Posts by Russell Brown
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Hard News: Villainy and engagement, in reply to Lucy Telfar Barnard,
I once had a weakness for the various “Next Top Model"s, though not for some years now.
Fiona really likes Project Runway, which is very much in the genre, but uses contestants who have already made some career headway.
And I used to like the home renovation shows, before the ratio of interior design to useless “challenges” and product placement tipped too far.
Changing Rooms was quite fun -- it began and ended every week. The bizarre scenario where The Block ran four sponsors-product-packed nights a week just seems an ordeal.
And when I think about it… I watched the first, NZ, Popstars.
We invented the genre!
But never Survivor, nor American Idol/Country X has Talent/The X-factor, nor Big Brother. So maybe it’s a case of “pick your reality poison”?
We never had as many of the cruelty-based formats as other countries. I was told that it got too hard to get people to agree to go on Celebrity Treasure Island and it faded. And Survivors et al just seem to be full of the kind of people I strive to avoid in real life.
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Hard News: Villainy and engagement, in reply to Matthew Littlewood,
Ali Campbell was on NZ’s Got Talent, it was Daniel Beddingfield who filled in the X-Factor role.
D'oh!
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Hard News: Villainy and engagement, in reply to Ethan Tucker,
I presume many other people have suggested this, but it doesn’t strike me as very likely that the first simile someone born in 1989 would reach for is a 1960 Hitchcock reference.
Mixed up with the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, so not very coherent.
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Hard News: Villainy and engagement, in reply to Bart Janssen,
Oddly as cutting, and yes nasty, as Mr Cowell could be, he mostly stayed focused on talent and whether he believed, based on his experience, the artist could succeed and make Cowell some more money.
Bad judge is bad.
I think it might come down to this: they weren’t up to the job.
I feel like I’ve been a bit negative about the show in the original post. I watched much of the first season, and contributed to TV3’s engagement metrics.
And I think Mel Blatt is an absolutely A-grade panelist for this kind of format. She’s stylish and credible. Stan’s charm serves him well too.
But in series one, Ali Campbell was unenthralling as a judge [Edit: D'oh! Wrong show!] .
So they went for a couple of mid-twentysomething pop singers with the KillMoons and it really didn’t work out.
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And nobody satirises a popular culture event like The Civilian does. Bam.
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Crikey. The Dan News YouTube video embedded in the post above just passed 800,000 views. It will get close to a million in its first day online.
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Hard News: The greening of the Red Zone, in reply to Lilith __,
That picture with the Port Hills in the background is particularly striking. I know that area well, and seeing only the ghosts of human habitation is nightmarish.
I found it far less troubling than it was when the empty houses were all there. There's a sense that something's been settled.
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Rebecca Macfie's Listener interview with Lecretia Seales on assisted dying is now free to read online.
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Hard News: Villainy and engagement, in reply to James Littlewood*,
Not that I’m an expert, but wasn’t Shorty the highest earning property on TVNZ for a fair few years, but without being the most viewed, precisely due to engagement? That was a while ago, early 2000s, well before the social media juggernaut.
But engagement in the modern sense is inseparable from social media. It’s how it’s largely measured. I’m not even sure what it meant in 2000.
Also, Shortland Street has been a ratings juggernaut for a long time. It has its ups and downs, but no other scripted programme has ever come close. In recent years the big episodes have broken 700,000 and even 800,000 viewers.
Finally: X Factor 2015 does have a ratings problem, and it was suggested that the forefronting of the convicted killer was a ratings stunt. Maybe, but if so, it backfired horribly.
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Hard News: Villainy and engagement, in reply to BenWilson,
Kinda with Craig on this. Whether any of it’s planned or not, it’s all a massive set piece.
I find it quite hard to believe, in this case. I think something quite unusual just happened.
There are already conspiracy theories that the whole thing is a set-up, but they ignore the massive level of risk in even trying to pull such a stunt. Were the major sponsors who went ballistic this morning kept out of the loop? Was NZ On Air? It's unthinkable, basically.
Would Benny Tipene have been briefed to say "Fuck feedback like that" on Twitter? Unlikely. His character isn't meant to be a four letter word one.
I remain of the view that Kills and Moon were briefed to be the "bad" judges – perhaps even to the extent of being given the word "doppleganger" – and just went out of control on live TV.
It took TV3 hours to get a clip of the incident posted too. The whole thing was accelerated by individuals like Dan News posting video themselves.
It seems even more unlikely to me that Moon's abusive public meltdown last week was a set-up. That's a story you'd have no way of controlling once you'd started it.
I will countenance the possibility the terrible twosome hated being on the show and got themselves fired, although it's unclear whether they're bright enough for that.
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