TVNZ DROP AWARDS COVERAGE

Rip It Up, Issue 212, 1 April 1995, Page 5

TVNZ DROP AWARDS COVERAGE

After initially giving it the thumbs up, Television New Zealand have decided not to screen coverage of the 1995 New Zealand Music Awards.

Auckland company Maxwell Film & Television had entered into a verbal agreement with former TVNZ programming assistant Bettina Hollings to produce the Awards ceremony, that was to screen in primetime on TV2 on Saturday 15 April. Hollings has since left TVNZ to work for rival network TV3, and newly appointed TVNZ programme director Mike Lattin informed Maxwell the ceremony would not be broadcast. Lattin, former Director of Programmes with Australia’s Network 10, was unavailable for comment, but TVNZ Publicity Manager Roger Beaumont insists the Awards were never scheduled to appear. “TVNZ hasn’t actually dropped the Awards, funding for the Awards presentation was turned down by NZ On Air in Wellington, so we understood there would be no ceremony to televise.”

Beaumont claims he wasn’t aware the Recording Industry Association of New Zealand (RIANZ), the governing body of the Awards, had offered to cover the shortfall caused by the lack of NZ On Air funding, but this is denied by Karyn Hay of Maxwell and RIANZ President Terence O’Neill-Joyce. Hay: "It could be possible within a bureaucracy to not know this information, however the truth is, TVNZ, or Bettina Hollings specifically, was aware of it and the programme was scheduled. As an officer of TVNZ, who was at that time responsible for making decisions, Bettina had scheduled the Music Awards and our feeling is that that obligation should have been honoured."

O’Neill-Joyce: “My suggestion is that he should have been aware. The communications all along have been about NZ On Air funding, about Karyn Hay and Annabel Carr from Maxwell putting a package together, about RIANZ funding part of it and about sponsorship from Coke. When NZ On Air funding didn’t come through we undertook to meet the shortfall, that was generally known.” O’Neill-Joyce has been in contact with TVNZ several times since the decision not to screen the Awards was made, but remains unsatisfied with Lattin’s explanation. “No, personally I wasn’t happy but there was very little I could do about it. I expressed that I was disappointed at the very late removal of the

Awards from screening. I just find it extraordinary that in 1995 television is not prepared to be supportive.” While O’Neill-Joyce is hoping TVNZ will devote more screentime to the 1996 New Zealand Music Awards, he’s not holding his breath, and is prepared to explore other avenues. “I don’t think it would be intelligent of me to be optimistic with past history and present attitudes, but don’t misunderstand that as being a lack of resolve to try and get in place something on a more permanent basis. There needs to be a commitment and I’m not going to sit back and wait. As soon as the Awards are over we’ll make a concerted effort to get a commitment, and if it’s not a commitment from them [TVNZ], we’ll certainly attempt to get a commitment from somebody.” Segments of the Awards ceremony will now feature on the new music series Music Nation that will screen on TV2 at 11.30 am on Sundays from April 16. JQHN RUSSELL