ROCK TV

Rip It Up, Issue 1, 1 June 1977, Page 15

ROCK TV

Alan Galbraith Slams TV

Beyond the mere famine of rock on TV, some people have expressed serious doubts about the way local television has presented rock music when it has put it on the box. Alan Galbraith is well known in the entertainment business. A record producer, manager, and occasional TV personality, he voices concern about the way TV in New Zealand has approached rock music. As he sees it, TV has approached the music not on its ground but by trying to force rock into an homogenised format. "What they've done is to stick to a format of shows which Kevan Moore did very successfully ten years ago and they haven't budged since. They get hold of an entertainer with a reasonable amount of talent and offer them television work which they say will promote you. They don’t pay you anything to speak of and you do it because it will promote you. "But promote you for what? They turn you into the average New Zealand television performer and they all come out looking the same. It’s criminal.

"No one s allowed to go on and do what they do best. Artist’s whove had an original image have had it drummed out of them as soon as

they got onto TV. Original singers are turned into all-round entertainers. You could have a totally original act, but you don’t do that. You do it the way they want you to do it and they just don’t know." Alan Galbraith, however, doesn't totally blame TV for their lack of imagination in presenting music. "To some extent TV does come in at the end of things. At the moment, there’s just too few people going out and putting on an entertaining show, and there has got to be a vital live entertainment scene for TV to pick up on. I mean you could count-on the fingers of one hand the people who ve tried to put on a show Dragon, Split Enz, Mark Williams . . . but who else?

"But it still seems that there’s just a lack of creative control and ability in television light entertainment. They just don’t seem to be able to look at someone who is an original talent and say that it’s worth us pushing that along and I believe that that sort of thinking has caused a real problem in our entertainment scene. "Television to me has been one of the prime instigators in the ruining of the local entertainment scene. They should really be ashamed of themselves."