National Anthem: 24 hour TV NZ music fundraiserWell, being as oblivious as to what's on commercial TV as always, I totally managed to miss the musical extravaganza that was the National Anthem - a 24 hour musical telethon type thing that was out to raise funds for Mike Chunn's Play it Strange Trust (which is a scheme set up to encourage kids to learn music in schools).

Having been given $5000000 by NZ On Air to help set up the thing, and extra help by TVNZ (it screened on an ad-free TV2 over Saturday and Sunday) also probably worth many hundreds of thousands of dollars, the whole shebang netted, um, just a tad under $150000. Probably not helped by the fact that the main income stream was txting, and that few of the big corporate and community sponsors that jump into the telethon fray weren't present this time around, but, still, as has been pointed out on more than one discussion group, why didn't NZ On Air just give the money straight to Play It Strange?

Of course, half a million bucks to see 24 hours of nearly continuous NZ music is a bargain, really, regardless of what the cause actually was. If someone had put this idea forward 10 years ago, most people would have laughed their heads off at such an idea. "What? A whole day of NZ music on the telly? Where will it come from? Won't Neil Finn get tired after a few hours?" Which just goes to show how far NZ music has come over the last decade - no more cultural cringe, and, even better, the ability to criticise the crap (and we're definitely producing our fair share of turgid mainstream bollocks, just like the rest of the world), instead of proudly declaring every single release by a local as a (rough) gem.

So, by all accounts, it was a mix of the good and the bad. I'd have to concur, without having seen a second of footage, that TVNZ made a horrible mistake by a) having Jacqui Clarke host the Wellington section, and b) having the 'Wellington' section shot out at Avalon studios in the Hutt. What's wrong with hiring people who already do this for a living? NZ's now full of professional VJ/DJs with a good knowledge of nzmusic thanks to Channel Z/b.net/C4 and the like. Why didn't they get some of them in? As Joanna pointed out over on nzmusic.com this morning, the level of presenting was generally so bad as to make the perennially hated Dominic Bowden look good. And having it out at Avalon doomed the Wellington leg to a serious underpopulation issue. As Matt Nippert at Fighting Talk reports: "Upper Hutt Posse performed a call-and-response version of 'E Tu' to complete silence from the studio audience." Ouch.

For those of you who might want an opinion about this event from someone who actually saw it, try dubdotdash, fighting talk, fiona rae [nz herald], and the usual all-over-the-show discussion at nzmusic.com.

And as for the question, will it happen again, I think Russell Brown sums it up best...

There's no reason that TVNZ couldn't collaborate on another show at the St James, say, and bring it live to the nation. When you consider how good this was at times, and how bad TVNZ's recent efforts at in-studio light-ent have been, you'd think it would be the thing to do.

Yes! More of this sort of thing! Less of the Big Night In sort of thing!
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