Posts by Jolisa
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Y'know, Danyl, your analogy may actually be sharper than you think. Once upon a time, the government did distribute free ice-cream, or near enough. It was stopped, not because it was not a good idea, but because it was deemed too expensive.
Might be an idea worth reviving (with adequate refrigeration, and with non-dairy options for those who are lactose intolerant), given the number of kids who come to school without breakfast and struggle through the morning on zero fuel. That's a national standard I could get behind.
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Mikaere, point taken, and yet:
And I meant that as it currently stands - if we had a Concert FM that was truly representative of our bi-cultural and multi-ethnic society, then yeah, the public good argument would be rock solid.
D'you reckon shutting Concert FM down altogether would get us there faster than lobbying for more funding and more diverse programming on the station as it currently stands? Or lobbying for a third state-funded station with a kaupapa that's more contemporary/ urban/ diverse/ explicitly or exclusively NZ-focused? And a fourth station that brings the best of the world's news and culture radio to our airwaves, for those who aren't lucky enough to have iPods?
If Concert isn't (good) enough, then why aren't we asking for more, instead of defending or dismantling the apparently insufficient?
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Danyl, point me towards Mahler's 8th on the internet (in full, for free) and I'll buy you an ice cream.
So now there seems to be a consensual fantasy in which Concert FM is the only way people can listen to classical music.
It's not a consensual fantasy, it was my childhood, except that my dad also had a few records and occasionally took me to a concert.
As has been pointed out, you can buy it if it's that important. If you don't have the cash you can listen to it for free on the internet. If you don't have the internet you can borrow it from the library.
I have this weird consensual fantasy about street-lights, libraries, earthquake warning devices, the National Poisons Centre, and kakapo breeding programmes too, except that now you mention it, not everybody uses them all the time and we could just buy our own if it's that important.
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the concerts and the documentaries played by the RNZ Concert are valuable in exactly the same way that a library is
Or an art gallery, or a museum, or a national archive...
and would be hard to come by on commercial airwaves, and that furthermore they reach communities where such things aren't available for love or money.
Exactly. Exactly. If you have never been that rural child with a thing for opera, or a poor music-lover who can only dream of affording a live concert, or a long-distance truck driver, or a cash-strapped single mother making ends meet by teaching piano in the wop-wops, or a house-painter with an allergy to talk radio, or a kid from a school with a crap music department, or just plain housebound, or blind, or confined to bed, or facing mortality, or driving from one end of the country to the other while twiddling the dial to see what you can find ...
... and even if you haven't, you should still be affirming the value of a national music-centric radio station, because it might be you one day, yearning for a spot of Rachmaninoff, some turn of the century Spanish songs, Handel, Brahms, Bloch, Debussy, Gounod, the piano stylings of Michael Houston and Sarah Watkins, or a symphony for cello by Frank Zappa's 18th C namesake and that's just today on Concert FM. But if Concert goes down, you'll be stuck with the Four Seasons and the Flight of the Damn Bumblebee on endless rotate on ClassicalGasFM.
Look, I get the point, that it's worth asking why we've got what we've got (and won't know what we had till it's gone), but why'd you wait until now? Does the devil really need any advocates in this debate, at this precise point?
I think George made the most pertinently devilish argument: if Concert doesn't satisfy, then surely what we need is more, not less. (See also BBC1 through 7 plus BBC International). Nobody here, as Jan pointed out, is making an either/or argument on this.
In simple terms, if you're allergic to the free ice cream that's kindly being dispensed to all citizens, then by all means demand that some excellent sorbet be served alongside the dairy treats. Slashing the tires on the cultural ice cream truck is, well, barbaric.
(Oops, there, I said it. The barbarians are coming. They may already be among us. They may even be clean-shaven.)
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Another why: this Friday, Feb 26, 8pm on RNZ Concert: the first-night concert of the Festival of the Arts. Mahler's Symphony of a Thousand. Featuring not just the NZSO but five different NZ choirs. Sold out, apparently. But if you want to hear this one-time performance, LIVE, you have only to drop out, turn on and tune in.
Back when I was a teenager, at the beginning of the week I used to sit down with the Listener (the old, giant newsprinty Listener, the one with Tom Scott in it, and Ranginui Walker, and massive book reviews) , and mark up the 1YA and 1YC schedules so I wouldn't miss any of the good stuff.
They played music - and words - that I just couldn't hear any other way. I think I even stayed home from school once or twice to hear things I really wanted to hear... different versions of various pieces, new pieces by names I recognised, very occasionally something written or played by someone I might have met.
That's still true, I think. Not sure where else a music-mad teenager could conceivably listen to the entire Mahler Symphony No. 8, with their mates in it, in stereo, in one sitting, for free.
ETA: in other words, what Giovanni said.
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I guess my point (that I've obviously failed to make) is that the question is not 'why not?', but 'why?'.
Why? Well, my first thought when I saw that one of the budget-trimming suggestions was to cut the overnight programming, was: yep, and watch the suicide rate go through the roof.
Not joking. On many an insomniac or jetlagged night, I have listened to the deliberately calm and soothing voices (on both National and Concert) linking the deliberately calm and soothing programmes and music, and thought "yep, tonight a DJ is saving somebody's life."
Free solace over the airwaves, a little public mental health subsidy via your aerial. Even if it's not your cup of tea ordinarily, it's only a twist of the dial away when you need it.
Perhaps Concert has a bit of a branding problem, though, if we can't come up with a nifty "why" in five minutes. Didn't it used to be the station that broadcast the cricket commentary, back in the day? And if it still were, would we even be having this discussion?
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How would that take shape? I'm fearful.
Perhaps as with public radio here in the US: brief announcements at the top of the hour (and sometimes on the half hour), saying "this programme brought to you by..." Mostly harmless, and once you get used to it, you stop hearing it.
Mind you, it does chop up the airtime into hour-long chunks, which means if you want to play a longer symphony (e.g. Beethoven's 9th, clocking in at 74 minutes, or the maximum length of a CD), you have to get creative.
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Also in 1981, an SIS operative inadvertently left a briefcase containing sandwiches, Listener magazine and a diary... The briefcase was commonly but mistakenly described as containing a Penthouse magazine and pie.
I only read the Listener for the pictures.
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Reckon they'd ship overseas?
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This just in: Karori Normal school cancels homework in favour of reading cereal packets, tidying your bedroom, chatting about your day with parents.
*weeps with envy*
(Actually, come to think of it, I did that anyway. Just, on top of homework.)