Hard News by Russell Brown

For long-term mediawatchers, there is a particularly tasty irony in the news that Sky Television was not aware that TVNZ was negotiating to be  a partner in Coliseum Sports Media's snaffling of local screen rights to English Premier League football.

NBR's Chris Keall reported it thus:

TVNZ's involvement has caught media on the hop - and possibly also Sky TV, TVNZ's partner in the slow-selling igloo. "The next igloo board meeting would be an interesting place to be fly on wall," a Sky TV insider tells NBR.

TVNZ's involvement with news to the pay TV broadcaster. Sky TV corporate communications manager Kirsty Way tells NBR Online "We were not aware about TVNZ."

Things were the other way around in 1999 when the Roseanne Meo-chaired TVNZ board made probably the worst decision in the company's history -- yes, I know, big call -- and bucked all reasonable advice in firesaling TVNZ's 12.6% shareholding in Sky. As I wrote a few years later in The Listener:

The board justified the deal with the promise of a “positive and co-operative ongoing relationship with Sky and its existing major shareholders”. But even as it did so, Sky was holding secret discussions with TV3 for free-to-air replay rights for the country’s most popular televised sport, rugby.

When the deal duly went to TV3, TVNZ executives were outraged (and presumably embarrassed). Sky CEO Nate Smith explained to the New Zealand Herald that, with TVNZ cutting its ties with Sky and making its own plans for a pay TV service, letting it have the rugby rights “would have been like selling guns to the enemy”.

You can read the whole column to remind yourself of what happened next, but it wasn't pretty.

TVNZ's role in the Coliseum venture will, of course, be confined to screening one Premier League match on Sundays and a Monday night highlights package, but the EPL deal is the biggest indication yet that, as Chris Barton wrote recently in the Herald, Sky's dream run may be unravelling.

Coliseum Sports Management's wresting of the EPL rights from Sky is a signal that Sky can no longer be complacent about its hugely dominant position in the New Zealand TV market. Coliseum's Premier League Pass will deliver 380 matches, live and on-demand, via the internet and to iOS and Android devices. Dedicated apps for major-brand smart TVs (it will be possible straight away to watch on your internet-connected TV, but fiddly) and Apple TV seem to be in the works.

It's a bold initiative that leverages rapid developments in the technology and business models of delivering television via IP networks (it will use the same back end as NFL Game Pass), provides a much-needed incentive for ultra-fast broadband uptake (although it will work on most internet connections) and encourages consumers to get themseves IPTV-ready. Coliseum CEO Tim Martin emphatically promised at the launch that the company will not enter exclusive deals with any telco. It's the emergence of something we've been talking about for years.

It also kind of sucks if you're a football fan who wants to watch something more than just English football, or a football fan who wants to watch other premium sports too. You'll have to ask yourself whether you want to pay $150 per Premier League season in addition to your Sky subscription. There is a downside to the disaggregation of content monopolies, at least in the short term.

I don't think anyone can say how this will all shake out -- whether it's just a blip in Sky's dominance, a frustrating balkanisation of sports TV or an environment that offers flexibility and choice to the consumer. But it has begun.

I'll be interviewing Coliseum CEO Tim Martin on Media3 next week.

One day last week, my sons were very focused. They were, like gamers all around the world, watching the live webcast from E3, the big video gaming conference in Los Angeles.

You'll probably know this if you're interested, but the main event was was the showdown between Microsoft and Sony, who were both introducing next-generation gaming consoles. By popular acclaim, Sony won and Microsoft was left dazed and bleeding on the canvas. You really would think Microsoft would have learned about obstructive digital rights management by now. Alternatively, some people held that they both fell flat.

Unfortunately, Microsoft's problems didn't stop with the ability or otherwise to share games on its new Xbox One console. In the course of one game reveal there was what sounded a lot like a rape joke. And when one blogger noted the absence of female protagonists in Microsoft's lineup of new titles, she was met by a flood of creepy Twitter responses that indicated that while women might be gaming, the culture still harbours a discomforting degree of old-fashioned sexism.

I'll be discussing this and more with New Zealand PC World editor Siobhan Keogh, who's fresh off the plane back from E3, and journalistic joystick jockey David Farrier.

We'll also look at the indications that Fairfax is about to take the plunge into a paywall for Stuff. I'll discuss the implications with former Fairfax head of digital Lance Wiggs and the current head of digital at the successfully-paywalled National Business Review Chris Keall.

The third part of the show will be Jose's field story about spending a day watching what goes on at Auckland's amazing community radio station Planet FM.

And yes, I'll squeeze in a little comment on the Mediaworks news.

If you'd like to join us for this evening's recording, we'll need you to come to the Villa Dalmacja, 10 New North Road, at 5.30pm. It'll be convivial, as ever.

There are a few key attributes to a good music venue. The room needs to be acoustically sympathetic. The sightlines must be good -- so that everyone (or nearly everyone) who has paid can see the stage. It should be possible to get to the bar and the toilets without undue difficulty.

The first places I started going to regularly were somewhat like that. They weren't designed as music venues, but The Gladstone and the Hillsborough Tavern were (the latter especially) big, rectangular boxes.

Nightclubs, on the other hand, often benefit from a labyrinth design, from being a series of relatively intimate spaces. The Studio on Karangahape Road was built and operated as a nightclub (The Staircase and Don't Tell Mama's) for years before it was reopened at a live music venue. And it shows.

Gary Steel writes of an unpleasant, frustrating experience at The Studio for this week's Killing Joke show -- a dangerous crush then the disppointing experience of resorting to watching the show on one of the TVs in the foyer. He speculates that the show was oversold, but in the sense of being sold past the venue's legal capacity, no it probably wasn't.

The Studio's capacity will be assessed on its fairly generous floorspace. The problem is that in only a relatively small part of that space -- 35%, maybe? -- can the performance on stage be adequately seen and heard. So that's the space that everyone tries to be in. The consequence is that a successful show for the promoter generally means a trying experience for the paying punter.

One of the city's most enduring rock music venues, the King's Arms Tavern, also presents problems with sightlines relative to legal capacity. The bar and the dormant fireplace create a squeeze point in the middle of the room and at big shows you'll find many people standing outside the room looking in. There was talk of a major refit, widening the room and relocating the bar at the back -- rebuilding it as more of a box -- but it never happened.

Then there are part-time venues like Tyler Street Garage, where, quite madly, the main street entrance is virtually on top of the stage, and where at third of the room is obstructed from the stage by a metal staircase. The bar itself is handsomely-sized, but lines up along one side of the dancefloor, so is often jammed with people who don't actually want to buy a drink but have nowhere else to stand. The PA is always a temporary one and the room generally sounds crap.

As things stand, the best medium-to-large venue in town remains The Powerstation, where it's not hard to get a view of the stage, the house PA is excellent and the room never seems oversold. I'm not sure where else this model could be replicated, but it would be nice to have other options.

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If you're after a decidely non-loud show tonight, you could do worse than  the Wine Cellar tonight, where Jed and Hera -- Iceland expat Hera Hjartardottir and Jed Parsons -- play songs from their new Live at York Street album, which was recorded basically live in a day at the studio. It's sweet, unvarnished and folky.

There's also Voom at the Portland Public House, but please don't every go go there. It's my buddy Andy's birthday and wed like to get in the door ...

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Elsewhere, check out Garth Cartwright's Dinah Lee entry on Audioculture.

Consider paying a little money for these two classic Leftside Wobble edits of Esther Phillips' 'All the Way Down' and Ashford & Simpson's 'Don't Cost You Nothing'. You can buy both tracks at Juno Download.

Sample some classically straight-up rock 'n' roll from Dead Beat Boys on TheAudience.

And enjoy the fab new Phoenix Foundation video ...

Righto. Plane to catch ...

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The Hard News Music Post is sponsored by:

Media3 will be taking a break for a while from the week of July 3, which is when our current season ends. Like other shows on TV3, we're funded by NZ On Air for a specified period of time -- in our case, 20 weeks -- and then we re-apply.

Until now, through the Media7 years, we've been a team show that's on most weeks of the year, so this is something of the end of an era for us.

I don't know exactly when we'll be back, but it's safe to say that I'll be more than usually available for the next few months, so feel free to send any interesting work my way. (Uninteresting but lucrative proposals will also be very seriously considered.)

I'm already thinking about what we can put in the season-ender. Ideas for dramatic cliffhangers involving Jose are warmly solicited. 

In the meantime, this week's Media3, looking at the NSA revelations and the impending closure of Computerworld and PC World New Zealand, two specialist technology titles with an important heritage, is here on demand. Or you can watch it on the old-fashioned television tomorrow at 10.25am, on TV3.

I've been to Eden Park eight times this year, the past five to watch rugby, and I can honestly say that abusive behaviour -- let alone the kind of harassment reported in this story in the Herald today -- is not typical.

Eden Park crowds are a generally agreeable lot. There are plenty of women and children at games. There may well be forthright advice to the referee (I am often willing to offer such help myself), noisy expressions of schadenfreude and loud encouragement of the home team. Being loud is one of the fun things about being the home crowd, especially when there's a full house.

But incessant homphobic abuse like that 24 year-old Hannah Spyksma had yelled over her head? No. It is not, as the morons responsible believed, "part of the game".

Which makes Eden Park's official response all the more dreadful:

Eden Park spokeswoman Tracy Morgan said harassment of a patron would not be condoned and the men could have been evicted for that.

But unless everyone else around Ms Spyksma was offended by the men's slurs, they would likely not have been kicked out. Ms Morgan said it wasn't Eden Park's place to "be the PC police".

"If she's saying that she was isolated and that it shouldn't be acceptable, it's not our job - I don't believe - to try to move the cultural morals of society."

Morgan should have stopped at the first paragraph. By her own account, and that of her her family members, Hannah was subject to unacceptable behaviour. Tapping on the head or whatever, no one is allowed to physically (or verbally) harass anyone else in a crowd. It may be difficult to police, but the principle is not at all difficult. It is very, very simple.

Hannah was targeted because she called the morons on their language, which was a courageous thing to do. Would I have done that? I don't know. Crowds are tricky places for confrontation, because you literally can't do what you'd do somewhere else -- move away. Maybe I'd just have sat there gritting my teeth and hating them. But I like to think I'd have something to say when these boofheads turned their attention to Hannah.

And Eden Park management should have something to say, too. The defensive "not our job" "PC police" response their spokesperson gave the Herald is an insult to Hannah and to anyone else who pays money to come to the park. It tarnishes the image of the place itself. A mature adult needs to step in here on the park's behalf and do and say the right thing. Immediately.