2024 review + 2025 predictions

Before my review of the year a few predictions for 2025:

TV in 2025: Freeview as a platform for free-to-air television will be hastened to an early termination by the stakeholders ahead of scheduled time – they will set a firm shut off date.

Radio in 2025: 100 years of RNZ. Kim Hill podcasts? The decline of TV might be slightly helpful to radio as people now have to go to the radio to get news updates and regular bulletins – there is nothing on TV anymore – so radio audiences could increase marginally.

Politics in 2025: Tension as the Deputy PM transfer to Act looms. If in the lead up to May NZF are at or below 5% Seymour may want to go to trigger a snap election to wipe them out. Also if NZF are at or below 5% Winston might want to have a snap election to pre-empt a further fall of NZF and stop Act rising. There are many reasons either of them could pull that trigger and a Mexican stand-off over the ferries is already an emerging reality. The crisis will be over the lead up to the budget – usually delivered in May – the script writes itself. However if NZF is over 5% handily I don’t think the pressure will be there, will depend on the polling in March and April. Chip will cruise through to the crisis point and it will be too late for Labour to change leaders.

Treaty in 2025: Cannot see Seymour’s Bill doing anything other than rark up animosity on all sides as the select committee submissions grind out… until May. The timing to have an early election does tend to culminate at that May juncture. The MACA proceedings and the MACA amendment is something to track – the hui-a-motu will be tracking everything as those embers spread. Ngapuhi being the biggest unsettled Iwi have a disproportionate impact with policy and engagement as time goes on, so the focus will turn to them.

Ukraine in 2025: If Trump pulls the plug on Ukraine I can’t see the EU continuing to support them at an increased level necessary to survive. A negotiated end with territorial concessions is the most likely outcome.

Gaza in 2025: They just can’t keep slaughtering can they? Bibi asked Biden for six months to do the job when it began – and they’ve had twice that time and still cannot clear Gaza City and the northern zone. A stalemate in Gaza could last all year, Israel now has Syria to worry about.

Now for a contractually obligatory blog to review 2024 made up of reflections and brief comments on the 38 blogs from me this year for The Daily Blog, tracking the fortunes of the nation – media and politics mainly – and the US elections. The single most important thing to remember about 2024 is that I was right and Lichtman was wrong.

09/12/2024  The Podcast awards and the magic of television rubbing off (391 views/0 comments)

So few viewed this – why? No one cares about podcasts or TV. No one commented on it either – zero – because it was all true and indisputable… or no one cared. Forgot to mention a deserved double gold for “Juggernaut: The Story of the Fourth Labour Government” – which was enjoyable but didn’t get many views, and it is really a documentary rather than a podcast. A lot of the media and news have fallen this year, much will emerge out of this wreckage next year, but I sense the fate, ie. the end, of Freeview might be brought forward and decided in 2025.

03/12/2024  HMNZS Manawanui: As stupid as it sounds it just ploughed straight into the reef (1953 views/42 comments)

If I let my imagination wander I see her put a sandwich over the auto pilot light at some point. There were three civilians also on the bridge at the time and it could have been one of them leaving a clip board over the light but I’m picturing a sandwich (to be consistent with the original conspiracy theory of her leaving the bridge to make a sandwich). I’m seeing them only notice the auto pilot was on because the sun began setting and someone noticed as it got dark that the light was on – and was on the whole time. The more I look at the official timeline and how the Navy has changed what they had previously stated the more questions arise. Why did the ship make another turn only 500 metres after the first turn? They were going back because something was left out. Why was it left out? My guess is another navigational error may have been the reason they had to go back. It was ten minutes before sunset, the weather was getting a bit rough and they had made an error that meant they had to turn around and have another go and there is an outside chance there was a sandwich over the auto pilot light. Then there’s the problem of what happened when they first struck the reef – my guess is they thought they were in reverse (but weren’t) and powered over the reef and further into the reef until they grounded again and that is when the ship took on water. The Navy is deliberately ambiguous on their account. The salvage vessel is there now I understand so maybe they will resurrect it and the first mention of the HMNZSLGBTQ Manawanui on Judith Collins’s ministerial statements from the Beehive website will be it being triumphantly recommissioned as if it had never sunk. The full report should be released in February with disciplinary action afterwards probably going by the tone of “human error” in the interim report.

25/11/2024  Treaty Principles Bill – Sometimes it is just racism. (2065 views/45 comments)

It says at the bottom of the comments “comments are closed” which is a euphemism in the mainstream media for there are too many racists trolling the comments to bother moderating anymore – is this what it means here too? Yes, it is just racism! The bigot’s “arguments” or their “debate” is just hate – they will change the arguments to suit their hate – the question is whether that hater portion of the white/settler population is still a majority like it was in 1981? Don Brash and his Orewa speech in 2004 reminded us all that Pakeha could be spelt with three K’s.  I gave a personal recollection of the first time experiencing racism – what are the first experiences of Pakeha? – inflicting it! (lol, but seriously).

18/11/2024  20 years on from the Foreshore and Seabed confiscation: Treaty itself at risk of being taken. (1021 views/12 comments)

Another personal trauma told through strained touches of forced humour, but no regret. Key word: Sedition. Twenty years later the Act-NZF-Nat coalition government is cooking up an amendment to the MACA to change the slightly less pernicious test back to being more pernicious again like the original FSA. Supreme Court ruled on the test and will rule on navigable rivers next.

11/11/2024  Trump win means woke fever broken? (1636 views/27 comments)

I was right, Professor Lichtman was wrong – at least Lichtman’s predictions were wrong, but I have argued that his 13 Keys are valid if applied objectively instead of the partisan way Lichtman himself applies them (in which case the Keys favoured Trump by +1 or +2). Lichtman still thinks he’s infallible for some reason and his Keys are Biblical commandments because he recently called what a critic had said against his Keys as “blasphemy” in a heated live debate. Wig out why don’t you, dude, just because your professional reputation and career ended agonisingly on a live stream as your precious stone tablets were shattered on election night – wife pleading with you on the phone to keep Georgia in play. Biden’s debate performance trance or Lichtman’s election night stare into the abyss – who did it better?

Dr Buchanan on one of last month’s “View from afar” podcast (with Selwyn Manning) said he knew of no political scientist whatsoever who predicted the Trump win. There’s two ways to interpret that: 1) Political scientists are utterly useless at predictions, or 2) that he only knows of pro-Dem political scientists. What does this say about the profession? I’m a Pol Sci grad but not an academic so I guess I don’t count… but I did – according to Dr Buchanan’s claim – outperform his expert class who completely failed.

By the way for all the punters out there: I said Harris was a good value bet for Dem nominee following Biden’s awful debate performance – I tweeted that out when she was paying $3.50 (she was at $4.20 a couple of hours before I tweeted it so wasn’t fast enough!). If you reinvested that with my forecast in my last post about Trump at $1.55 how would you have gone?
$1 x $3.50 = $3.50 (paid out on getting nomination at convention in August)
$3.50 x $1.55 = $5.42
That’s a return of 442%.

The academics, like Lichtman and Buchanan, really need to do some introspection on why they got it so badly wrong. They seem to be arguing they underestimated the evil reach of Musk and the gullible, ignorant prejudices of the uneducated working class, ungrateful Black men, Latinos and Muslims – all of whom voted against their own interests. None of that condescending narrative seems credible to me. But what would I know?

02/11/2024  American Election Predictions: It’s Apocalypse in the USA (2087 views/48 comments)

Nailed that mo-fo. America says Trump or die you libtards.

29/10/2024  How mad is that doggy in the Waitangi Tribunal? Selling Prebble. (1818 views/30 comments)

Good up to the point Lefty McLeftface TDB reader finds out I had anything to do with Act at anytime at all ever. And then it all changes when that knowledge drops. And what had been hitherto a wonderful – once again intensely personal – blog about first hand experience of political situations suddenly becomes a tedious and overlong, self-congratulatory wankpiece by an Atlas operative. Crowd turned pretty quick there. Lost the room instantly. Just a bit of latitude for next time, that’s all, suspend the ire.

26/10/2024  Auckland Observer Report: Wellingtonians the problem with Wellington (1302 views/26 comments)

Just an awful, hateful, nasty, bitchy, jealous, cowardly, hurtful, churlish rant. Commenters told me off for meanness – they were right (facts were all correct however).

21/10/2024  We Are The Goodies! Trotter’s Fantasy and Fanaticism. (1935 views/40 comments)

Trying to understand where Trotter is coming from, and it is a reactionary place. His Southern States Confederacy analogy was fakakta.

17/10/2024  Wreck of the HMNZS Manawanui – submerging fiction, emerging facts. (1800 views/23 comments)

A lot more information than initially, the timeline is pretty short, they evacuated fast, other vessels turned up and they all helped get everyone onto land with no losses. But so many questions… like… why are they telling us a porkies?

13/10/2024  Iwi v. Peewee – How Seymour lost the Treaty principles debate (1359 views/12 comments)

I gave it to Modlik on his arguments. Seymour was on a mission to undermine the Treaty to undermine Maori to promote the settlers. Both presented well and both sides would have thought they won. The viewership on the YouTube video is over 50k now and was about 6k live at peak, a huge figure. Incredible network TV doesn’t want to do this sort of stuff anymore and they wonder why they are dying.

08/10/2024  HMNZS Manawanui – New Zealand’s reputation sunk with her (3273 views/93 comments)

The first press conference with Judith Collins and Golding where they tell a pack of lies – look how they’ve changed their story now! Fishy. Total humiliation for the Navy and the country, let’s have none of this hero stuff ffs. I left out my observation that the pictures of the commander on the beach showed she didn’t have her glasses on – that she had in every other photo of her ever – so she must have lost her glasses at some point in the abandonment. Not being able to see properly during a crisis like that makes one think of Benny Hill and his character with lopsided glasses being chased around to the theme music in the credits. Imagine that Benny Hill music played over the tape of the video and voice recordings on the bridge of the HMNZSLGBTQ Manawanui as the anarchy ensues.

06/10/2024  Truth and consequences – the Vance-Walz VP debate’s nuclear moment (1138 views/56 comments)

Walz was the only pick Harris could make to make her look good – someone like Josh Shapiro would have easily eclipsed her. Vance was smooth as Tennessee whisky v. old knucklhead. Still waiting for the Iranians to go nuclear – was “weeks away” ten weeks ago. You lost Syria, let’s go!

29/09/2024  N Word, please! – Trump’s Black male voting strategy (1228 views/38 comments)

The end result was Trump got 21% of the Black male vote – all time high? Not sure he needed them in the end because he finished with handy margins everywhere.

16/09/2024  Reigning Cats and Dogs: Trump and Harris’s Black Swan Event (1236 views/55 comments)

Crazy how Harris had such a good performance (considering she is so flaky) and yet Trump gained all the attention by saying something wild that he saw on TV.

10/09/2024  Right keys, wrong notes: Lichtman’s 13 Keys to the White House (1264 views/17 comments)

Couldn’t have nailed that better than Christ on the cross. See, that’s blasphemy Professor Lichtman.

05/09/2024  Kingi Tuheitia – Tangi observations and notes on succession planning (1069 views/19 comments)

The new Queen hasn’t said anything yet I don’t think, she wouldn’t be exoected to until after the anniversary of the Koroneihana. Tuheitia was guiding the national hui-a-motu and will be remembered for starting that and also for attending Charles’s coronation, elevating the mana of the Kingitanga during his reign.

27/08/2024  No opinion: AI, Dr Bryce Edwards, Tim Watkin, the NZ Herald and the future of writing (1274 views/10 comments)

Whole occupations will be replaced by AI and the editorial leader of the NZ Herald being written by AI was not on my possibility list, but here we are, at this absurd place, as news implodes, as standards implode, as TV implodes. And Bryce Edwards is now openly using AI to write his summaries as I speculated so that has come to pass.

12/08/2024  That John Campbell Q+A interview: Oranga Tamariki v. Christian social services (1501 views/7 comments)

Quite a hateful piece this, but felt right at the time to say it, but now of course dreading meeting John Campbell if that ever eventuates, def awks.

15/07/2024  Trump’s winning shot (2054 views/62 comments)

Knew Trump would be difficult to beat the way it went down. The freaky thing was how quickly everyone got over it and moved on so that it seemed a long time ago, the campaign had warped time perception like undergoing a slow motion experience of a car crash. A live streamed assassination attempt was a first of sorts. If we look at TV3 News ratings after ending Newshub we see that it holds on a slow decrease until it falls off a cliff at a date about the time of Trump’s assassination attempt – I believe the two are related. I understand TV3 didn’t cut live to the assassination breaking news whereas TV1 had Jack Tame anchoring it. Ever since then the TV audience knows TV3 don’t do news anymore and only TV1 does – a huge default win for TV1 and an erosion of TV3 news credibility as evidenced by the plummeted ratings.

01/07/2024  Biden and that debate: he has become death (1826 views/44 comments)

Biden was a dyin’. Now we bye-bye’in.

23/06/2024  The late late news – Goodbye TV Journalism (341 views/11 comments)

A low number of views for this, eh. What’s the problem? Not good enough for you? Slog my fucking guts out for you and it says “TV” so you don’t want to read it because you don’t think it’s relevant to you… which was my point and you should have fucking read it. No one cares about Mike McRoberts losing his job and the whole news department being shit-canned by Warner Bros, you heartless PoS. It’s Christmas, the least you can do is think of them now because we know you don’t actually care – the views say it all. Shame on you, really disappointing.

28/05/2024  The Whakatohea Treaty settlement legislation is an unconscionable injustice (720 views/10 comments)

Very personal, look-away type personal, pleading, writhing, pathetic, aggrieved and accusatory piece, and in microscopically horrifying detail. So many wrongs, so corrupt.

26/05/2024  Web of Karens – a review. (1557 views/10 comments)

This is the first blog that I cannot immediately remember what I wrote. But, now I remember, “Web of Chaos” by David Farrier, was high woke basically by the looks of it and I couldn’t review it because I refused to register and download the TVNZ+ app so I haven’t seen it. Talk about luck!

 

08/05/2024  If not television, then how? Response to the Ellis paper on news media. (973 views/14 comments)

Dr Ellis wants the NZ media companies to loot the platform advertisers, and it’s awfully selfish.

25/04/2024  Melissa Lee ends transmission, Dear Goldie… (1281 views/24 comments)

She didn’t last long did she? She lasted longer than Clare Curran or no? I suspect Lee sped up the euthanasia process for Freeview by not challenging any of TVNZ’s paywall plans.

13/04/2024  NZ Broadcasting not feeling 100% (806 views/17 comments)

The year ends with Whakaata Maori ending their news bulletin, so we have seen everything disappear except TVNZ1 News 6pm bulletin and the Stuff supplied 6pm TV3 bulletin. Is a modern democracy viable without news media? Look at the microphones at press conferences this year compared with five or ten years ago – there are a dwindled number of news outlets still operating in NZ.

02/04/2024  Open Letter: On Public Media Accountability (707 views/6 comments)

My proposition is make NZ On Air elected and fund it by putting a fee on the device at point of sale like a pre-paid TV licence fee. No response to this. I think it would work, it is populist. No appreciation and I’m not expecting anything, gave up a long time ago, but it always astounds the exceedingly few amount of fucks given by you to this issue.

27/03/2024  Hipkins: slogans are not solutions… and caretakers are not architects. (1490 views/25 comments)

“Drop kick Chip” ran for a while, not bad for a shitty put-down. A good old fashion curb-stompin’ for the Chipster.

19/03/2024  Winston and the use of the N-word (1653 views/47 comments)

I scrolled through this and the pretentiousness grated and as I darted forward I could see “Churchill” standing out and I thought: wanker, and moved on. Harsh, probably quite good writing but I won’t re-read that ever again, but if you can tolerate the tone then fine.

12/03/2024  R.I.P Television: Will you still need me when I’m 64? (875 views/8 comments)

Observe again, as if we needed more evidence, that no one gives a fuck about television, they can’t even be fucked reading the obituary for it – look at the views. Nine months on from this blog TV has retreated and is surrendering in stages as part of the Canadian version of accelerated hospice if you know what I mean. And in 2025 RNZ will mark their centenary – winners!

04/03/2024  TV’s moment of truth (1077 views/6 comments)

Ten years ago Kim Dotcom gave us an election campaign stunt so magnificent it also became the breakthrough moment in live streaming free on the internet. For the first time a live video production that both resembled a TV event and was also delivered successfully to NZ computers and mobiles at broadcast standard. Ten years after that threshold was crossed we see the natural consequences – the collapse of television.

26/02/2024  Gang patch ban a white knuckle drag (1412 views/55 comments)

In Opotiki there haven’t been any gang insignia that I can recall since the ban came in – but who knows? The street fight attitude of the NZ Police is juvenile – the gangs are showing more maturity.

19/02/2024  MEDIAWATCH: Labour’s drip in need of a wipe: Hipkins on Q+A (2142 views/25 comments)

Just a brutal, sadistic mauling of this poor bastard – no one else wants the fucking job ffs and I go and attack him and call him names, it’s hateful, but it wasn’t unjustified and to be candid it was really cathartic to write as a form of rage therapy, and it’s not counted as bullying if the victim earns more than you.

12/02/2024  Understanding Russia and the Ukraine – try Gogol (922 views/42 comments)

You pricks never read this, and yet it was so insightful for understanding… you see the fucking title of the blog – but you don’t like book reviews or the Ukraine or at least what I have to say about it. Commenters from memory also let themselves down. Lift your game, people. Getting pretty sick of spoon feeding you here. Great Russian literature and you get scared. Not your scene? It is the scene, man. Very unappreciative, gauche audience I have to say – pity. You let yourselves down because I don’t think my expectations of you were that high to begin with. Be sure: this low viewership reflects badly on you – not me.

06/02/2024  Waitangi speeches, Treaty principles and where is Britain when you need her? (1925 views/53 comments)

Asking the questions that are so basic and yet no one else has seen the inherent problems in the constitutional relationship when things like the UK-NZ FTA make assertions about the Treaty. I think a lot of this stuff went under the Iwi radar because a lot of posing and performance has been going on to the tune of Wellington rather than acknowledging the status and instruments that are active and that the UK and Maori have a direct relationship. Iwi post-settlement entities have a partnership with NZ as the entity and so must acknowledge Wellington as the Crown, not the UK – this is the paper bag they can’t seem to get their heads out of. And the Iwi group have sent a letter to King Charles now – well where were they before on these questions?

22/01/2024  Chris Trotter and the Kingitanga conference – when putsch comes to love (2774 views/50 comments)

Trotter replied in the comments:

“[…] What you have failed to appreciate, however, is that I do not want civil war – I fear it. Because, as you rightly acknowledge, what would be left after the conflict would not be worth having.

I do thank you, though, for recognising the logic of at least some of my analysis. Not least the maximalist nationalist programme, which you espouse and which the elites work so hard to temper.

I guess that’s why the King’s hui was, in the end, so mild-mannered. The iwi leaders fear the Crown a great deal less than they fear the growing frustration of the poor and, most especially, the young.”

 

14/01/2024  Mensch and Übermensch – the unbareable whiteness of being. (1431 views/13 comments)

Whimsical nonsense like a stoner rave. Drunken summer ramble, it suited the season… but if you’re not in the mood – oi! And always with the racial stuff!

And that was 2024. 38 blog posts, 40k+ words of existential anguish, 50k+ views from a temperamental, unsympathetic, anti-TV TDB audience. Mutual animosities aside, here’s wishing the readers and commenters a jolly Christmas and a Happy New Year.