Tamati Coffey has talent, NZ not so much

The first question one has to ask is what has TVNZ done to the loved ones of Ricardo Simich and Andy Pickering? I ask because their glowing preview in the NZ Herald could only be explained by the publicist holding their family members captive with the threat of immediate electrification.

After 15mins of NZs Got Talent, I think the $1.6m of NZ on Air money it cost us was $1.5m too much.

Don't get me wrong, I certainly think that TVNZ should be producing good clean simple family TV for Christians, the 7.30pm Sunday timeslot is built for such audiences, and normally some wildlife series voiced by David Attenborough itches this scratch, but talent shows can serve them just as well. My issue is the alarming amount of taxpayer money spent on this.

When you consider that Q&A and The Nation for a year cost us the same as this 3month talent show, some serious questions have to be asked if this is a wise use of precious little cash NZ on Air is given to go beyond the exact same type of populist pap NZ's Got Talent represents.

If this is prime time populist TV, why the hell does it need $1.6 million of taxpayer money that is supposed to be used to fund the type of programming mainstream TV won't fund?

TVNZ made a $14 million profit last year, if they want to programme talent shows, they can knock themselves out, but gobbling up public broadcasting funding for tv they can afford to pay for themselves seems churlish and greedy at the same time.

As for the show, God knows why the lead singer of UB40 is a judge, Rachel is Rachel and I really like the Babysitters Circus so Jason can do no wrong. It's fine at what it does, but $1.6million? It seems more like NZ got scammed.

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