N.Z on Air pays for a video set in Australia!

It’s the beginning of 2012 and you are producing a video for local group AWA entitled ‘Papatuanuku’ which is Maori for Earth Mother.  

 

You have N.Z on Air Funding and the underlying theme of the song can’t get much more authentically native New Zealand……  

 

"Toitū he whenua, whatungarongaro he tangata" = Land is permanent, man disappears

 

 So what do you do with your $6K of N.Z taxpayer funding?   

 

You produce a video depicting scenes from The Queensland floods!  

 

Don’t worry there was plenty of earthquake footage from Christchurch that would have conveyed the underlying theme of man’s frailties. 

 

Like N.Z doesn’t suffer the odd flood or two, if its climate change you want to highlight.   

 

But oh no just grab some helicopter footage from across the Tasman to fit the theme.  

 

Ignore an abundance of similar public domain footage from N.Z.  

 

Most people from overseas won’t tell the difference between Australia/ New Zealand anyway and besides N.Z on Air have no checks and balances, won’t give a rats if it’s Australia you are helping to promote. 

 

 

It's not their money they are throwing about.    

 

 

 

TIME TO RE-THINK N.Z MUSIC MONTH ONE THINKS

I must be getting old. I’m finding it bloody hard to get excited by N.Z Music Month. Previously I had looked forward to the event with an element of childhood-like excitement. Maybe it’s the line-up, post-earthquake malaise? Either-way I can’t get into N.Z Music Month 2012. Perhaps it’s a grand exercise that worked at one point and is now working its way to inevitable extinction? To use a Kiwi colloquialism “it’s done its dash”? Is it too long? A month is 8 per cent of a year, at least when I was at school. Rounded-up that’s close to 10 percent, inclusive of pre-publicity. Over-kill? Could not the worthy promotion of home-grown music be condensed into say two weeks? Two full on weeks which I’m sure even the most sober and Philistine Radio Stations could buy into. Two weeks of quality. Two weeks that exhibited N.Z Music in all its derivatives. My bet is punters would still attend gigs in the same numbers if it was scheduled over two weeks as against four. As a libertarian I can’t buy-into quotas = you must play more N.Z Music. The market must decide what is played and not some grey-shoed bureaucrat in Wellington. Two weeks or four won’t mean radio-stations or the media will promote N.Z Music any more than currently – that’s to say mediocre levels. So may be the powers that be behind N.Z Music Month should look at re-packaging the event. Put their emphasis behind even ‘exporting’ acts, fund a tour or two to Australia over this period? Get N.Z Music into schools with bands playing lunch-time concerts. Run competitions for ‘New Zealands Best Two Piece.’ N.Z Best Home-Made Song Video. The opportunities to promote local music are endless. They don’t necessarily need to be confined to nominated ‘months’. Irrespective of the vehicle to promote local music the best way to support these artists still remains buying their music and attending their gigs. Just watching a local bands You Tube Video gives artists a boast.  

Tune into the best of N.Z Alternative Music on ‘Ground Zero’ Internet Radio.

Five Random Questions New Zealand Music Commission needs to answer about the Outward Sound Scheme.

1.)   The scheme has been running for fix years, by my count close to 100 bands/artists have received assistance. Can the commission point to even a single group/artists that has gone on to taste global success as a direct result of their grant?

2.)   Why is it necessary to give groups multiple grants? Take Die Die Die! for example which has received funding in 2006, 2007, 2009 and 2010. Brooke Fraser 2006, 2007 and 2011.

3.)   Roughly 25 per cent of all the groups funded so far have broken-up. Is this good, to be expected?   

4.)   If a bands record sales falls, popularity wanes after receiving a grant are there any checks and balances in place to ask why? Take Goldenhorse for example. In 2002 their first album made number one in the N.Z Charts and their follow-up (2005) made number two. Yet their 3^rd album peaked at just 38 and that came-out in 2007 a year after they received a Music Commission grant.

5.) Is the scheme income tested? Can’t for example Liam Finn (2008 and 2010) speak nicely to his old-man? Ladyhawke’s record company has an annual turnover of USD 6.0 billion, yet they come 'cap in hand' to the local-tax payers? 

The N.Z Music Commission: Hand-up or Hand-out?

This week we learnt the recipients of The New Zealand Music Industry Commission 'international development grants'. The benefactors in their latest funding round were Ladyhawke, Electric Wire Hustle, Avalanche City, Tiny Ruins, The Earlybirds, Frequency Media Group, Parachute Arts Trust and Isaac Aesili. Ladyhawke got a cool 65K that one can only presume her own record company didn’t feel she was worthy of receiving? What the hell is going on here? Is New Zealand music that dire we need to get the Government to keep ‘Kiwis on the air’ of overseas TV’s and radios as well? Why do New Zealand taxpayers need to assist the marketing budgets multi-national record companies – which is essentially what these subsidies amount to? Ladyhawke is on the label Modular which is 50% owned by Universal Music one of the big four industry players. Universal has an annual turn-over of 6.0 billion U.S Dollars! What is so wrong with the free-market picking winners and losers in the global music market, rather than some grey-shoed, unkempt public servant from Wellington? Who is going to be accountable if these bands crash and burn? Will Public Servants soon start picking the New Zealand Top 40? They could automatically place N.Z Artists in the number one spot every week and we could all feel good about how well local music is doing. Wouldn’t it just be easy if we sent secretive teams of Kiwi public servants to the U.K and Europe to buy-up every N.Z record off the shelves and artificially drive that artist up the charts? Then again why bother traveling past Wellington. Why not spend grab a bundle of tax-payer sponsored credit cards and go on-line to iTunes and make say Tiny Ruins the number one selling group in say Germany? Subsidies are what started the economic rot in this country. We never seem to learn and think subsidies work. Show me one rock artist around the world that has succeeded thanks to state-support rather than share talent along with a record company that is willing to invest money into their careers, plus good management?