Bill Ralston on TVNZ’s schizophrenia

Sep 9, 2007 at 10:48 PM
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I see former TVNZ news boss Bill Ralston has a column in the Irish newspaper, The New Zealand Herald, and dissed politicians for affecting the network’s culture.
All I can say is: I told you so.
Anyone want to link all of this back to the dawn of Rogernomics? (“Hat tip” to Robert Catto.)

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Before 1986 I remember NZ kids TV being brilliant - post 1986 crap.

I also remember watching TV when I first came to the UK in 1999 and thinking how behind they were with some of the US programming - things must have really changed.

I would say so. The big hit here is a localized version of the American game show Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?, which has started over the weekend. Even in 1999, we were still making our own stuff and exporting it—Popstars, from what I remember, was a Kiwi show that got licensed everywhere.
The production values on The Kids from OWL, Count Homogenised, Shark in the Park and Terry and the Gunrunners may have been less than ideal, but we stuck with our own. Now that the production values are on a par with the imports—thanks in no small part to producers like Chris Hampson—these shows are buried in weird timeslots, Outrageous Fortune being the notable exception on TV3.
I don’t think we are terribly behind on American programmes. They continue to be the mainstream fodder. Just that we now have had a taste of Kiwi excellence, it’s hard to accept inferior imports.

I think there is a comparative show here in the UK called Are you smarter than a 10 year old?

On Friday afternoons in the early 80s After School used to have a movie afternoon and they were these fantastic, intelligent childrens films mostly from Europe. I think that stopped once SOE version of TVNZ started.

Thanks to Vox crashing, I just lost a big reply. In summary form this time.
After School films. UFO, Hobbit, Lion, Witch, Wardrobe, Dudu.
BBC a better example due to constitution which has educational element. NZ needs co-production deals like Police Rescue which have export potential, rather than cheap crap.
Are You Smarter show called the same here.

I know a lot of things that a 10 year-old wouldn't know! :lol: Although after watching the US version (5th grader) I'm amaized that adults aren't better at geogrpahy and history.

The show’s questions are not the fairest, however. Give us questions on arithmetic, spelling and the subjects we had and watch us beat the kids.
Even I could answer some of the US history ones and I am not an American!

Bill Ralston on TVNZ’s schizophrenia

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