Money for nothin', chicks for free

By WARREN GAMBLE

Six years in one of the world's hottest musical chairs has not dulled Brent Hansen's spark.

The trademark wild mane is greyer, but the 47-year-old New Zealander heading MTV Europe's vast music network still speaks with the bubbling enthusiasm of a fan.

Back home this week for a series of music seminars, Hansen doesn't pretend to have a magic formula for New Zealand success on the world stage.

But that doesn't stop a polite queue forming after his presentation to the Resonate music industry seminar in Auckland.

One hopeful asks if he can send in a video and Hansen hands over his business card.

Later, he estimates a New Zealander is in his London office every two or three days looking for the key to the Big Break.

Advice is about all he can give. As president and chief executive of an entertainment empire which reaches more than 107 million homes, there is little room for sentiment.

He has a strict hands-off policy on programming content, but has fed New Zealand-made demo tapes to the right MTV selection people.

The low-tech television anarchy of Back of the Y is one example that made it through. The antics of "New Zealand's greatest stuntman" Randy Campbell are into their second European series.

"They [the programmers] liked it because it was clever. They make the decision. If they said it was great, but we are going to pass on it, that's fine."

Hansen says he makes a point of seeing New Zealanders because he recognises the luck he had getting into MTV, and the difficulty of making any contact overseas.

"Often having a meeting is such a big thing, just to feel you are getting in the door."

Hansen's "luck" involved a three-and-a-half-hour show reel, including footage of the New Zealand pipe band championships "to show I was well rounded" he posted off to the MTV offices in New York in 1987.

The channel, which has revolutionised the way people experience music, had broadcast its first song, Video Killed the Radio Star, in 1981.

Hansen was only seeking a meeting about the direction of music videos; instead the Americans pointed him towards a job at the fledgling MTV Europe.

Hansen had made his name in New Zealand as the serious-minded, passionate, "sometimes difficult" producer of the iconic 1980s music programme Radio with Pictures.

His television career had begun as a floor sweeper, before he turned his hand to the Do Bee puppet on children's programme Romper Room. Mercifully, he got back to music on That's Country before Radio with Pictures executive producer, musician Peter Blake called him.

With presenter Karyn Hay, Hansen and Blake enjoyed a golden era of television freedom, playing cutting edge local and overseas music videos with scant regard for ratings.

The non-drinking Hansen - Canterbury University pranksters cemented his abstinence by forcing whisky down his throat - prowled through smoky bars looking for new talent.

The programme ended in 1986 after a dispute with the music industry over payment for videos. Hansen and his wife, former television actor and Shazam music presenter Philippa Dann, decided to head overseas.

Dann also found work at MTV as a presenter on their UK channel, but now looks after the couple's two children, daughter Marley (yes, after Bob), aged 11, and Cassidy, 8.


Both already have strong musical opinions. Marley is into the pop of Sugababes and Atomic Kitten; Cassidy "anything with a parental advisory sticker" including Eminem.

Hansen recalls being as definite in his own childhood music tastes. As a six-year-old in Christchurch he listened for hours to a tiny transistor radio under his pillow playing early 1960s hits.

"I remember hearing the Byrds and thinking this is fantastic. For me it wasn't cars, it was music."

But unlike his children growing up with music pouring from a multitude of sources, Hansen says he had to work at being a fan.

By the age of eight he was cycling into Christchurch after school to listen to heavy-duty outdoor concerts or buying records.

He remains a fan, carrying 4000 songs in his pocket-sized digital iPod player.

He mixes professionally with stars like U2's Bono and REM'S Michael Stipe, but shies away from the glitzy trappings of the music industry.

"I don't particularly feel like having another meal of poached salmon and chewing the fat. I would sooner be at home listening to [country singer] Lucinda Williams on my stereo. That's more my idea of fun."

Despite having spent a third of his life in England, and recently signing a new contract, Hansen believes he is more a New Zealander now than he ever was.

His London home is decorated with New Zealand art - Fomison, McCahon, Hammond - and he has a clause in his contract to fly his family back to Christchurch each year.

His expatriate pangs also extend to New Zealand music which he says is "much more literate, much better produced, and confident" than when he left.


In particular he is excited by the Maori and Polynesian sounds from musicians like Che Fu, Nesian Mystik, Rombus, Ill Semantics and Trinity Roots.

Hansen says if he can give any advice to those aspiring for international success, it is "you can't break it from here".

"We will very rarely play something on our channel if it's not in the shops, and it's not going to be supported, or it's not going to be on tour because there are so many people already putting in that work and doing those hard miles."

The Datsuns, the New Zealand garage rockers who have made waves after a sustained presence in the UK, are the perfect example of a band who have "just gone out there and done it".

Hansen says Nesian Mystik's It's On could be a summer hit, but the band needed to be encouraged to play in places like Los Angeles.

He advances another theory that New Zealand music is generally "too good" compared to the formulaic pop supplied to most radio and television stations, making it harder to get airtime.

In the immediate future Hansen will be return to winging his way around Europe, looking at further additions to MTV's 10 regional networks, now including emerging eastern European markets like Poland. There is also an expanding niche market for specialist content like its Base (hip hop) and Dance channels.

There are also the possibilities of the internet to grapple with, and always, being MTV, "we have got to come up with new ideas".

And at the Camden base of the music giant, there is bound to be a Kiwi or two waiting.