TVNZ 7: Special tonight

At the digital (TVNZ 6 & 7) briefing for TVNZ in the death star this morning. It's a very grey, institutional and solemn, National Library meets Telecom vibe in there, ticking along at its own pace. As for design and communication the only thing you can find in there when you lose your way are posters for Lost.

I was hoping for a little more in the programming area than micro-programmes of interstitials. Busy little cartoons of a minute that seemed to lack creativity in the presentation are not that impressive considering the resources that must be available. Corin Dann's powerpoint refresher courses on economics 101 shouldn't look like they are that - they should look like fun.

Where was the interview show? Where was the arts show? Where was the sci/tech show? These are all obvious genres for TVNZ 7, but no, I can't remember how little they were offering - but those shows were not there. All they have is Russell Brown and Wallace Chapman fronting a show each. And Damien Damian Christie. [changed it - Farrar's all 6s and 7s I'm afraid when it comes to spelling.][-- and I over-looked a Saturday night arts box-tick (as the TV Guide might call it) show called talk/talk with Finlay MacDonald. Sounds a bit wank/wank, but as Sir Roger says — Ho-ho! to all that rubbish. Haven't seen it, couldn't comment. --] That's their flagship shows, all of their shows really. It's got to be more than that in year 2. I didn't hear what I wanted to hear. In France they have interstitial's of interviews with artists about their art - in NZ we have Dann's powerpoint presentation on monetary theory. Where's the effort and the creativity? TVNZ still seems very much the Telecom of broadcasting.

If the digital team are not aggressive in local programming they will risk being cut altogether. I remember the TV4 briefing from TV3 (Canwest back then?) just down the road a decade or so ago - but no TV4 now, it was re-placed. These peripheral overflow/feeder/spoiler channels get chopped and changed at their master's whim. If they don't make an impact they will be slashed. The slow suicide of losing the Freeview exclusivity of 6 & 7 - and therefore the whole brand's exclusivity - to Sky earlier this year at the National broadcasting minister's behest has begun. It makes their fight for survival harder, especially now the Charter is so flavour of last year. NZ Herald: I'm not seeing them roll out any heavy duty programming that will give the digital channels any credibility. This might be because spreading the talent they have beyond the current shows will hurt the big brother channel (where their resources would normally be directed) rather than add any tangible, commercial viability to the complimentary TVNZ 7.

But at least they do themes and specials. This is what good current affairs TV should have. It's on at 9:10pm tonight.

I'm not so sure about the format however. Bill English wasn't participating in an economic discussion as such, he was doing a one-on-one interview with Espiner - on a hook up from parliament. Then a panel of Labour, Green and Act "critique" National. Then an expert panel discuss the economy: two right wingers and a unionist. Pretty narrow really as far as critiques go.

The panels' covered the main bases as best they could in the time and I suppose they don't want to spoil their front man's two hour "summit" at the conclusion of celebrating "spotlighting" National's first year in office by having a forum/debate set up for the first show.

A lot of it was very predictable rhetoric, but the negative tone and angles taken by Cunliffe over foreign investment and his Winstonesque evocation of "New Zealand for New Zealanders" were a startling stance from the shadow Finance Minister in a cabinet that signed off on such instruments as the China Free Trade Agreement. Cunliffe also criticised the Nats for "pushing out the Superannuation bubble" - but it wasn't clear whether he meant the Kiwisaver contributions or the age of entitlement.

The actual Finance Minister was making it clear he would very seriously consider a capital gains tax on second houses. This was welcome news even if it came with this hook of being part of a general tax review. More intriguing was English's "mineralised" comments where he insists we are as blessed as Australia is in minerals - which is quite misleading - helpful to the cause of the mining industry, but quite misleading.

Luckily there was an interview with them on just about the same subjects on Q+A on Sunday, so they had both got some rehearsal. This priming showed. Espiner pitched what have you done for me lately, where is National going question and dutifully got back his infrastructure and productivity answers in response. The most opaque explanations of productivity were given - distilled later on in the panel discussion by Fran O'Sullivan as a jobless recovery where the productivity lessons are not necessarily that investment goes into labour. She reminded us that English's [- or it may have been Don Brash she was referring to, it is hard to tell sometimes] true beliefs are closer to Sir Roger's than he could possibly let on.

Well, I think he was definitely having trouble hiding his approval of partial floats of state assets - he made the rote denials, but he wanted to say yes. English wants the exchange rate to be in the mid 50s to 60c US. Why does he assume, let alone want, a USD exchange rate like that if the value of the USD long term is fucked?

Espiner didn't probe deep enough to get under English's skin on anything except maybe the Crown Research Institutes and the scrapping of the R & D tax credits. English had been spouting on about research and investing and upskilling and adding value etc, but didn't have an answer as to why the Nats have cut back on the thinking part of the equation. All we were left with was the inspiring words that NZ always will be a producer of protein. And we have to be ambitious and go for it like he says in his campaign ads TVNZ 7 promos, but then he had to admit that things were "on hold." That sums it up.