Hard News: The digital switch-off
223 Responses
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Steve Barnes, in reply to
To use your analogy, if by getting your kids to mow the lawns you are preventing them from going to school and learning how to design buildings etc
How big are your friggin' lawns?. You must be one of those rich pricks.
;-)Designing buildings? that would mean bringing in teachers from overseas I reckon, our record on that front is abysmal, if they don't leak they fall down.
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(Although in fact there is at least one other industry that we heavily subsidise: film. God forbid we should have done that with, I don't know, Feltex. Obviously Feltex workers weren't knowledge workers and therefore they were utterly worthless.)
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Russell Brown, in reply to
They don’t buy our produce because it’s sustainable, they buy it because it’s cheaper. One of the reasons why it’s cheaper, is that we are so desperate to produce it and export it (since we killed pretty much all our other industries), that we are quite happy to let farmers pollute at will just so they ship said produce out.
Another reason it's cheaper is that they're often obliged to keep their livestock in sheds heated via oil-fired power stations, with foods shipped in in trucks that burn fossil fuels.
I am strongly in favour of Fonterra being held to account for its environmental impact. Our products would still be cheaper if it was.
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giovanni tiso, in reply to
I am strongly in favour of Fonterra being held to account for its environmental impact. Our products would still be cheaper if it was.
Because our land is cheap and plentiful. There is still no inherent relationship between low prices and sustainability.
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Russell Brown, in reply to
God forbid we should have done that with, I don’t know, Feltex. Obviously Feltex workers weren’t knowledge workers and therefore they were utterly worthless.)
Feltex's problems weren't a consequence of a lack of government support. More terrible management, near-criminal investors and a collapse in the market for carpet. How much of that should we have spent money propping up?
It also seems worth noting that Feltex gaily poured industrial effluent into our waterways for decades.
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giovanni tiso, in reply to
How much of that should we have spent money propping up?
I don't know. I know it was never really up for debate. Whereas certain Warner executives flew into the country and hey presto, here's a massive handout on top of a pile of existing massive handouts. But yes, at least Peter Jackson isn't poisoning the Manawatu river, I'll give you that.
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@Steve yeah, thanks, darling - big bloody help you are! You should know that my technomological skills are somewhat lacking compared to yours. I'll tell you what - you pop down the road and do it for me!
As for Sky etc - where did the Doco channel go????? -
Steve Barnes, in reply to
Jan, in a word, no – not in Big O. Which is why almost everyone – certainly all the permanant residents – have Sky.
Actually Islander you can get Freeview, just maybe not the terrestrial HD signal. The satellite service uses the same Optus D1 bird that Sky uses.
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Steve Barnes, in reply to
where did the Doco channel go?????
Now called BBC Knowledge, same library apparently and not tied up with BBC Global so theoretically more NZ content that their overseas offering.
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Bart Janssen, in reply to
Designing buildings? that would mean bringing in teachers from overseas I reckon
As far as I can tell the easy way is to download the plans from teh intertubes and plonk it on the section the wrong way around like our neighbours did.
And we have no grass at all, but you don't want to get into analogy fail discussions as well do you?
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Rich Lock, in reply to
So… Christ Trotter basically?
Aheheheheheh.
Do you know something we don't, Gio?
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giovanni tiso, in reply to
Do you know something we don't, Gio?
My subconscious switches to blasphemy automatically whenever I think of the guy.
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Andre, in reply to
I reckon Fonterra should give free dairy produce to kiwis as a response to their polluting ways... and have been boring peeps about it for about 3 years now. They deliver the product and stack the supermarket shelves themselves already, so the retailers don't lose much other than space. You would still have to buy boutique items like feta, cream, clarified butter and could still buy Mainland if you wanted a branded product. But basic unbranded milk, butter & cheese would be available with a ration card of some type for free. We only eat 3% of what is produced yet can't swim in most waterways as a result of dairying. They have been asked to change, promised to self-regulate and haven't bothered. I hit up the Fonterra exec at the filming of Media7 at the Classic about two years ago and he reckoned they were trialling a scheme involving 15000 low-income earners. I think it went the way of their promise to fence waterways...
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Bart Janssen, in reply to
One of the reasons why it’s cheaper
Harsh Gio, very harsh. Our primary producers are really very good at what they do. Yes part of it is because we have lots of land, which is a good reason for having primary production as an industry. Another reason is lots of water, so sue me we use the water and land and sell the results overseas this is bad how?
But a much bigger reason is that we spent a lot of time and effort developing farming practices from scratch rather than simply doing what great^10 grandaddy did. We have a very good set of skilled workers in the primary industries (milk/wool/trees/fruit).
And as for the negatives of farming, run-off etc etc. Some of that has been a learning process and farm practices are a hell of lot better now than they were 20 years ago and getting better all the time.
As for tariffs, it seems that in New Zealand we can't get our head around taking a middle ground. When we had tariffs and import restrictions we had them on everything and took it to the ridiculous extreme, so much so that it F'd our economy in terms of efficiency. Now we don't have any tariffs at all and we are F'd over buy any commodity speculator who has more money than us. Why the fuck can't we operate in the middle and make sensible case by case assessments?
To return to the topic, why can't we fund NZ current affairs, local documentaries, local and relevant analysis of what it is to be kiwi and at the same time tell idiots who want to make yet another reality TV show to piss off and get some other idiot to pay for it. Note my personal bias may not be the best deciding factor but somewhere there is a middle ground, we don't have to have all or nothing.
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giovanni tiso, in reply to
Harsh Gio, very harsh. Our primary producers are really very good at what they do.
Whereas Italian farmers are idiots? Nah, sorry. Some of them are driven by subsidies into wasteful and nonsensical behaviours, but by and large they do good work, and the majority looks after their animals well, and cares about their waterways and ecosystems. Same as everywhere else. So I don't really buy the "great ingenuity of our wonderful farmers who must be resourceful because they're not subsidised" argument.
But a much bigger reason is that we spent a lot of time and effort developing farming practices from scratch rather than simply doing what great^10 grandaddy did.
Italian farming, at least in the north, was completely revolutionised after the war. To the extent that we do what great^10 grandaddy did, it's in order to produce things that the world still envies us (I don't see many Italians copying Kapiti cheeses - odd that), or to farm in areas that require traditional methods, such as the Tuscan hillsides.
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Gabor Toth, in reply to
Actually Islander you can get Freeview, just maybe not the terrestrial HD signal. The satellite service uses the same Optus D1 bird that Sky uses.
Yup. Sky will leave their satellite dish behind when a subscription is cancelled as it is not worth the cost to them to send out a technician to remove it from the house (though theoretically they still own it). If a previous occupant had Sky (or if you did and have since cancelled it), all you need to do is plug in a Freeview satellite receiver (c$150 retail or substantially less than that on Trade Me) into the cable that was left behind and you're away. Those small beach communities with few permanent residents and large numbers of holiday homes may appear to be huge fans of Sky TV but you'll probably find that a fair proportion of homes are simply using the dishes to view Freeview.
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Stephen Judd, in reply to
Why the fuck can’t we operate in the middle and make sensible case by case assessments?
Ideology. Next!
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Jan Farr, in reply to
Um – and the occasional decent drama? Could we maybe add a small Culture category?
It would probably have to be old drama. Drama’s effing expensive to produce.
OK - just tennis then.
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Jan Farr, in reply to
Um – and the occasional decent drama? Could we maybe add a small Culture category?
It would probably have to be old drama. Drama’s effing expensive to produce.
OK – just tennis then.
And the odd repeat of House.
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But a much bigger reason is that we spent a lot of time and effort developing farming practices from scratch rather than simply doing what great^10 grandaddy did. We have a very good set of skilled workers in the primary industries (milk/wool/trees/fruit).
If anyone in NZ had that many ancestors who have been farming in NZ for the past 2000yrs, Our farming practices might have been sorted by now.
Producing milk mmm, yes, I like a flat white like most. But I've always haboured reservations about dairy farms.
Maybe when the cows get houses they will count as citizens. I wonder which cow family will get the peoplemeter? Will they be a mainstream cow family, or one of those wildly disparate families that ends up feuding with each other all their lives. -
Just what we need from SKY -another tedious 80s music channel is coming.
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/CU1103/S00161/music-channel-to-celebrate-80s-00s-artists-mtv-programming.htm
SKY usually adds some crap channel as part of the basic channel lineup then a month later announces a price increase to cover "increased programming costs."
About time someone had them up about that.
Why can't SKY give us instead 24hr Al Jazerra which Stratos has rights to but never seems to make up its mind it we can really see it (It was showing at 11pm weeknights, brilliant for Libya coverage then vanished. BTW Their website is dreadful and even requires Outlook to subscribe to the programming update info so who knows when its now on).
But of course the rightwing Americans running SKY who drive Fox News would see Al J as the devil.
But back to the discussion: To be honest, TV7 always feels like cheap and nasty because it is run on the smell of an oily rag. For example, the TVNZ news on it looks like a training ground for young up and coming employees and if it really had any public service news philosophy, it would have gone 6am to midnight on the quake coverage including covering live news briefings from ChCh.
The big picture is not the end of TV7 but the end of TVNZ and as I never find anything on it to watch or record and hate the celebrity BS, I'm now uncomfortable with my taxes involved in some way. I got SKY to see BBC and CNN news and the documentary channel etc.
I spent Christmas in Australia and now so miss SBS and ABC. A feed of SBS would have been a nice addition to the digital lineup on Freeview and a replacement for 7. -
Islander, in reply to
and Steve B - actually -NO!
My nextdoor neighbour did the sums, and bought a Freeview set - and after 3 excruciating weeks of tinkering with the Sky dish & her receiver and her tv set
(not just by herself, but also with the aid of a family member with expertise in these matters) finally -&literally- jumped on the Freeview receiver. Costly jump, but apparently *very* satisfying.
As far as I know, no-one round here has Freeview...We do live in a strange area (bluffs and hills in the way which theoretically shouldnt block a satellite, but - seem to...)
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Sorry for the late post, but I just wanted to say I'm really rather gutted. TVNZ 7 was basically the only channel I ever watched, and it had a great crop of shows. It was fantastic to see so much homegrown, intelligent stuff. And of course National national'd all over it. Such a shame.
All the best, Russell. -
Russell Brown, in reply to
As for Sky etc – where did the Doco channel go?????
It's now BBC Knowledge and Richard Driver is about $6 million richer.
The BBC's intractability -- or, rather, that of its commercial arm, BBC Worldwide -- is an interesting feature of this debate.
The BBC might still do a very god impression of a public service broadcaster, but it is basically hostile to public broadcasting anywhere else. TVNZ 7 could (and, i think, should) have launched with more BBC content content and ideally a relationship with with the Beeb, but perhaps that was never really going to be possible.
Via BBC Worldwide, BBC public service-style content is extraordinarily difficult to acquire -- it's either too expensive, buried in unattractive packages or simply not available at all to other public broadcasters.
The BBC Knowledge move suggests that the plan all along was to leverage pay TV. Like Documentary, BBC Knowledge will receive a share of overall subscriber revenue by stocking a Sky channel with with its back catalogue. It's easy, steady money. And anyone who can't afford Sky can get lost.
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If you want public broadcasting in New Zealand then you don't vote for the National Party. Easy enough to do.
If you think the corporate media campaign (Fairfax and APN) supporting tax cuts and the National Party from 2005 to the present was evidence of WHY we need a public broadcaster, then you don't vote for the National Party.
If you think the tax cuts themselves were imprudent - at the very least - then you don't want to be voting for the National party.....
I clearly remember Michael Cullen saying tax cuts were a very bad idea because one day a rainy day would come and we would need the money. Well....it rained...and National is oblivious to their own role in ENSURING the resources aren't there to meet the need....due to their tax cuts.
If you want a sane transport policy NOT geared to pouring taxpayer cash into infrastructure and bus/truck-owning corporates....then don't vote for the National party.
If you think climate change is something every person on this planet should be competing with each other to show leadership on....(instead of lolly-gagging at the back of the Reluctant Bus)....then don't vote for the National Party.
If you understand that Peak Oil actually occurred in 2006....and you want a sane public transport policy for the oil-poor future that is as certain as sunrises....then you don't want to vote for the National Party.
I could go on......but the list is already long enough to make it screamingly obvious that only people ignorant of all these things could vote for the National Party.
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