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?

Funding and Self-Sustaining organizations

This is the 9th Annual Fashion week in Auckland. But the organizers were saying this year was hard since they found it difficult to come up with funding to stage the event.

Excuse me? If this is such a stunning event of significance shouldn't it be self-funding from receipts and charges?

If it's not then what's the point of having a commercial event?

This is the same week that some jobsworth has decided that sports clubs can't receive donations from charitable trusts (pub poker machines) because in essence they are not charitable organizations. Poker Machines prop up the racing "industry" another unsustainable past-time.

Sports clubs though? What do they do with the money. For as long as I've been having my child play sports it's been fees for this, fees for kits, fees for travel, fees to go tournament, club fees, you name it it goes on. And they are not minority sports.

By and large they use council owned facilities, and have dubious facilities at best, assembled in the roaring 70's mostly.

Sure you need sponsorships, you'd be a nut-bar if you thought 6,000 gate tickets pays for 25 professional rugby players and as many back-room staff.

But it's always struck me as ironic that something that is clearly commercial often calls for government cash to support it, if it really was that important then wouldn't it fund itself. I'd be willing to bet Cirque Du Soleil, WWE, U2, Simon and Garfunkel et al. all made a commercial killing. Why would they come otherwise.

Then on the other hand NZRFU have already chalked up negative $30 million for the right to host the world cup. And we'll end up with a white elephant in the middle of a urban centre- still it'll be nice for the 6000 faithfull every other week to watch from the Gods their professional athletes. Won't it.