KEY POINTS:
I emerged briefly from the mighty mausoleum that is Radio New Zealand National this week to gather some much-needed supplies for the few living broadcasters still languishing at 171 Hobson St.
Needs are few at this stage of our incarceration, but on a whim I threw a copy of The Listener into our trolley alongside the bottled water and tins of corned beef. How provident it was that I did! My heart sang when I opened the magazine to see that veteran broadcaster Bill Ralston has finally discovered the zombification of RNZ and is using his column inches to tell New Zealand all about it.
Thankfully he chose the magazine in which to break the story, rather than on his radio show, as now there's a chance of more than a dozen people actually hearing it at least.
Jokes aside, what an odd article. Radio New Zealand is boring, according to Bill. Devoid of fun, laughter and life. There are no young people at RNZ. The public broadcaster is dead. And those of us who are left propping up the corpse are so exhausted by our attempts at necromancy that when we do broadcast anything, it's usually "smug, self-righteous and desperately dull". It's the station of the Living Bore, broadcasting, audienceless, into the ether.
As someone who has spent the last seven months on RNZ I couldn't agree less.
I will admit to a degree of trepidation when I started off at Christmas. Radio New Zealand does seem a rather august edifice when stared up at from the rowdy stalls of student radio, where I started.
Besides, a stint in the benighted trenches of overnight talkback had just about robbed me of any enthusiasm for the medium in general. And yet, after a month or so of listening, there was no doubt that the radio that comes out of Hobson St and The Terrace is just as entertaining, and on occasion unpredictable, as that we made at bFM.
The only difference is that at Radio New Zealand the CD library doesn't smell of wee.
Contrary to Bill's assertion, the so-called "ghettos" of youth TV and radio have always been fixtures on the RNZ radar. Where do you think they found me?
As for the charge that RNZ is broadcasting only to itself, I can only conclude that over-exposure to the slow jams and shout-outs of Mai FM have addled Bill's brain.
In the 10 days I have just spent filling in for Jim Mora on "Afternoons" I have presided over a show that has travelled to Nelson, Bluff, Queenstown, Motueka, Moeraki and Murupara so people in these places can tell their stories. We've covered fireworks festivals, oyster fisheries, earthquakes and nonagenarian steamships. And the animal kingdom has not been neglected: we've had Ricky the special-needs monkey and poor old Cheeks the possum in this week alone.
Bill says he's sick of hearing people his own age and over banging on every day on RNZ. No disrespect intended, Bill, but I'm not sure the likes of Bomber Bradbury, comedian Jon Bridges, Emily Perkins, Simon Pound or Sunrise's karaoke king Ali Ikram will appreciate being consigned to your vintage just yet. They're all regulars on our roster of daily panellists on "Afternoons".
My favourite bit of this radio week, though, was when Andrew called up the show to choose a song and ended up proposing to his girl on air. Andrew is an artist who had his 30th birthday last week. His girlfriend hasn't hit the big three-oh yet. Which puts them both squarely in my generation.
These are our listeners at Radio NZ. We know who they are and where they are and what they're doing, because they call us and email us and text us every day to tell us.
We also know how many of them there are, and contrary to Bill's assertion, you can too. All of the information on Radio New Zealand audience research, and how we do our surveys, is on the Radio NZ website.
When I'm on air on RNZ I know I'm broadcasting to a large and disparate group of listeners all over the country. But I never for a moment believe that my audience consists only of the venerable aged, or even just baby boomers like Bill Ralston.
I know this because I'm told this. By people my own age and younger. And just for the record, I'm not 30 yet either.
The idea that Radio New Zealand is an ivory tower wired for sound is a tired old myth that doesn't have much currency any more. Dare I suggest that Bill might be showing his age in continuing to subscribe to it?
