Motivating The Video Makers

The recent surprise loss of M2 from the small screen is one event which has brought our own music video industry into focus of late. Another was the British Council-sponsored Resonate seminars which brought a number of European music video professionals to Auckland to discuss the production and placement of videos.

Then there was this week's pre-NZ Music Awards award of Best Video for 2002, which went to Joe Lonie (centre) and Goodshirt for their video to Sophie. Chris Graham (left) was a beaten finalist for his work with Bic Runga on the video for her Something Good single.

Spoiling our own perfect record, Greg Page, the third video director pictured on our cover and at right above, didn't make it to the RIANZ final cut. However, since his showreel features both The D4 and The Datsuns – those two killer Kiwi acts that the local music industry is riding its current credibility wave on the back of – he more than passed the NZM screen test.

These three directors are representative of the current state of our music video industry – underpaid but over-performing. With M2 gone will they become under-played (and in time under-employed) as well as underpaid?

A free-to-air music channel is a very attractive concept from the government's perspective – as demonstrated by the almost $1M of NZ On Air funding (that's a quarter of the agency's total annual music funding) M2 received over its 18 months – but a difficult project for any broadcaster to commit to. When TV2 pulled the plug on the midnight-to-dawn weekend show on March 8, M2 became the latest in a growing history of free-to-air music television false starts.

Music TV was in fact at its peak back in 1997, with close to 400 hours of music videos screening on television in one week. Later that same year regional stations Cry in Christchurch and Max TV in Auckland both disappeared after four year stints – both had been adversely affected by TVNZ adding the MTV Europe channel to its free-to-air roster.

In a move many had seen coming, the government-owned broadcaster later dropped MTV E after less than 12 months on air, citing a lack of advertising to balance its reported $5M per annum running costs.

Juice TV first appeared 1994 as part of the free-to-air Orange channel, which was then broadcast through the subscriber-based Sky network. The channel relaunched as a 24/7 operation in 1997, adding J2 (for the more mature video viewer) in October 2000, then taking the second channel full-time in April 2001. Juice have a self-imposed local content quota of 20%, which they say they don't struggle to fill and do not receive any subsidy from Sky, relying on advertising to generate revenue.

In 2001, NZ On Air included 'More Music Television' in the new Phase Four music strategy, specifically aiming to 'establish a partnership with a music television provider that will increase the opportunities for music videos to play on free-to-air television from 7 hours a week to at least 25 hours a week'. (Source: NZ On Air Statement Of Intent 2001/02).

Ongoing funding was allocated towards establishing a free-to-air music video television channel with no firm idea of how this was going to be achieved. The best plan was to make the established Juice TV free-to-air and talks were well progressed before failing when a broadcast frequency couldn't be secured.
Although still on very amiable terms with NZOA, Juice have no intention of reconsidering going free-to-air says Daniel Wrightson. "It's a tough one for us, as on-going business with Sky is crucial."

While TVNZ's reasons for taking on the MTV Europe channel may not have been entirely saintly (Canwest's youth-orientated TV4 had launched two weeks earlier) back in 1997, Satellite Media Group had started the local music ball rolling with the right intentions.

Satellite was already producing both TV2's Sunday afternoon Squeeze Kiwi music show and the Friday late night show Space, which included a high percentage of local music, when they picked up the NZOA funding for M2. Satellite's MD David Rose had conceived the 'channel within a channel' concept with the intention of building on an initial 18 unsocial (and un-advertising-friendly) hours a week. This, coupled with a self-imposed 33% Kiwi content, was heralded as a significant gain for the music industry all round.