Posts by Russell Brown
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Hard News: Holiday Open Thread 2:…, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
Don't know about anyone else, but I'd love to see Keith or one of PAS's resident polling/stats nerds doing a critical look at this Horizon outfit. There's something that niggles me about their methodology, but can't quite put my finger on it.
I think that would be a good story. They're clearly different: they approach "don't know/vote" in a different way to other local polling companies, and produce different results. Are the two things related?
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Hard News: Holiday Open Thread 2:…, in reply to Lilith __,
So, probably not the apocalypse this time, then. But keep a look out for any seas turning to blood.
It sounds so heavy metal.
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Hard News: Holiday Open Thread 1: Beach…, in reply to recordari,
Early daze, but credit where due, etc
I'm impressed with Len Brown's performance, and with the way council leadership is working. Apart from anything else, they haven't given their political opponents even the crumb of a headline. That suggests some real discipline.
The Labour Party should be laying out the red carpet for Conor Roberts, whenever he thinks the time is right.
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Hard News: A few (more) words on The Hobbit, in reply to Simon Grigg,
As I said elsewhere, my problem is not that he failed to find the injuries but that the band aids miss them, which is not necessarily his fault. And that’s all we seem to get from this – band aids.
But by the same token what practical solutions do you think there are in the Mayes paper? It proposes turning broadcast music funding into a folky version of Creative New Zealand -- in which case, you'd be better off taking all the money away from NZOA and giving it to another agency, whereupon the government would cry "duplication!" and abolish something.
But if you believe Caddick, that's the exact opposite of the feedback he got from many or most of the people he consulted with -- the music community, including the authors of the Mayes paper -- they generally wanted broadcast music funding to be seen as industry funding for which they were accountable. How do you square that?
One thing I do like in the Mayes paper is the stuff about archiving. We've started to do that that for TV with NZ On Screen, but funding a music archive would be a stretch for NZOA. NZ On Screen would certainly be prepared to help -- the work Brenda has done with Flying Nun is a good example.
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Hard News: A few (more) words on The Hobbit, in reply to kevin russell,
Where’s my invitation?
you must be under ‘etc’ Simon.
Well he certainly ain't under 30!
BOOM!
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Hard News: A few (more) words on The Hobbit, in reply to Simon Grigg,
I didn’t realise that our capitulation was that complete.
Total. Abject. Etc. We could have ringfenced our cultural obligations like those other countries did, but the National government of the 1990s didn't think it was worth the bother.
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In think the fact that Caddick consulted so widely for the report -- 94 in-person interviews! -- shows that everyone knows there's merit in consulting the community. He makes the point that NZOA needs to develop better connections with "stakeholders".
OTOH, Phase Five, which is widely acknowledged as a messy failure, came out of the "Creating Heat" project, which was a good-faith attempt to get lots of people in the room together.
I do think the rise of social media has changed the game quite a lot. I follow Street Chant and Homebrew on Twitter because they're smart and funny (and occasionally tragic). They've become their own media, to the point where it's really helpful to have someone in your band who can do this stuff well. An artist who has their shit together with Bandcamp is much easier for me to help via the blog than one that doesn't. Facebook, for better or worse, rules everything.
The thing about NZOA funding is that it's funding in pursuit of a result. The metric might differ depending on the sector --- Access Radio accounts for itself differently than a rock band does -- but there's always a strong element of bums on seats. I think new ways of measuring bums are called for.
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There is a stick in waiting although nobody knows the current state of that stick I guess. Australia and Canada both used that stick with some success.
Unfortunately, we sold our stick in trade negotiations, unlike Australia and Canada.
But the genesis of the NZ "voluntary targets" scheme is interesting. It was basically the quid pro quo for the government not further pursuing a national youth radio network. They hated the idea of being competed against with their own tax money way more than they hated a voluntary local quota.
I was on a group that developed ideas for a YRN (some of which i think were ahead of their time, imho), but I did eventually find it hard to get past the massive fixed costs involved in creating and operating a national radio network -- and none of that would be spent on actual content -- and the impact it could have on independent and alternative radio, although there were ways of managing that.
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Hard News: A few (more) words on The Hobbit, in reply to kevin russell,
Lastly possibly some sort of academic background in the identification of Culture, what it is where it’s been, and where it’s going. I don’t know if there are people actively studying and writing papers on that with reference to modern ‘pop music’ but that would be some sort of consideration. Graeme Downes possibly?
I understand what you're saying, but you're proposing that a committee of academics should decide what commercial pop radio plays.
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Hard News: A few (more) words on The Hobbit, in reply to Simon Grigg,
As a first step, I would like to see radio completely removed from the decision making level of the funding process. Their parameters are too narrow and we have people who are perfectly capable of making funding decisions that are not going to limit radio’s options. However, radio should be forced to take a risk or two (although what they call a ‘risk’ and I call a ‘risk’ may be two different things).
In principle, yes, but the practical risk is that radio will simply not play what you fund. That puts a broadcast funding agency in a very vulnerable position when MCH or Treasury start running a rule over things. Broadcast funding that doesn’t get things broadcast can quite easily be taken away in current fiscal climate.
Hell, I’d like to see a bunch of 18 – 22 year olds in the driving seat – young label owners, writers, bloggers and so on. You tell us what’s cool. What’s sitting out there on the edge that you know about and we don’t?
Yes, and I think this is an element that’s been missing. Ironically, the suggested lineup for an oversight group in the Mayes paper looks a bit geriatric:
Chris Knox, Paul Kean, Mike Chunn, Chris Hocquard, Scott Muir, Simon Sweetman, Nick Bollinger, Gary Steel, Duncan Greive, Vicki Anderson, Rob Mayes, Jody Lloyd, etc.
Although part of me would pay money to see how long several of those people would last around a table together ;-)
I’ve had another scan of the Caddick report and, you’re right, it lacks passion.
But I do think some of the the ideas are sound and do-able – especially the greater focus on alternative radio and online and social media.