Please be bad just so I can hate you

What is it with our inbred desire, as kiwis, to want to find fault with everything?  Particularly when it comes to local versions of highly successful and incredibly expensive TV shows.

With New Zealand’s Got Talent returning to our screens, it appears as though there are a lot of people who were simply desperate for it to be bad.  While one New Zealand Herald reviewer desperately wanted it to be bad, and Stuff desperately wanted the ratings provided by TVNZ to be “massaged” and inflated,  people like Martyn Bradbury continue to suggest NZ On Air should only fund non-popular programming.

When #NZGT became a top trending topic on twitter, despite the blur of tweets whizzing past in the scrolling mess, numerous comments were along similar lines that the show wasn’t nearly as cringeworthy as they’d expected.  Many, in fact, were quite pleasantly surprised.

It is important to note that NZ On Air is:

an independent government funding agency. We invest in a colourful range of cost-effective local content, to extend choices for different New Zealand audiences.

Forget what you’d like NZ On Air to be, this is what it is.  It funds a broad range of shows for a broad range of audiences.  Thankfully its funding model isn’t restricted to niche, low rating shows but also shows with mass appeal that require a significant amount of finance in order to go to air.

NZ On Air’s mission is simple to:

champion local content through skillful investment in quality New Zealand broadcasting.

Their values are:

Innovation  - Encouraging new ideas and quality production standards.

Diversity - Promoting difference and competition to support the best ideas for the widest range of New Zealanders.

Value for money - Making sure cost-effective projects are enjoyed by significant numbers of relevant people.

While NZ’s Got Talent may arguably not be innovative, it provides diversity and, more certainly, value for money.

New Zealand’s Got Talent is great for those watercooler moments.  People are talking about it.  People are watching it.  More importantly, people are actually not hating it.  If that’s not enough reason to celebrate local content then I don’t know what is.

About the author

Regan is one of the co-founders of Throng Media.
He's currently watching Survivor, Homeland, House, Glee and can't wait for the return of Game of Thrones.
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  • Reece_555

    I will put my hand up and say I wanted it to be bad. But all those involved have done a great job so far. The Got Talent franchise is obviously more broad in allowing contestants to showcase anything and its not promising a career or anything further like Idol did. It just seems like a good old talent show.

    The X Factor NZ however (if that ever happens) will be a different story, and i crringe at it already.

  • James

    Leaving aside the merits of NZGT (I never saw it), the purpose of NZ on Air is to fund non-popular programming, because popular programming pays for itself. This is exactly what they mean when they say “extend choices”, i.e choices you wouldn’t get if we left it up to what rated well.

    • http://www.facebook.com/rachel.cunliffe Rachel Cunliffe

      Have you read http://www.nzonair.govt.nz/news/newsnewsletters/newsletter_2012_3_15.aspx ?
      “we will never shy away from supporting programmes that lots of people want to watch. That’s part of our diversity mantra: we don’t expect everyone to like every funding decision, but we do try to provide something for everyone.”

  • http://www.facebook.com/david.i.batten Dave Ian Batten

    TVNZ has done a good job.

  • bomber
  • stingray

    lol supporting such menial idiocracy like these multi-national spectacle distractions is bad enough as it is, and you people want to fund it?

  • Matthew

    you know what is sad? That Hipsters like yourself consider something popular if it trends on Twitter. The Twitter generation is vapid and narcissistic, exactly the dermographic tv like NZGT is aiming for, but what about the rest of us? NZGT is a commercial show, overseas it makes hundreds of millions of dollars, why does it have to be subsidized here?

    • trigger

      Why does it need to be subsidised here? The simple answer is that we are not overseas. (I am not tryng to be cute with this response. It’s about scale.) No matter where you are on the planet, the hard costs of mounting a large production like Got Talent are going to be substantial. But if you are in the U.K. or Australia for example, these costs are more easily offset by the larger ad revenue gained from a much bigger market.