Let me give you a specific example of the sort of largesse we are seeing.
Some of that aforementioned $15 million has gone to New Zealand on Air, who already have millions to put into what appear to be increasingly bizarre and unsuccessful ventures.
The Spinoff TV would be a good example.
Spinoff TV comes out of the Spinoff website, which is a venture run by young angstys with a fairly obvious left-leaning bend.
I have no idea whether they make money, but that's not my concern because it's a private venture, and I admire their desire to have a crack at modern media.
Where I do come in, is as a taxpayer who has in part funded them to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars to make a TV show.
A TV show that is crap, and failing, and is a complete waste of money, and has just been moved to a graveyard shift to get it out of the way.
Now I haven't seen the show, and in that is the irony.
Part of what the Spinoff website does is review media, and one of their senior writers can occasionally be also found in the Herald spouting his views on what's good and what's not.
I have always viewed the reviewer as a complete waste of time, especially given most of them aren't clever in their writing, have a tired old agenda that favours "quality" programming", and most importantly of all, they've never actually made any TV themselves.
They know everything and yet don't actually have a clue.
Until now. The reason their TV show is crap is because the numbers are a disaster.
Even the Herald review recently panned it, and these are the same sort of people that run the Spinoff website. They're all mates, all of a certain age and ilk.
The review quite cleverly said it's like being a parent watching your kid perform at the school play. You simply say nothing, and that's what they're saying about Spinoff TV.
Nothing, because it's a dog.
I can say that because what really counts in broadcasting is not opinion but numbers.
You have to have the numbers, and they don't. And if you don't, you fail.
And what's worse is they're failing with our money.
And they were always going to fail with our money because the idea was mad to start with, and there clearly isn't any filter between a mad idea, and New Zealand on Air, and poor execution to save us from flushing a fortune down the drain. And there needs to be.
New Zealand on Air is not a job scheme, or shouldn't be. And TV is not a play yard.
You want to make TV? You want to make important TV? You want to make quality TV? Try doing it with your own money not ours.
And next time they write a review at least they'll have an insight into just how hard it is to be good.
