Lots of words from Hon Andrew Little. He certainly can't be accused of substance abuse.

Considering National got fairly close to what it did in 2014 and certainly more than it did in 2008, I'm not sure the "National led government lost". The Nat's constituency seems to be fairly steady in their support. Where things have wavered have been with the support partners. Labour have successfully removed both the Maori Party and United Future from parliament while barely leaving a scratch on National. Other than the Maori seats, where was the swing to Labour that you'd expect in a "mood for change" climate? And unless Labour, The Greens & New Zealand First actually end up forming a Government, it is entirely premature to suggest any winner.

If you break it all down though,

National: 46
Act: 0.5
Maori: 1.1
United Future: 0.1
Total: 47.7

Labour: 35.8
Green: 5.9
New Zealand First: 7.5
Total: 49.2

We know that The Greens will go with Labour but NZ First are split on which way their constituents would want them to go.

That break down is: 46% want them to go with National. 41% Labour and 13% want them in opposition. ( https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/96793390/revealed-who-new-zealand-wants-running-the-country )

This would change the result to 51.15 vs 44.78...

I'm not questioning the relevancy, but the motives.

FWIW I completely agree with the need for a channel that is free from the commercial drivers that have pushed everything to where they are now.

But where is the line regarding the same people getting the same funding? Is it with SPP? Is it with TVNZ? Is it with Top Shelf? If we follow the logic of Grieve then Russell's own show is in the firing line.

Let's not confuse this for what it really is. Duncan's outrage is nothing more than the latest attempt at trying to secure NZ On Air funding for his NZME bosses.

With increasing click bait, poor reporting and appalling fact checking, the resulting decline in ad revenue has meant that the once unneeded taxpayers slush fund is looking like a lucrative saviour.

Watch the noise around this increase as things go from bad to worse and they try and justify click bait and entertainment stories as the way to fix investigative journalism.

10 years plus of this nonsense and they now want the taxpayer to fund it?

If taxpayers are going to put money into anything, I'd rather it wasn't a failing old media business.

Speaking of seeing the logs, we managed to get our hands on the TV3 logs from the switchboard since the show aired and can only find 7 complaints in total about the dresses. There was one person who even called in to say thanks.

more here: http://throng.co.nz

While the service is supposed to be launching some time this month, one of the members on throng discovered the address to the service after some simple guess work and was able to register and test the system out. He's written a brilliant review, including screen shots, which can be found here