Posts by giovanni tiso
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hat pot plant in the corner of Bill English's office isn't a magic money tree either, Gio.
Seems to be, when it comes to funding private schools. Or cutting the top tax rate. Somehow the plant withers only for the stuff that poor people need or want. A magic ficus!
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Giovanni, if the New Zealand Government is to fund a station devoted almost entirely to one genre of music, then why should it not fund all genres equally?
Because it's not a genre that is otherwise represented on the commercial airwaves. And it's a pretty weak counterargument: if you think that there are other underappreciated genres that are equally as relevant, aks for Concert to play them too, don't just axe Concert. I think the channel has become steadily more diverse in the ten years I've spent in the country.
ETA: "George, orchestral and concert music is not one genre." Plus that, yes.
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2) other areas of the arts will lose funding, because there is only so much sponsorship money going around.
That's a really easy one to overlook, isn't it? We've been sold this idea that commercial sponsorship is the cure to all ills and that furthermore there's an inexhaustible supply of it, that we tend to forget sometimes that it's more like a blanket of finite area that you cannot pull simultaneously in all directions.
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If people don't want their concert FM music interrupted by adverts, do what I did when I got sick of advertising on radio stations, and bought CDs (see also, DVDs vs watching TV etc).
Dear Lord. Yes, people with money and access to posh CD stores probably don't have much of a need for Radio New Zealand Concert. And they should be our sole constituency.
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In Australia they've funded both the ABC and SBS to create further channels - because they realise that quality broadcasting and local content is important.
It's still regrettably not something that reaches every home, but one would be remiss not to mention the new TVNZ channels, there's some good programming there. And newscasts that one doesn't feel ashamed and/or dirty for watching, and that can be shown to the children! Fancy that.
But when it comes to Concert FM there doesn't seem to be a case to make, other than 'because I like it' or 'why not?'
And, as I've pointed out you can use these arguments to make a case for any conceivable expenditure of taxpayer money: free ice-creams? I like it! Why not?
Seriously, if you insist to compare the music broadcast by RNZ Concert to ice creams than I'm going to go ahead and suggest that maybe it's you, you know.
But if I had to make the argument to somebody capable of differentiating between Bela Bartok and refrigerated dairy products, then I'd say that the concerts and the documentaries played by the RNZ Concert are valulable in exactly the same way that a library is and would be hard to come by on commercial airwaves, and that furthermore they reach communities where such things aren't available for love or money. Coupled with the fact it costs very little money to run, I find it a bit mind-bollging that anybody would want to just get rid of that.
Sometimes it's like liberals seem bent on doing the work of the Right for them.
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I don't fully buy Danyl's argument, but I'm equally unconvinced that it will be a Haitian-scale national disaster if Concert FM is partly commercialised.
They can call it The Telecom Radio New Zealand Concert* for all I care, but I'd like to know why. Why are we doing this? The government killed night classes in order to fund private education, and is reviewing services and cutting public service jobs in order to... what? Lower the top tax rate? Show me that the money from limited sponsorship of the concert programme (as I say, naming rights are okay by me) is going to strenghten other areas of public broadcasting or plugging some of the gap in funding of RNZ that Russell talked about. Otherwise I'm really going to have to go with "fuck you"**.
*Except it would be down for days from time to time I guess.
**Again, not you personally. Nor Craig.
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Indeed, but I think there's a "to" missing there.
Yes, well, the edit button won't help with the dyslexia it seems.
Giovanni - I'll do the offbeat.
Ah! At this rate we'll have a headdesk concerto and be ready to ask for funding by the end of the week.
Craig, I think Gio's "fuck you" was aimed at the government , not you personally.
Indeed. Although the idea that Craig is "The Right" has a certain morbid appeal.
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Who you calling Julia? Why do I not get this analogy?
Sorry, going straight for Orwell was possibly a bit over the top. It's just that when the Right comes in and says we're going to take Radio New Zealand away from you, I'd prefer if the Left's response wasn't "oh, okay, you can have the concert programme, because we know you work hard and deserve lower taxes". I think the correct response is in fact "fuck you". And it goes double for the public service jobs that Hadyn rightly reminds us of.
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No one here. I was just making a general comment about a contradiction in broad debates about subsidised culture.
Yeah, well, in the meantime they're preparing an assault of what's left of our public broadcasting and if we could hear a little less of "Do it Julia!" it would be just grand.
(For the purposes of this analogy, Julia is played by RNZ Concert.)
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Who are you calling a free marketeer?
Word. My head has been hitting the desk with a certain metronomic precision this morning. Obviously the concert programme has taught me well.