Dialogue: Big investment in local music bound to be a hit

By BRENDAN SMYTH*

The Government has announced more funding for New Zealand On Air for its New Zealand music work. Overnight, NZ On Air's annual music budget has virtually doubled to $3.8 million. It is a huge boost, a huge vote of confidence in the future of our music.

NZ On Air's music budget has been hovering around $2 million a year for the past five or so years. That funding has bought us 778 music videos since 1991; 73 hit discs, delivering 1155 songs to every New Zealand radio station since 1993; 296 Radio Hits funding incentives, injecting $1.5 million into local record companies for local record releases since 1993; and thousands of hours a year of local music radio shows on commercial radio stations and on the seven b.net student radio stations.

On top of that, there's been investment over the past two or three years in putting a promoter on the road to work the hit discs, publishing the monthly Fresh Air magazine, doing double-digit awards, and joining in Kiwi Music Action Group projects such as the annual NZ Music Week and NZ Music Showcase.

And it is paying off. On commercial radio - where it counts - local music content has more than doubled in the past three years and is something like five times more than it was five years ago when Australasian Performing Rights Administration estimated that it was barely 2 per cent.

Today it is over 10 per cent. Is that good enough? No. NZ On Air's work will not be done until there is more. We want 20 per cent next. And that's where the Government's decision to double NZ On Air's funding for music comes in.

The Government asked the question: "What more can NZ On Air do to get more New Zealand music on commercial radio?" We drew up a plan - Phase Four - and the Government's answer came in the May announcement.

To answer that question, we have to recognise one fundamental commercial radio reality. Commercial radio plays hits.

If the goal is to get more local music on commercial radio, we need more hits. To get more hit records, we must work both sides of the music and marketing equation.

But NZ On Air cannot create hit records on its own. We can do it only by partnering record companies and backing the record companies' efforts.

We must encourage the record companies to invest more in more New Zealand music and together we must put more marketing muscle behind our music. That way the effort is concentrated and concerted.

It is more important than ever with radio quotas coming - voluntary or otherwise - that we invest in creating the hit records that will feed the quota. Commercial radio will need those hit records.

That is what the Government did. At the heart of the Phase Four plan is a $1 million investment in making and marketing new music - music that has what it takes to make it on commercial radio.

Under the Phase Four plan, we will offer contestable funding for the international marketing of albums that have first proved successful on the home front. We will do four projects a year. We will contribute $50,000 a project to match $50,000 from the record company.

International success will encourage the record company to continue to invest in those artists, and that in turn will give us more radio hits.

Under Phase Four we will also offer contestable funding for the recording of 12 or more new albums a year by bands with proven commercial radio airplay credentials.

The aim here is to make hit records at home by making better records and better marketing those records - better production values and better promotion.

These last two schemes, making a dozen new albums a year and investing in four major international marketing projects a year, deal with what we might call the elite commercial artists - the Stellars, the feelers, the Shihads, the Deep Obsessions.

We make no apology for that. We need our champions. But we can't leave it there.

Under the Phase Four plan we will also fund recording projects by new bands with the potential for commercial radio airplay through a new recording artists' scheme. We will fund at least 40 new recording artist projects - singles or EPs - at $5000 apiece a year. That way we will help to replenish the reservoir and refresh the repertoire.

Think of it this way. In countless bedrooms around the country, children dream of being in a band and making the pages of Billboard magazine.

Take the Bic Runga story. From the 17-year-old Cashmere High School girl entering the high school rock quest, through a multi-platinum New Zealand album, through to the American Pie soundtrack.

It's a long, hard road from the bedroom to Billboard. It takes the talent of Bic Runga, the faith of Sony Music and, most importantly, investment to make the project happen. We want to help to increase that investment, and to create radio hits.

Let's ensure that New Zealand music saturates the airwaves, dominates the charts and excites our people. Let's make hits.

* Brendan Smyth is the NZ On Air music manager.