangle know why the format of Scrutiny was appreciated, as this may influence the makeup of any new show. So let them know at info@tritv.co.nz

The meagre funding of regional television stations suggests too little consideration is given to the non-profit television sector. While the previous Labour government gave TVNZ additional charter funding it still required TVNZ to operate as a profit making entity. Indeed it was said the Government provided the funding for 'public service' broadcasting along with an expectation Treasury would take it away again. The new National government plans to transfer this money back to New Zealand On Air (NZOA) so it can be accessed as a contestable fund that TV3 and others can also access. They are wrong to assume public service broadcasting can be delivered in a platform neutral way - I can already hear the profit seeking turkeys starting the next great gobble gobble.

While public broadcasting advocates should always hope for the day we get a Government with a commitment to public broadcasting and a real policy to carry it out, there remains a question of how we might respond in the current environment. It may be worth advocating for National to at least modify their policy so that providers with fewer avenues for alternative funding, that demonstrate prime time public service values, could be given greater priority for funding from NZOA.

In the current environment there is a danger regional TV stations may be squeezed - some may even have to close. On the other hand, one can only hope that such stations do not begin to slash and burn their greatest assets - good quality programming that people want to watch. Too much focus on the immediate bottom line can sometimes be a recipe for ever decreasing circles.

In March Peter Thompson published a thoughtful column on the prospects for public service broadcasting in New Zealand, pointing out that while Labour's broadcasting policy was flawed, the plans by National to dispense completely with the TVNZ charter risk throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

No more Scrutiny for Auckland?

Last month I said some nice things about Triangle TV's current affairs interview show Scrutiny. In particular I highlighted how its host Edward Rooney is a far better interviewer than the recently reheated has-been on TVNZ's Q&A, Paul Holmes.

Last week David left a comment on my post with some concerning news.
"Scrutiny just got the chop after Triangle pulled funding. The idiots need a kick up the arse. Scrutiny's one of the best current affairs/interview shows on T.V"

Scrutiny screens on Wednesdays at 7.30pm.

I have been looking around the net for some confirmation of this news, at least so I had something to link to when I blogged about it. In the absence of finding anything I thought I would write to the CEO of Triangle TV, Jim Blackman about this issue. If others also want to send Triangle a message they can do so at info@tritv.co.nz

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Dear Jim,

Last month I made a post on my blog where I praised Triangle TV's current affairs interview show Scrutiny. I made a comparison between a recent interview of EPMU National Secretary Andrew Little on Scrutiny and a similar interview by Paul Holmes on TVNZ's new show Q & A. I concluded that Edward Rooney's interview was far more competent and revealing.

Some fellow Scrutiny fans later responded to my post. I was disappointed when they informed me that Scrutiny is to be no more, as Triangle has cut the funding to the show. Is this true?

It would be a real shame to lose yet another real current affairs show given there are now so few shows free of hype, haste, hyperbole and tabloid values. I also enjoy watching Triangle's feeds of DW-TV and Aljazeera English TV, and hoped this content would help build an audience for a local current affairs show. With the impending reorganisation of Auckland's local government I thought Scrutiny would not be short for potential topics or guests.

Now I admit I have not watched Scrutiny from week to week, but have enjoyed it when I do. As I hope the show will continue, I was wondering if more could be done to promote the show online among bloggers and other news nerds. For example, Triangle could send out a press release to scoop.co.nz with the names of upcoming guests so people would have a reminder to tune in. I also really liked how the old Agenda would publish transcripts of interviews - this made it easier for interviews to be commented on blogs and other media. If the old Agenda is anything to go by, the comments made by interviewees could end up creating leading stories in the primetime news.

So I hope there is still a place for a show like Scrutiny in the Triangle TV schedule.

Triangle TV Scruitiny blows Paul Holmes out of the water

Tonight's edition of the Triangle TV programme Scrutiny demonstrated why Paul Holmes should not be the host of TVNZ's revamped Agenda - now called Q&A.

Journalist Edward Rooney questioned EPMU National Secretary and new Labour Party President Andrew Little about how he planned to do both jobs. Holmes conducted much the same interview on Q&A on Sunday, and the difference was stark. A small regional TV station blew TVNZ and all its resources out of the water.

Holmes narrowed down with a tabloid like fixation on conflict as a concept -"conflict you might say", "there is a conflicted situation isn't there", yet failed to show whether there was any substance to any of these potential conflicts. Instead Rooney looked to ask questions that would seek out the answer in letting his subject talk, and by so doing found a real issue Holmes simply didn't get to.

Both major political parties in New Zealand are dependent on funding from corporate sources, with party presidents regularly playing a key role in soliciting such donations. Rooney questioned how Little could seek such funding, at the same time he was advocating, potentially in an adversarial sense, with the same corporate bodies on behalf of union members. For example Telecom seeks benefaction through such donations - it is also a significant EPMU site. Little acknowledged the problem and said he could not be involved in that.

Instead, Little said he would focus on gaining smaller regular donations from a larger number of people. This would make the Labour party more democratic, but turning around 25 years of significant corporate wine and cheese is not something that can be done before the next election, and Labour could be left with small pockets in 2012 as a result. So while Little's democratic aims are laudable, this can only be a long term project.

While in the Holmes interview Little said he had committed to the union until 2011, where he expected enter Parliament, in the Rooney interview Little gave an indication he could step down earlier, by mentioning "succession plans" that were underway within the EPMU. Gaining revealing answers from subjects is another way to judge the skill of an interviewer, and who is just a show pony.

Holmes also has a habit of impatiently interrupting people, enforcing a format where interviewees can only give banal cartoonish like answers and simple soundbites. I found Therese Arseneau to be the most interesting commentator on the Q&A panel last Sunday, and wished Holmes would quit constantly interrupting her.

It is a shame TVNZ have consistently thought less of Agenda than it deserved. It might have been a show for political geeks, but then TVNZ only ever showed it early on weekend mornings - so it was never going to be 'mainstream'. Agenda regularly showed its value by breaking stories that were later part of prime time news bulletins - it is surprising how often comments made on Agenda ended up as front page news.

TVNZ have seriously erred by imposing Paul Holmes as the host of Q & A. Particularly as the start of the Holmes show in 1989 is around the point many Agenda fans would see as the death of thorough, issues based political journalism in New Zealand. Anyone else remember what Ian Fraser or Ian Johnstone were like in their prime? After that real journalists like Ian Johnstone went off to make great documentaries like Someone Else's Country and it look TVNZ 8 years before it bothered to screen it.

Paul Holmes as host of Q&A is like having an unscrupulous developer as head of the Historic Places Trust.
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PS: A few weeks before Helen Clark is expected to be appointed to a top UN job, TVNZressurects the career of the same Paul Holmes who made international news after he referred to the head of the UN as a 'cheeky darky' - sigh.

Update: I have since discovered Telecom stopped making political donations in 2006. At the time Chairman Wayne Boyd said the decision was "absolutely not" a reaction to the unbundling of the local loop - I am sure readers will reach their own conclusions on this.

TV3 debate

I found the TV3 debate fairly dull. I agreed with one of the commentators, I believe it was Jane Clifton, who wondered if both leaders had been trained by their media minders to be just plain dull and avoid talking about policy.

Overall I would call it a minor points victory for Helen Clark, but the debate was so dull is unlikely to have much impact on the wider campaign. I think Clark did well given that the tenor, questions and underlying assumptions behind the debate were framed against her. Like Audrey Young, I think there were occasions where host John Campbell did not give Clark a fair go to respond.

That said, the weakness in Clark's performance tonight was the same issue that has plagued the 08 Labour campaign - being too negative. Campbell gave her plenty of opportunities to talk about new policy initiatives - yet she failed to mention the promise of a universal student allowance once. Clark fluffed the chance for a strong closing statement by closing on Key, although I think Key/Campbell cut her off again here too.

While some Labour activists hope the 'Mary' ad will turn things around - I doubt it. To my mind, Labour would gain more votes if they toned down the frequency of the negative ads and ran the CTU videos on TV instead!

Disappointing TV3 coverage of the Winniebox inquiry

Rather disappointed with TV3 coverage of the Peters issue tonight. Despite promising extended coverage of Winston's appearance before the privileges committee many times throughout the 6pm news bulletin, with a hint of going until 8pm, coverage was curtailed half an hour early.

Worse of all, they missed the question time.

I suspect a TV3 network executive screamed at people 'This is boring, get it off!'. But were TV3 really expecting Peters to be anything but an arrogant, overly legalistic pompous a***? Did they really expect him to come up with significant evidence in his defense, other than 'I will tell you tomorrow?' Surely if he had evidence he would have used it by now? While some journalists attempted to build up the hype by claiming there was a small chance Peters would stun the select committee into finding his innocence, given the way most have behaved over this issue I doubt this outcome was expected either.

In their appearances before the select committee both Winston Foreign Minister Peters, and Owen I have a university building named after me Glenn have made it clear they think the world of themselves. For those who do not follow the precise details of who said what to whom, when and where, I suspect the overall impression of this week will be the clash of two over sized egos. People will also remember Winston getting the sack after being evasive with the truth.

Apparently Helen Clark also watched the hearing on TV3 - I can't imagine she was impressed with the coverage or her foreign minister.

Helen Clark is widely expected to remove Peter's ministerial warrant tomorrow. In some forms of coalition government one option may have been to appoint another NZ First MP to act as foreign minister, maintaining the current balance between the parties. I think it says a lot about NZ First that they do not have another MP who could credibly take over Winston's portfolios, even for a few short weeks. Former minister Brian Donnelly would have been the only one worth even considering, but he left to become High Commissioner to the Cook Islands in February 2008. Sadly Donnelly had to resign his position of High Commissioner in August due to ill health. There may be a few in NZ First - assuming there are people who look beyond the Winston personality cult - quietly wishing Brian was still in Parliament. As it has turned out, Brian could not have timed his exit better.

Is Prog-Blog John Pagani?

After some discussion with others I have reasons to believe the identity of the puerile poster Prog-Blog is none other than John Pagani, former chief press secretary to Jim Anderton.

Perhaps it was the personal attacks that gave it away, or perhaps the simple arrogance. Perhaps it was the repeated practice on misrepresenting the positions of others, instead of actually addressing the argument made. The writing style also seemed rather familiar.

While I would normally respect the right of a blogger to remain anonymous if he/she wishes, Prog-Blog has demonstrated that he does not respect the right of other bloggers to remain anonymous. In cases such as this, mutually assured identification should apply.

(This does not apply to the person who posts as 'Anon' on Prog-blog - generally his/her posts are more substantial).

Anonymous blogs can play an important function, especially where a person may have access, or perceived access to information of a public interest, yet identification would get them to get in trouble, most likely in a work situation. However when an anon blog is simply used for unsubstantiated abuse, anonymity is simply being abused. Consider this post from Prog-Blog (25-8-05), which from what I can make out from the garbled link appears to be aimed at National party blogger Aaron Bhatnagar.

"FAT CREEP AWAY FROM COMPUTER Foof it must be nice bludging on the old man. So much 'putin, playstation and Penthouse all day, you can't believe you're actually blinkin' in the sunlight for an hour or two. Super creep reports he will be away from his computer 'until later this afternoon'. WTF? This afternoon? Eeeee, we will be sure not to click refresh too much."

While one may disagree with many of Aaron's views, there is no need for this. Why bother with the personal attacks? Thankfully from my experience the NZ blogsphere rarely reaches such puerile depths. The comments above do not reflect well on Prog-Blog, nor on Jim Anderton's Progressive party Prog-blog claims to support.

And another question for Prog-Blog. If the Progressive MPs were so worried about the foreign ownership of TV3, an entirely reasonable concern, why did they not raise this issue when the Overseas Investment Bill was before the house this year? Many countries enact controls on media ownership through their overseas investment regimes. In fact, the bill effectively liberalised media ownership laws even further, as business transactions worth less than $100m now require no oversight. The Progressives supported the bill through all stages without raising a wimper inside or outside of the house. Either they simply do not believe what they are saying, or they are simply poor advocates.

Apparently abstinence produces results

Destiny NZ latest press release is headed "Absolute Abstinence Program Producing Results". Surely this is a contradiction in terms - or do Destiny now have a policy of virgin births?

If Destiny object to a gay couple being featured along with hetrosexual couples in the Ministry of Health's 'Hubba Hubba' campaign, I suspect they will be very busy if they object to all television programmes that 'promote hetrosexuality'. Of course, its a hard ask to expect bigots to be consistent.

Publish Post

TV: Phone in Polls and 'Loud' Advertisements

Found a couple of interesting discussions over at ReinventingTVNZ

1. The Fallacy of Phone in Polls
It pleased me greatly to read on Span's blog that someone has finally lodged an official broadcasting complaint over the presenters drawing inappropriate conclusions from the ‘results’ of phone in polls.

Despite their veneer of democracy, phone in polls are a form of plutocracy, a mere ‘democracy of disposable income’.

In the context of this complaint, it would be very interesting if someone asked a parliamentary question asking how much income TVNZ gained from the use of such polls. It may be harder to get such information out of a private broadcaster such as TV3, but the exposure of the TVNZ figure would be a useful thing to bully them with. At 99c a call (at least) it probably represents a nice little earner. It would also be interesting to find out how many phone numbers calling the Close Up at 7 polls were registered as coming from Parliament Buildings! I bet it’s more than a few.

It may be going a bit far, but it has concerned me for a while that these polls may lead to an erosion of people’s expectations of democracy. If phone in polls become an accepted way of gauging public opinion, and Susan Wood's comments on such polls encourage this, how long is it before it is suggested that such polls may be a way to ‘encourage participation’ in more serious polls over local body issues, even elections themselves?? Free and fair would not even come into it, and such polls would be at the mercy of a cynical public relations industry.

And who started this scourge of democratic plastic? As I remember, the first programme to heavily push phone in polling was….Big Brother. So I blame Big Brother.

2. The Ads Are Too Bloody Loud
I have always wondered why TV advertising usually seems louder than the programming. As it is annoying, I assumed it was a deliberate ploy to make people pay more attention to the ads. I find Sky One an especially offensive offender, as even its station promos seem 'loud'. Even with the lightening use of the mute button, I often find the sudden two second long blast of sound uncomfortable. It’s the sudden change, not the volume that is the problem.

Apparently this effect is caused by advertising producers applying a form of ‘audio compression’ so there is more sound power in the range where the ear is most sensitive, in order to increase its audible impact. The broadcasting standards authority in Australia is apparently looking at this issue. Our broadcasting authorities should look at it too.