Commercial Ventures and the Public purse – #6 – Kiwi FM Radio

Radio Broadcast Studio (Photo credit: Leonardo Rizzi)

An ailing radio station given $300,000 a year in government funding to play exclusively Kiwi music will bow to commercial reality today and play overseas bands. via Kiwi FM Radio Station to Play International Music | Stuff.co.nz.

The station, which receives $300,000 a year from New Zealand on Air, never reached above 0.4 per cent of the listening audience and was currently at 0.1 per cent, Andrew Szusterman, of MediaWorks Radio, said.

Kiwi FM was launched in 2005 but failed to gain a large-enough audience and the next year the Government stepped in to save it by giving it new FM frequencies.

It's been broken for 7 years!!!

Using some dodgy maths lets say 7 years 300K = $2,100,000.00 That's a fair crack of the whip for a lame idea from a lame company and those making the decision need to really think through what it is they're buing into.

The article quotes "There were not enough radio-quality acts in New Zealand to keep a station afloat. "The quality [of New Zealand music] has got better ... but there's not a huge number of acts.""

What he doesn't say is that  There are over 70 New Zealand radio stations that stream on-line content! Who knew! In Auckland alone there are 53 Radio stations to listen to, never a dull moment ! And it appears that's out of a total of more than 130  in NZ

I don't know where to begin with that, simply put there isn't a commercially viable amount of music to play, not historical, not current, just not. What kind of poor business decision is it where you all sit around a big table and the big talking head says "all kiwi, all the time" and everyone nods and mumbles. Madness.

The fact that it's costing $300,000 and the 0.4% is probably the WAG's of the DJ staff should indicate the next best business decision they should make, which is pushing the BRB (Big Red Button) and putting everyone out of their misery. This is a minorities station of the wrong sort, and the money would have been better going to student radio stations such as bFM for a slice of their time and a niche show, not some full funded run-around-the-block.

I'm annoyed that this again is a public venture, a for profit venture, one with share-holders behind it, that relies on a public handout to operate, it's not a charity. Or where do I sign up?