Hard News: In the Game
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That is a very generous and genuine reply to Russell. Welcome to PA.!
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My chances of understanding what happens at the breakdown wouldn't be significantly diminished if the commentary ended up being in te reo.
Hee!
I'm surprised no-one has yet pointed out that 90-95% of the coverage will be in English, and then inserted a dig at the expense of various members of the Sky commentary team.
If you don't have SKY then you basically do not watch rugby fullstop. Seeing a sport once every 4 years (and often it's on in the wee small hours) is not going to have the effect I think you think it will have.
If you want kids watching cricket, rugby, league and other sports they have the chance to play in NZ then it needs to be on regularly and that dried up aside from the odd single delayed game once a weekend on at some late time donkeys years ago.
I agree with Yamis. When I came back to NZ after OE of 5 years,
I noticed two things particularlyFirst NZ Cricket audiences had plummeted after Sky got the coverage. I remember Canterbury filling Lancaster Park for one-dayers, we watched the first innings on the free to air staffroom TV (popping in for morning tea and over lunch, and then went down for the end of the second innings) . Now there's much less interest in games, and they can't fill the QE2 outer oval.
Second, was how standard NZ English included so much more Maori. Words like Whanau had come into mainstream usage. Maori use is increasing.
As for coverage - analogue is switching off soon, and people can watch rugby like they watched the moon landing - gathered to see it in one place. I can't justify a Sky subscription, given how much I'd watch it. It's much more sociable watching with friends and family in any case.
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Woh. Sorry Russell. I really am genuinely very very sorry.
No worries. And thanks, and feel free to stick around.
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Oh well in that case: Original 6 final this year? Bruins/Hawks?
A supporter of a team in my division! I'd like nothing better than for Zdeno Chara to use the Stanley Cup as a spittoon, but it's not going to happen this year.
Oh, and the Sharks are going to tank.
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As the purpose of TPK's investment is unlikely to be preaching to the converted, it's probably not all that relevant - but the 2006 Census culture and identity summary notes:
After English (spoken by 95.9 percent of people), the most common language in which
people could have a conversation about everyday things was Māori, spoken by 4.1
percent (157,110 people). -
Russell - Sharples means 100%, I assume, because MTS is on FreeView and SKY Satellite. No network - none - in New Zealand has 100% terrestrial coverage.
So, simon g, some people are going to have to "eat satellite" no matter who wins the bid.
And Giovanni, please don't tell me you're a Leafs fan. A year living in TO taught me they're too crap to support.
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And Giovanni, please don't tell me you're a Leafs fan. A year living in TO taught me they're too crap to support.
I told you the Sharks are going to tank and that I wish Chara well - you ought to be able to divine the team I support!
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So, simon g, some people are going to have to "eat satellite" no matter who wins the bid.
Well, the last date for analogue shut-off in supposedly in 2012, so they're going to have to do that anyway!
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Russell - Sharples means 100%, I assume, because MTS is on FreeView and SKY Satellite. No network - none - in New Zealand has 100% terrestrial coverage.
No, but TVNZ's analog VHF broadcasts get very close -- so much so that it has a statutory civil defence role. TV3 and C4 on VHF are next.
Maori Television uses UHF spectrum set aside for Maori broadcasting in 1989. New Zealand is a tricky place to broadcast at the best of times, and UHF doesn't reach as far, because you get signal propagation loss at the higher frequencies. You can't just stick a powerful transmitter on a mountain the way you can with VHF.
After publicly considering paying Canwest $7 million annually for the VHS spectrum in which what is now C4 broadcasts (Brent Impey tried very hard to flog it off) Maori Television opted for a transmission solution based on the allocated UHF frequencies. It bought a transmission solution from Kordia that reached first 70% and then 86% of of the audience -- Mallard didn't just make up that number, it's the one everyone's been using all along.
Freeview HD also uses UHF, and it reaches about 75% of the population. The Freeview website says that's unlikely to expand, and that that's what the satellite service is for.
So, short version: Maori Television's reach is less than that of TVNZ and TV3 -- and changing that could be very expensive.
It probably sounded good in Sharples' head when he put the onus on Maori Television to reach 100% of the population -- and he did seem to mean via terrestrial broadcast, not satellite -- but I'm not sure he knew what it meant when he said it.
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Well, the last date for analogue shut-off in supposedly in 2012, so they're going to have to do that anyway!
You're right, and that's a looming dose of public outrage ahead of us. But there's no commitment to the shut-off itself -- 2012 is when the government has committed itself to naming a date for the shut-off.
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You're right, and that's a looming dose of public outrage ahead of us.
I think I need a long preparation period to get through the howls of "nanny state stopping my TV from working".
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Chris Barton defends Maori Television's RWC broadcasting bid:
Sky's pay-TV monopoly means half the country is routinely denied watching live sporting events featuring our national teams, sportsmen and women. Where's the outrage about that?
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As to the problem of incomplete coverage by Maori TV, it's easily solved. Simply introduce an "impoverished broadcast zone" subsidy - an interest-free or low-interest loan so the small number of homes that can't get pick up free-to-air terrestrial broadcasts, can do so by installing a Freeview satellite set top box.
As well as providing 100 per cent coverage, such a move would also advance digital TV and enable the Government to cash in earlier on the $300 million "digital dividend" that comes when we switch off analogue TV.
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[Broadcasting Minister] Coleman needs to think about this country's citizens and our culture, rather than lining the pockets of Sky.
As for World Cup commentary "peppered" with Maori phrases, I reckon it will be brilliant. So much better than Murray Mexted's blathering about psychic energy. Like the haka, it would be something unique to us, something to be proud of.
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- If this is how it flies, then there's going to be some real cost pressure on Maori Television. I'm presuming the $3m is basically the bid -- in which case, having sold $3m worth of advertising time during games to TPK, MT's ability to cover production costs, let alone turn a profit, without doing yet another sly deal (eg: TPK agreeing to pay over the odds to free up some time for sale), or finding even more public funding, is very constrained. If I was TVNZ or TV3, I wouldn't be leaping to help MT spread the cost.
I was speaking with a friend about this last night. He's in the sport-on-telly business and was telling me about MTV's ability (or lack of it) to do the serious amount of Outside Broadcast-ing that the RWC will require.
He doesn't think they have the level of production staff expertise in sufficient numbers to do OB for all the games across the country, and neither do they have enough OB equipment (and what they do have is a bit old and crap).
He reckons they are going to have to do some serious deals with companies that do have the OB expertise and gear and/or OB contractors up and down the country who can supply the person-power they need to cover all the games.
And that ain't going to be cheap.
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Looks like Maori TV's just been outbid - by the Government.
Clowns.
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Looks like this could turn into some auction between 2 Government Departments.
How responsible is that?
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