TV Review: Media3 and Backbenches return

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death of TVNZ

Abetted by the National government’s ever-narrowing orientation towards profitability and focused by a marketing-led commercial hubris, TVNZ management cheerfully decommissioned Helen’s ad-free public service stations last year – to little protest outside of the Newtown-Grey Lynn axis. The punters outside the creative classes and their middle class patrons and the politically connected niche audience could still appreciate the worthy, if repititious, offerings on TVNZ7 and the family TVNZ6 (which has since morphed into a rival version of TV3’s youth channel, C4). But when the crunch came, they were not popular. They were not designed to be. Any ratings success would have been a cannibalisation of the other eye balls on their commercial channels. They made sure that never happened – mainly by limiting content.

It was a doomed project from the beginning: a ‘slow suicide’ is how the boss put it to me at the launch. The worse case scenario did pan out. Without the inter-generational legacy of support – that say RNZ has for its public service function – the Tory refusal to continue the funding was what would sink TVNZ7. Sadly. From the wreckage however two programmes survived the Broadcasting Minister’s shitcan.

Given TVNZ7 was as thin on original content as Damian Christie’s hair these days it is probably not that surprising that the twin flagships of Media7 and Backbenches managed to round Cape Shitcan in one piece. They were quality shows – composing the whole fleet – that anyone can remember (with Court Report a special mention). But NZ On Air this time around is stuffing fives, instead of hundies, into the weeping hulls. No comfortable harbour and the institutional fat of the TVNZ Empire either; they are flying under their new flags.

Russell Brown’s slumming it at TV3, dragging his support squad along, drinks and all, to a new gig up the road from TV3’s Auckland headquarters. Though, why bother with the fuss – of the rituals of ego massage, let alone the dry subject matter – when the show screens at 11:30pm? That is a joke sort of time slot, when the whacky ads and infomercials start. When the wanking and insomnia starts. It’s hard to believe that eleven thirty is not a typo. That’s when people like Russell – he assures me via Twitter – are out dancing. Well they could be dancing in their minds, and dancing in their dreams, but they aren’t going to be watching Media3 – no matter how much mental mambo goes on – if it’s at 11:30pm.

If you can’t watch it when it airs then it doesn’t really count as TV does it? When the audience is so small what is the point? Isn’t it time that better slots, primetime positions, are part of the NZ On Air contract? The alternative to staying up watching telly to midnight is to watch it on a replay or online. At this point the exercise becomes archive and not broadcast – a different experience. The essence of television is now, not later. Making things for later may actually suit the discussion format and issues the way they are presented on Media3, but this isn’t ideal.

The other TVNZ7 refugee facing a harsh new existence in the same ghetto of a time slot is Backbenches: Prime 10:30pm. Bit earlier but still too late. The free for all pub show will not translate well into archive. It’s just like a pub story: you had to be there, it is very much of the moment. The only image or thing I can recall (and it made its way out into the wider world) was Peter Dunne’s desperately lame planking stunt (I think he used his rigid boufant to balance across the bar).

Although the politicians are having a pint in a pub on live TV and sometimes getting quite raucus I still cannot recall any comments that got anyone into any trouble. That shows the lobby fodder are mindful and wary, or that no-one takes what they say seriously, or that no-one is watching. Probably all three.

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The Backbencher pub, along from parliament, was the setting, but just as the show was being wound up for the demise of TVNZ7 it burnt down. This was all very symbolic. The fate of the show was unclear and Wallace Chapman, the mild-mannered tweedy host, and his more acerbic side-kick, Damian Christie, were kept in limbo. They were saved, but relegated to 10:30. The pub was also saved, but it too has suffered handicaps. The main one being, from what I saw of their first show of the new season, the characterless grey decor and lack of a recognisably pub-like interior. The atmosphere amongst the people seemed unaffected, but visually they could have been in a big prop on a sound stage.

And just like Jane Bowron and her review yesterday for Fairfax, I didn’t watch much beyond the start either. Only I’ll be up front about it rather than just refer to it vaguely as being ‘unchanged’. The give-away was the elaborate detail of the beginning and none past the first 5 minutes. I got to about 15. And she’s right, it was the same.

Same same. The same affable and benign Wallace all goofy and geeky, the same ducking and darting Damian all cynical and snarky, the same Wellingtonian audience proving the beltway is jammed with Arts graduates each pushing their own barrow, and of course the same thick as door stops, non-entity MPs lining up to get their mugs on TV. Everyone who wants a say seems to get a comment in, even if it is briefly. All very jolly, but this all too easily feels like a private club sometimes rather than a pub. There are regulars and there is etiquette and protocol and expectation and housekeeping and so on and it feels so comfortable. Like some sensible slippers Wallace probably has. The tendency to order in the New Zealand psyche is strong however and risks trumping the unpredictable and confrontational elements that make great viewing. It’s a slick production, but I can’t help think that it is a very small niche that are the actors/extras in this. It feels as if there may be more people in the pub than watching too – especially at the new, unsocial, hour. The tension will gather in election year – that is when this format really takes off – and then they should consider starting earlier.

3 COMMENTS

  1. Hey Tim. Your feelings on the content of these shows aside, its unfair to criticise based on timeslot – Media 3 repeats on Saturday mornings around 10.25am (as listed here: http://www.tv3.co.nz/Shows/Media3.aspx), and Back Benches will repeat on TVNZ Heartland, Saturdays at 10pm (http://www.throng.co.nz/2013/04/tvnz-heartland-will-also-be-airing-new-back-benches/) – plus, with the proliferation of DVR/MySky/MyFreeview, and the use of on-demand options, complaints about late timeslots seem a little archaic.

  2. Isn’t it time that better slots, primetime positions, are part of the NZ On Air contract?

    Indeed it is, Tim. And one can only wonder why it hasn’t occurred yet. It seems a fairly common sense approach to take.

    I rcall when NZ On Air was first formed and began dishing out lollies to broadcasters. One of the first upsets came when competing networks (TV1 vs TV3) broadcast programmes scheduled at the same time. People were pissed off; taxpayers were coughing up their taxes but only having the opportunity to view one programme.

    It was a prime example of how “choice” can bite us on our Baby Booming Backsides.

    A few decades later and we have technology to save programmes or view them an hour later on TV1+1 or TV3+1.

    But not everyone has the technology, nor the inclination to use it, plus it’s a hassle to set time aside later to view something, and the +1 channels – where programming is deferred by one hour – simply pushes the programmes even further into the early hours.

    The solution, as I see it, is two fold;

    1. NZ on Air must specify that taxpayer funded programmes be shown at a decent time (unless it has some specific adult content, eg; “Outrageous Fortune”).

    2. A new public-service, non-commercial TV channel, must be set up, and it’s existence entrenched in law so it cannot be meddled with by incoming governments. The most common proposal is a non-commercial TV1, funded by an ongoing-commercialised TV2.

    It sez a lot about our profit-driven society that we are the only OECD nation without a non-commercial public TV broadcaster. The Barbarians – it might be said – have breached the gates and are firmly esconced in society.

    We are becoming a nation of uncultured swine – with an appropriate government of pigs on two legs… http://novelprose.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/farm.jpg

  3. My parents who are in their mid-eighties were really starting to get into TVNZ7’s content. For instance, my mother learned all about “blood diamonds” and also mega corporations. Mostly regurgitated programmes, perhaps, but apart from perhaps Prime, TVNZ7 was the only free to air channel offering these sorts of programmes and it was enlightening a lot of people who wouldn’t necessarily go to the source material.

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