Posts by Damian Christie
-
Wow. "Congratulations on your 47,000 star tweet" is something I think I'd be fucking scared to be seeing in response to anything I wrote, whether it was joking, scathing, insightful... wow.
It was a bloody good tweet though, I thought so when I first saw it.
-
I’ve spent a lot of time filming Kaikoura this year. This pic was taken at the SH1 reopening dawn ceremony today in Rakautara. Like many here, im tired but very happy and proud of what’s been done.
-
Cracker: We're Going on a Bat Hunt, in reply to Nick Thomas,
Do they really echo-locate at 40 Hz
Where were you when I needed fact-checking :)
If you look at the video you can see the detectors say 'khz' on them, and the dial is set to 40.0, so I guess you're right, yes!
-
Cracker: We're Going on a Bat Hunt, in reply to Rochelle Wilson,
Thanks Rochelle, it was very enjoyable doing it :)
-
Speaker: Broadcasting and the Public Interest, in reply to sandra,
There must be money to be made there …
There's not. The DVD market isn't what it used to be, and people's interest in watching old 4:3 ratio docos from 20 years or more ago is pretty limited. These things are usually better in one's memory than in reality - this coming from someone who's spent more time than most trawling the archive for gems.
-
Speaker: Broadcasting and the Public Interest, in reply to Kevin McCready,
The evening TV news stories and even their ordering are so identical across stations as to be more than a coincidence.
It's not a coincidence. Both networks are lining up stories according to a well established set of new values. Are they colluding or communicating these decisions to each other? No. But without seeing the news tonight, I'm guessing both led with about ten minutes on Christchurch fires, then the Cadbury closure... close? After that you'll find it gets a bit more random. Sometimes the two have different lead stories, where one has polling done, or an exclusive, or just got better pictures of a big event.
-
Speaker: Broadcasting and the Public Interest, in reply to Dylan Reeve,
But the infrastructure already exists – there’s no real benefit in not using it.
Okay point taken from you and Russell both on that one, I guess it depends on the extra cost from actually programming and operating those freeview channels - putting together a schedule, producing links and teasers and all that stuff isn't quite as low cost as putting shows directly online. And I suppose I'm also thinking about it in conjunction with my TV1 idea - TV1 doing most of the heavy lifting in the public service side, with overflow handled by online, rather than a whole separate freeview channel.
-
Great post Dylan.
I've also thought about this quite a bit, being directly involved in the beginning and end of TVNZ 7 and being part of news and current affairs there since 2004 until a couple of years ago.
I often thought the solution would be to keep TV2 as it is, and make TV1 the 'public broadcaster'. It has a huge audience from the get-go, and you could even *possibly* keep it commercial, on the understanding that revenue (and therefore ratings) aren't the driving motivation on that channel. Hire a CEO, senior management, commissioners and programmers on the basis of vision and commitment to high quality programming, not just in news and current affairs but also drama and the like.
It's worth noting on any napkin calculations, that if it hadn't been required to pay a dividend, there wouldn't necessarily have been $10m or so each year. I remember Kevin Kenrick standing up at a staff function celebrating the fact that targets had been reached that year. "Revenue was down, but we managed it by cutting costs!" he cheered, like the onslaught of redundancies was something to be applauded. I think TVNZ would've been one of the few 'profitable' media companies during some of those darker years.
I think these days you could ditch the Freeview infrastructure required for TVNZ6 and 7 with an online-only offering, but one that has mandatory promotion in places where people will find out about it, i.e. 1, 2, one news website etc.. I found out myself the hard way about what happens to an online-only show at TVNZ when they don't bother promoting it (it dies a death).
Side note: Gareth Morgan's exchanges on Twitter seem to very quickly devolve into ad hominem attacks (from him). This doesn't bode well, although I guess if he's looking for the Trump effect...
-
Cracker: On Ice, in reply to Ross Mason,
Thanks for sharing those memories Ross - your experience sounds incredible vs my short 'tourist' trip, but still something I will always remember!
-
Hard News: Up with the Pacer: embracing…, in reply to Russell Brown,
Thanks for the post Russell, I too have been weighing up whether buying an e-bike would get me out more. At present I use my bike only for small jaunts with the family; the hills immediately before my office (Bond St hill, or Bullock track etc), and immediately before my house are enough to ensure I arrive a sweaty mess. Running errands around the CBD presents similar challenges. So I've been seriously considering it, if it means I can get exercise on my way to work, rather than swearing at the traffic I'm a part of.
