Public Address | Cafe | Hard News: Ante Up

Geoff Lealand

Fri, 04 Nov 2011 12:44:22 +1300

An excellent analysis, Russell. I guess calling on ratings ('reach' in particular) is useful in this context even though I believe the Peoplemeter measurement system to be a load of horse-poop. The best solution to finding a way to pay is targeting Sky and their unfettered monopoly, but even Labour…

Ian Dalziel

Fri, 04 Nov 2011 10:34:53 +1300

from a William Gibson interview:

INTERVIEWER:
For someone who so often writes about the future of technology, you seem to have a real romance for artifacts of earlier eras.
GIBSON:
**It’s harder to imagine the past that went away than it is to imagine the future. What we were prior…

Myles Thomas

Fri, 04 Nov 2011 02:18:57 +1300

Hi, the TVNZ 7 ratings figures that I used came from a Chris Barton article in the Herald a month ago and Sky themselves. I'm grateful to Nielsen for giving me the definitive figures (without charge) and they confirm Hans' figures to be correct. Apologies and proof that you can't…

Steve Barnes

Thu, 03 Nov 2011 17:10:03 +1300

The National ones came with strings attached, lacked buoyancy, immediately deflated and ended up on the rubbish heap.
Here's hoping...

JacksonP

Thu, 03 Nov 2011 14:01:18 +1300

Are those helium balloons supposed to represent their policies?.

Heh, in the Sandringham Festival, Labour had the only Helium balloons. The National ones came with strings attached, lacked buoyancy, immediately deflated and ended up on the rubbish heap.

Just sayin'.

Ian Dalziel

Thu, 03 Nov 2011 13:40:41 +1300

ACT sacs...
Are those helium balloons supposed
to represent their policies?.
Yup, squander scarce natural,
or costly to create, resources
while floating lofty ideals...

When they obviously
have enough hot air to
gas bag with already!

Steve Barnes

Thu, 03 Nov 2011 13:16:57 +1300

Well, I'm buggered.
Last time I checked my figures were correct, about 6 months back. I distinctly remember the 95% figure, perhaps that was projected and as for the satellite decoders being cheaper I see that they are, now.
Bloody goalposts.

Russell Brown

Thu, 03 Nov 2011 13:08:18 +1300

I checked with Sam Irvine, the GM of Freeview. He said:

Terrestrial coverage is 87% . Launch was to 75% and that was meant to be the final coverage which is why the Freeview, free to air, digital satellite solution was launched to cover the rest of new Zealand. Not…

Steve Barnes

Thu, 03 Nov 2011 12:58:11 +1300

Or if you have an existing Sky dish you get a $99 Freeview satellite decoder and plug it in.

You can indeed, $91 from J B hifi, but still a lot for the folks of Northland, the forgotten people.

Graeme Edgeler

Thu, 03 Nov 2011 12:56:56 +1300

Or if you have an existing Sky dish you get a $99 Freeview satellite decoder and plug it in.

Yeah. The satellite decoders are cheaper that the terrestrial ones.

Russell Brown

Thu, 03 Nov 2011 12:48:38 +1300

So, if you live north of Whangarei or out by where Islander lives, you will need a satellite dish and a satellite decoder (more expensive than a terrestrial one) and someone to set up the dish, they are buggers to get right without the right equipment.

Or if you have…

Steve Barnes

Thu, 03 Nov 2011 12:14:57 +1300

Freeview HD decoders regular come down as low as $130 now. For $450 you can get a whole new Freeview-integrated TV.

Only if you live in an area covered by terrestrial broadcast. They claim that is 95% of the population, if I recall correctly, when Freeview was launched we were…

Steve Barnes

Thu, 03 Nov 2011 12:00:20 +1300

even if Roche did sound like she’d swallowed helium.

Breathing from those ACT balloons most likely. Are those helium balloons supposed to represent their policies?.

Russell Brown

Thu, 03 Nov 2011 11:05:10 +1300

I object to paying $450 for “Freeview”

Freeview HD decoders regular come down as low as $130 now. For $450 you can get a whole new Freeview-integrated TV.

It is not just that they are cancelling TVNZ7… it is that they are making a billion dollars of working equipment obsolescent…

Matt Crawford

Thu, 03 Nov 2011 10:55:05 +1300

Andre,

I'm not particularly sympathetic to your cries of Freeview being too expensive, when you want to upgrade three televisions. Maybe you could tighten the belt and subsist on just one or two Freeview capable television sets?

George Darroch

Thu, 03 Nov 2011 09:37:31 +1300

In light of all this, maybe TVNZ and SKY HQ could be the next Occupy Auckland targets? I

They made for an excellent rabble down at Backbenchers last night. Plenty of others bringing noise (at times a little too much). It was a fun night, even if Roche did sound…

Kumara Republic

Thu, 03 Nov 2011 01:22:43 +1300

In light of all this, maybe TVNZ and SKY HQ could be the next Occupy Auckland targets? I no longer bother with a TV these days, just so I can immunise myself from the prolefeed machine.

Andre

Wed, 02 Nov 2011 23:06:48 +1300

Thanks for your reasoned response...

Russell Brown

Wed, 02 Nov 2011 22:38:12 +1300

Re: cumulative viewing figures. Not sure where you get those figures from but according to Nielsen cumes TVNZ 7 averages 1.16m a month in 2011 (highest: Oct 2011 1.41m). Maori TV averages 2.01m (highest: Sep 2011 2.64m). Highest rating Sky channel is The Box at 1.4m a month (UKTV averages…

Craig Ranapia

Wed, 02 Nov 2011 22:24:15 +1300

Hi Russell. I agree, but I also think it worth emphasising that there's more to public television than screening programmes that don't fit the target demographic for advertisers.

No it isn't. As Russell pointed out to me on Twitter yesterday there are a lot of local documentaries – and a…

Andre

Wed, 02 Nov 2011 21:21:57 +1300

I have three analogue televisions that keep my two baby/toddlers, two 7&9 year-old boys and my wife and I able to watch TV separately. I bought one of them brand new in 1991 and gifted it to my Mum in 1996 when I upgraded and she returned it last year still…

Steve Withers

Wed, 02 Nov 2011 19:50:37 +1300

TVNZ 7 is awesome.

My 30 years of watching events leads me to conclude that if there is something good going on in NZ you can RELY on the tiny minds infected with dogma, prejudice and preconception that call themselves the (Multi-) National (1%) Party will move Heaven and Earth…

merc

Wed, 02 Nov 2011 17:59:38 +1300

I cite this as an example, http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10763359
Goff, "Everyone who owns a home will now be insured – eliminating the ``moral hazard" of covering uninsured homeowners, which penalises people who pay for private insurance cover."
Mr Goff also said a Labour Government would also increase the $100,000 cap on EQC cover…

Craig Ranapia

Wed, 02 Nov 2011 17:57:17 +1300

I'm disappointed that Labour, having advanced some good ideas and averred its belief in public broadcasting, has lacked the courage to say how it would pay for those ideas.

Quite, and depressingly enough I'd say much the same about National and Labour's Arts policies releases today. Little in either this…

Ian Dalziel

Wed, 02 Nov 2011 17:49:11 +1300

...ask an actuary.
isn't that how key begins all his answers
"Actuary, at the end of the day, basically..."
waffle and tripe, and so on ad nauseam...

(H/T to Terry Kearns in today's Press letters page)

and all I want is a simple Constitution and A Bill of Rights...
__...And…

merc

Wed, 02 Nov 2011 16:55:55 +1300

This is the whole issue I think, what to pay for out of taxes, what we pay for after we are taxed, the whole model is outdated and successive govts trip round the issue because...well they compete from both sides, two examples are land speculation and events. Unfettered due our…

Hans Versluys

Wed, 02 Nov 2011 16:53:14 +1300

Steve Barnes

Wed, 02 Nov 2011 15:46:31 +1300

The problem with the last tv licence fee was that no one paid it and they couldn't force you to. Most fines go unpaid. And they are taxes by another name.

So pay for it out of Taxes, a far lower cost per head than Sky, which people seem to…

Hans Versluys

Wed, 02 Nov 2011 15:38:23 +1300

the Triangle/Stratos access-TV modelNot quite correct. Stratos TV is not access television but public service television proper. It's far more SBS than Manhattan Neighbourhood Network.

Richard CLARK

Wed, 02 Nov 2011 15:36:20 +1300

and all I want is a simple Constitution and A Bill of Rights so successive governments can't turn on and off what we believe are our rights. Thank god i don't do TV, Nat radio is bad enough with pit pull interviewers but it sure as hell is better than…

Allan Moyle

Wed, 02 Nov 2011 14:41:34 +1300

Love ideas 1,2 and 3 and in concert does seem like a good policy platform. Selling TVNZ does provide the opportunity to set aside some of the return for retention/establishment and say 3/5 yr operational funding for Ch 7, and setting up one or two more channel options i.e a…

merc

Wed, 02 Nov 2011 14:15:12 +1300

The problem with the last tv licence fee was that no one paid it and they couldn't force you to. Most fines go unpaid. And they are taxes by another name.
The recurring theme is Govt. or insurance company owned, and that includes ACC, ChCh insurance, work insurance, superannuation, health…

James Littlewood*

Wed, 02 Nov 2011 14:07:50 +1300

Nice analysis. Isn't there another option (or part option)? The public broadcasting fee. Or is that just another nettle to grasp in our bloodied mandibles.

Russell Brown

Wed, 02 Nov 2011 13:54:24 +1300

Of your suggested funding ideas, the best is number 2: a local production levy on Pay TV or just all commercial TV profits.

Which would help with production costs — but I don't think it would fund a whole channel. Depend on how hard you sting them, I suppose.

Ian Dalziel

Wed, 02 Nov 2011 13:51:40 +1300

dystopia or dyspepsia...
Key promises that the NEW assets he will economagically create, including broadband for all will return massive amounts of money to the country – so maybe we will just have TVN7 as a YouTube channel for all to access – which we'll be able to watch in…

Steve Barnes

Wed, 02 Nov 2011 13:49:23 +1300

I have been surprised for years that New Zealanders complained about having to pay for a TV licence but are quite prepared to pay almost 10 times as much for Sky TV.
There is more to this gutting of the public broadcasting sector than most realise.
Over the past few…

Myles Thomas

Wed, 02 Nov 2011 13:49:21 +1300

I think Clare Curran has ideas on how to fund a new umbrella public service broadcaster, and it would be one or more of what you suggest, BUT she's not wanting to alienate anyone before the election.

Of your suggested funding ideas, the best is number 2: a local production…

izogi

Wed, 02 Nov 2011 13:43:15 +1300

The point is that public television can deliver programming outside the bounds of the demographics targeted by the ad agencies upon whom commercial broadcasters rely, and outside of the need to win every timeslot. It can serve audiences that are loss-making for commercial broadcasters.

Hi Russell. I agree, but I…

Rich of Observationz

Wed, 02 Nov 2011 13:41:46 +1300

not to iOS users

I'm unclear of the justification in spending taxpayer dollars jumping through the hoops placed to restrict Apple's walled garden.

Kumara Republic

Wed, 02 Nov 2011 13:25:07 +1300

The fact that TVNZ's Kidzone and Heartland are only available on Sky, and not on FreeView, is a disgrace. The BBC and ABC would never allow it.

Julian Melville

Wed, 02 Nov 2011 13:24:00 +1300

Although, not to iOS users.
They have been promising live streaming through their iphone app for over a year now, but so far nothing has come of it.

The TuneIn radio app works perfectly. I'm listening to it right now on an ipad.

merc

Wed, 02 Nov 2011 12:20:54 +1300

Hire some hobbits...

Russell Brown

Wed, 02 Nov 2011 12:13:36 +1300

Although, not to iOS users.
They have been promising live streaming through their iphone app for over a year now, but so far nothing has come of it.

That would be the funding freeze at work.

Gary Hutchings

Wed, 02 Nov 2011 12:07:50 +1300

Radio New Zealand, thanks to the advocacy of Richard Hulse and others... is available live, and on-demand, to listeners anywhere.

Although, not to iOS users.
They have been promising live streaming through their iphone app for over a year now, but so far nothing has come of it.

The ABC…

Russell Brown

Wed, 02 Nov 2011 12:03:23 +1300

Of course, this would piss off the 95% of the population who aren’t ubergeeks and would just like to watch telly. This could be dealt with by holding future elections with an opensource voting system based on linux command lines and OpenSSL.

Cunning!

But seriously, broadcast still has a serious…

Rich of Observationz

Wed, 02 Nov 2011 12:01:24 +1300

How about a much more radical scheme. Close down terrestrial and satellite TV and radio and allocate the frequencies for 4G mobile internet, to be provided at a regulated price cheap enough to make 24/7 video streaming affordable.

Have a contestable fund raised by an internet access levy (which for…

Public Address

Wed, 02 Nov 2011 12:01:24 +1300

Discussion from blog post.