The video above is the annual Christmas broadcast by King Charles III, the King of New Zealand (and other places). As is usually the case, I didn’t see the message broadcast on New Zealand television, though I assume it was (I was at our family Crhistmas gathering at the time), however, I didn’t check that. At any rate, I’ve been sharing the royal messages every year for more than a decade.
I’ve never been a fan of the religiosity that the royal messages have always contained, something they do because the UK monarch is head of the Church of England (aka Anglican Church). But I’m not even remotely religious, and only a minority of New Zealanders are Anglican—actually, people who say they have any religious identification now make up a minority of New Zealanders, the majority of whom now identify as “Nones”, something I talked about last year. Still, it’s traditional for the monarch to talk about the UK’s homegrown brand of Christianity, and, of course, what I think about it is irrelevent.
These TV broadcast messages are also a tradition themselves, dating back some 68 years. As long as they (and this blog…) continue, I’ll keep sharing them. That, too, is now a tradition.
Previously:
The King's Christmas Broadcast 2024
The King's Christmas Broadcast 2023
The King’s first Christmas Broadcast – 2022 (oddly, the video is no longer available, but the post has my commentary about it.
The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast 2021
The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast 2020
The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast 2019
The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast 2018
The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast 2017 (and 1957, too…)
The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast 2016
The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast 2015
Previous years’ broadcasts are no longer available.
Showing posts with label Television. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Television. Show all posts
Friday, December 26, 2025
Tuesday, December 16, 2025
Flying in from the past
Tonight I saw a new Air New Zealand commercial on TV (video above). It was a new version of an ad that was running on TV when I arrived in New Zealand 30 years ago (a version is in the video at the bottom of this post). I was already in love with Nigel, of course, but that ad? It extended the love to New Zealand, too.
Both ads use the traditional song “PÅkarekare Ana”, which was composed sometime in 1914, and it’s essentially a love song. Some scenes in the new version are reminiscent of ones in the 1990s ad, with some influences form their c2000 ad (about which more in a bit).
The 1990s and current ad are both effective at creating an emotional response, particularly for New Zealanders, who are the primary target of the ads. They certainly work for me, anyway. It’s the scenery combined with the song and the arrangement of it. But I always thought that the birds coming together to form the Air New Zealand logo at the end of the 1990s ad was especially magical.
Here’s the 1990s version:
Between the two versions I liked was the circa 2000 ad (at the bottom of this post, and it’s the longest version, and so, seldom aired). That ad didn’t move me. I think the difference was that the 2000s ad was about New Zealand connecting with the world and vice versa, and so, it was less focussed on New Zealand. That’s neither good nor bad, just a difference, and, I think, the reason I didn’t like it as much as the other two. Having said that, I wasn’t a fan of the key change in the middle of the song in that version, but it may have only been in the long version—I honestly can’t remember.
The tagline is different in all three versions, too. In the 1990s, it was “Air New Zealand. The airline of the world’s greatest travellers.” In the circa 2000 ad, it was “Air New Zealand. The world’s warmest welcome.” And in the current version, the tagline is, “Of New Zealand. For New Zealand. Air New Zealand.” Given New Zealand’s bad economy of the past few years, and the fact that the United States now seems hostile to foreign tourists, maybe it;s a good idea to centre the current ad on New Zealand, and to do so while offering “all the feels”. In my opinion.
Finally, the lyrics of the part when they soar to sing were stronger than I expected: E hine e / hoki mai ra. / Ka mate ahau / I te aroha e. In English, that’s “Oh girl / return to me, / I could die / of love for you. I knew the song was a love song, likely written about soldiers heading off to fight in World War One, but it’s also a quintessentially New Zealand song, and that’s the context I first connected with it (I didn’t read the lyrics, especially the translation, until many years later).
This new ad reminded me so much of an ad I fell in love with when New Zealand was still new to me—and me to New Zealand, for that matter. That 1990s ad really was a small part of what gave me an emotional connection to the country, and the new ad reminded me of that, too. It’s nice when that happens.
Both ads use the traditional song “PÅkarekare Ana”, which was composed sometime in 1914, and it’s essentially a love song. Some scenes in the new version are reminiscent of ones in the 1990s ad, with some influences form their c2000 ad (about which more in a bit).
The 1990s and current ad are both effective at creating an emotional response, particularly for New Zealanders, who are the primary target of the ads. They certainly work for me, anyway. It’s the scenery combined with the song and the arrangement of it. But I always thought that the birds coming together to form the Air New Zealand logo at the end of the 1990s ad was especially magical.
Here’s the 1990s version:
Between the two versions I liked was the circa 2000 ad (at the bottom of this post, and it’s the longest version, and so, seldom aired). That ad didn’t move me. I think the difference was that the 2000s ad was about New Zealand connecting with the world and vice versa, and so, it was less focussed on New Zealand. That’s neither good nor bad, just a difference, and, I think, the reason I didn’t like it as much as the other two. Having said that, I wasn’t a fan of the key change in the middle of the song in that version, but it may have only been in the long version—I honestly can’t remember.
The tagline is different in all three versions, too. In the 1990s, it was “Air New Zealand. The airline of the world’s greatest travellers.” In the circa 2000 ad, it was “Air New Zealand. The world’s warmest welcome.” And in the current version, the tagline is, “Of New Zealand. For New Zealand. Air New Zealand.” Given New Zealand’s bad economy of the past few years, and the fact that the United States now seems hostile to foreign tourists, maybe it;s a good idea to centre the current ad on New Zealand, and to do so while offering “all the feels”. In my opinion.
Finally, the lyrics of the part when they soar to sing were stronger than I expected: E hine e / hoki mai ra. / Ka mate ahau / I te aroha e. In English, that’s “Oh girl / return to me, / I could die / of love for you. I knew the song was a love song, likely written about soldiers heading off to fight in World War One, but it’s also a quintessentially New Zealand song, and that’s the context I first connected with it (I didn’t read the lyrics, especially the translation, until many years later).
This new ad reminded me so much of an ad I fell in love with when New Zealand was still new to me—and me to New Zealand, for that matter. That 1990s ad really was a small part of what gave me an emotional connection to the country, and the new ad reminded me of that, too. It’s nice when that happens.
Monday, April 21, 2025
The weird holiday weekend
Today is Easter Monday, a public holiday in New Zealand, and the conclusion of a four-day holiday weekend. It’s also the weirdest holiday weekend. Still.
I wasn’t originally going to say anything about it this year, especially because I pretty much said all I wanted to in a post on Easter Monday last year, especially my criticism of the wacky and very confusing trading ban rules (most shops are supposed to be closed on Good Friday and Easter Sunday, even though Easter isn’t a public holiday, and no TV ads can be broadcast on either of those days, or Christmas Day, not until after noon on Anzac Day and every Sunday. There’s since been an update to to something I said in that post last year, especially about the ad bans. I wrote:
I still think the trading bans should be removed from Good Friday and Easter, not the least because New Zealand is now majority “no religion”, but mostly because those holidays don’t have the same sort of traditions like family gatherings that Christmas Day does (the other all-day holiday with a trading ban, plus Anzac Day morning has a trading ban, too). So I’m fine with keeping the ban on trading Christmas Day, but the trading bans on Good Friday and Easter Sunday seem silly to me. At the very least, the TV advertising bans should be ended, and maybe they finally soon will be.
I wasn’t originally going to say anything about it this year, especially because I pretty much said all I wanted to in a post on Easter Monday last year, especially my criticism of the wacky and very confusing trading ban rules (most shops are supposed to be closed on Good Friday and Easter Sunday, even though Easter isn’t a public holiday, and no TV ads can be broadcast on either of those days, or Christmas Day, not until after noon on Anzac Day and every Sunday. There’s since been an update to to something I said in that post last year, especially about the ad bans. I wrote:
The current broadcasting minister, a former TV show host of dubious ability as a minister, has blandly promised a re-write of the [Broadcasting] Act (written way before the Internet or streaming services were a thing), but given the chaos under our current three-ring circus coalition government, I doubt it’ll actually happen. I think that ending the ad bans ought to be done as quickly as possible: They make absolutely no sense, deny NZ broadcasters revenue that foreigners still get, and has nothing whatsoever to do with New Zealand workers and days off.The first update is that the Media Minister I wrote about was sacked only a few weeks after my post (apparently I’m very influential…). Then, in December of last year, her replacement as Media Minister announced that the government would introduce legislation to allow TV advertising on Sundays and public holidays, because the ad bans don’t apply to streaming services (like YouTube) or to radio, meaning broadcast TV is losing money that other media providers can still get. The Minister told RNZ in the linked article,"Traditional media outlets are operating in an extremely difficult environment and as the government, we must ensure regulatory settings are enabling the best chance of success." Indeed. He also said it “could generate approximately $6 million for the industry” which doesn’t sound like much to me. Even so, I think that’s absolutely the right thing to do—though the government hasn’t yet actually passed the bill.
I still think the trading bans should be removed from Good Friday and Easter, not the least because New Zealand is now majority “no religion”, but mostly because those holidays don’t have the same sort of traditions like family gatherings that Christmas Day does (the other all-day holiday with a trading ban, plus Anzac Day morning has a trading ban, too). So I’m fine with keeping the ban on trading Christmas Day, but the trading bans on Good Friday and Easter Sunday seem silly to me. At the very least, the TV advertising bans should be ended, and maybe they finally soon will be.
Tuesday, December 31, 2024
Ask Arthur 2024, Part 4: Miscellaneous and me
Today’s questions are all from Roger Green. First up:
What TV services do you currently have (streaming, network)? How many are free?
New Zealand has two main broadcast companies. First, and largest overall, is New Zealand government-owned Television New Zealand (TVNZ). It has three broadcast channels: TV1, TV2, and Duke. They also have a streaming service, TVNZ+, that I’ll talk more about soon.
The other main broadcaster is Warner Bros. Discovery New Zealand (WBD), the local operation of the global US corporation. They have TV3, HGTV, Bravo, Eden, and Rush.
All broadcast television is done through a service called Freeview, a digital free-to-air broadcast service. There are two versions; One uses satellite, which transmits standard definition programming using the same satellite as pay-TV operator Sky Television. The other version—the one I use—is HD over UHF.
There’s already talk about shutting off the ground-based transmitters in the 2030s, but this wouldn’t necessarily change anything but the delivery: Satellite transmission could remain, and there could be a version streaming over the Internet. In fact, the rapid growth of streaming services is precisely why the industry is in discussions to shut down the ground-based transmitters.
And that brings me to streaming services.
I use TVNZ+ a lot. It began as a way for me to watch TVNZ broadcasts that I’d missed, and since then my use has expanded to include TV series like Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, for example (NZ doesn’t have Paramount+, though Australia apparently does). They also have a good collection of TV series that haven’t been shown in New Zealand, movies, and all sorts of other programming. TVNZ+ is a free ad-supported service, with one minute ad breaks at the start and then roughly every half hour afterward.
Similarly, WBD has a free streaming service called ThreeNOW that includes much of the programming from the company’s broadcast channels, and, I presume other programming not broadcast. I don’t actually know what’s on it because I never use the service, though it’s not because of what’s on it or not on it, it’s just that I find that the amount of programming I could watch on all the various services greatly exceeds my time (and patience) to watch it.
I have one streaming service I pay for—Disney+—though I don’t watch that anywhere near as much as a I should (since I pay for it)—and I probably would if the amount of programming I might watch didn’t greatly exceed my time (and patience) to watch it (a recurring theme).
I used to subscribe to UK streaming service History Hit, a documentary channel, but I changed credit cards and couldn’t figure out how to update my details, which was probably just as well: At the time I engaged in austerity measures and started cancelling all “unnecessary” subscriptions. Still, if I wasn’t overwhelmed with options of things to watch, maybe I’d have kept it?
Having said all that, the streaming service I watch more than any other—by far—is YouTube, and I have the free version and all its many (many) ads. I’ve thought about paying so I don’t have to watch all the bloody ads, but so far I’m not willing to add any paid services, particularly when I feel I’m overwhelmed by all the options of things to watch (I said it was a recurring theme…). At any rate, what I like about YouTube is that the videos are usually short—a half hour or less (in my case, usually much less), and that suits my way-too-short attention span nicely.
Next up, Roger also asked:
Do you think doing quizzes would increase the output of your blog? Also are we going to get more podcasts in 2025 from Arthur? Will we hear 2political next year?
Well, yes, actually. In fact, a month os so ago I started putting aside quiz-like memes and meme-like Facebook posts from friends that I thought I’d alter and answer here, mainly as a springboard for further discussion. They might suit a weekend best, and since I like word play like alliteration, I’m thinking I may call them, I don’t know, something like “Saturday Stealing”. Dunno.
There will definitely be more AmeriNZ podcasts in 2025, maybe even on a regular schedule again. Because it’s always been about whatever’s on my mind when I sit down to record, it’s not something I can easily plan ahead. Maybe that’s part of why I still do it. Still, I never stop tinkering with it, so there will probably be some of that, too.
As for 2Political, Jason and I talked vaguely about resurrecting it, though not in any kid of depth or detail. The website is gone because I allowed is end when the contract ran out. It had somehow become borked (possibly from a hack or maybe the unintended consequence of a plugin update—I have no idea what happened. Whatever it was that went wrong, even I couldn’t access the site any more, and by then we hadn’t posted anything for a couple years, anyway, so it was best to let it go. However, I still own the domain so if we choose to revive it, it’s just be a case of setting up a new home for it.
I also haven’t (definitely) ruled my reviving my forgotten child, my YouTube Channel, so there may be something about that in the new year, too. Or not. Part of the reason so much is in a fluid state is that I’m unsure about my AmeriNZ branding. I’ve spend more than two decades building it (which is a strong argument for keeping it), but after the US elections, I began to seriously question whether I wanted to create a different brand, one perhaps more appropriate for my current stage of life and the many changed realities that involves. We’ll see.
Speaking of blogging, Roger asked:
Are are you going to pose any questions to Roger when he does his Ask Roger Anything in December? (You can think about your question now; you don't even have to wait until then to offer it.)
Yes. In fact, I already did, though I was a bit late to the party because it’s such a busy time of the year (that’s the particular truth I decided to cling to).
I was amused by Roger saying on that post, “Running a daily blog involves talking to oneself, so having you talk to him is much more enjoyable and far less schizophrenic.” The humour for me wasn’t because of the necessary pondering whether writing about oneself in the third person might be an indication of schizophrenia, but, rather, because what he said is so very true. Although, it’s not like Arthur would know, of course, because he hasn’t run a daily blog in several years.
Thanks to Roger for today’s questions—and thanks to him and Sherry for all the questions in this year’s series. Thanks, too, to everyone who’s read even part of this year’s series. I hope 2025 creates plenty of opportunities for everything good—including new questions at the end of the year.
Thanks again!
All posts in this series are tagged “AAA-24”. All previous posts from every “Ask Arthur” series are tagged, appropriately enough, ”Ask Arthur”.
Previously in the 2024 series:
”Let the annual inquisition begin for 2024” – The first post in this year’s series.
”Ask Arthur 2024, Part 1: Pardon?4”
”Ask Arthur 2024, Part 2: An Orange hue”
”Ask Arthur 2024, Part 3: Racism and change”
Thursday, December 26, 2024
The King's Christmas Broadcast 2024
Just like last year, I didn’t see the broadcast of the King’s Christmas Broadcast (video above), though I know it was broadcast in New Zealand on Christmas Day because a friend mentioned watching it. I checked on YouTube after I got home last night, but, also like last year, it wasn’t posted yet. I watched it this morning, and found out that it had been posted in the wee hours of the night NZ time, well after I'd gone to bed.
I thought that King Charles did a good a job, and the video itself was well-made. The late Queen used to to mix up the video a bit from time to time, which was nice, so it’s good to see the King continuing that. Because the monarch is the head of the Church of England, some amount of religiosity is probably pretty much mandatory, but I’m impressed that the King, while talking about the Christian Christmas story and even a hymn, also mentioned people with “no religion”. Overall, I think his tone is pretty much on point: Religious for the religious, while acknowledging that not everyone is religious.
I thought the King handled the talk of peace as directly as he could without taking a political position on and of the any wars, something monarchs aren't allowed to do (that’s the job of the elected government). Despite that constraint, he nevertheless was able to stress the importance of peace.
I noted last year that the King “seemed more relaxed and at ease in front of the camera than his late mother did”, and that’s still true, but I’ve also noticed that his manor overall is much less formal than his mother’s was—one might even say he often seems like a regular person. The video has several scenes of the King being hugged, and I simply cannot even imagine ever seeing anyone, and certainly not a subject, hugging the late Queen (though I'm sure some folks would have liked to). Speaking of which, part of the video montage near the end shows the NZ women’s rugby team giving the King a group hug, and at the time, he seemed genuinely pleased to get the hug.
I haven’t seen these messages on TV every year, but then I watch them on YouTube instead, and would even if I didn’t share them here. Maybe it’s because I never saw the annual broadcast until I moved to New Zealand, but, as I said last year, “I’m still fascinated by them, as bits of contemporary history, and for 28 years, a bit of my own, too.” Make that 29 years.
Previously:
The King's Christmas Broadcast 2023
The King’s first Christmas Broadcast – 2022 (oddly, the video is no longer available, but the post has my commentary about it.
The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast 2021
The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast 2020
The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast 2019
The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast 2018
The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast 2017 (and 1957, too…)
The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast 2016
The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast 2015
Previous years’ broadcasts are no longer available.
I thought that King Charles did a good a job, and the video itself was well-made. The late Queen used to to mix up the video a bit from time to time, which was nice, so it’s good to see the King continuing that. Because the monarch is the head of the Church of England, some amount of religiosity is probably pretty much mandatory, but I’m impressed that the King, while talking about the Christian Christmas story and even a hymn, also mentioned people with “no religion”. Overall, I think his tone is pretty much on point: Religious for the religious, while acknowledging that not everyone is religious.
I thought the King handled the talk of peace as directly as he could without taking a political position on and of the any wars, something monarchs aren't allowed to do (that’s the job of the elected government). Despite that constraint, he nevertheless was able to stress the importance of peace.
I noted last year that the King “seemed more relaxed and at ease in front of the camera than his late mother did”, and that’s still true, but I’ve also noticed that his manor overall is much less formal than his mother’s was—one might even say he often seems like a regular person. The video has several scenes of the King being hugged, and I simply cannot even imagine ever seeing anyone, and certainly not a subject, hugging the late Queen (though I'm sure some folks would have liked to). Speaking of which, part of the video montage near the end shows the NZ women’s rugby team giving the King a group hug, and at the time, he seemed genuinely pleased to get the hug.
I haven’t seen these messages on TV every year, but then I watch them on YouTube instead, and would even if I didn’t share them here. Maybe it’s because I never saw the annual broadcast until I moved to New Zealand, but, as I said last year, “I’m still fascinated by them, as bits of contemporary history, and for 28 years, a bit of my own, too.” Make that 29 years.
Previously:
The King's Christmas Broadcast 2023
The King’s first Christmas Broadcast – 2022 (oddly, the video is no longer available, but the post has my commentary about it.
The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast 2021
The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast 2020
The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast 2019
The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast 2018
The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast 2017 (and 1957, too…)
The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast 2016
The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast 2015
Previous years’ broadcasts are no longer available.
Monday, December 23, 2024
My 2024 Christmas Ad Playlist has been updated
My annotated post of my ”2024 New Zealand Christmas TV Ads” playlist has been updated: Last night I added two ads that hadn’t been running, as far as I know, until recently (Numbers 5 and 6 on the 2024 playlist). I found more ads because I again searched on YouTube for any ads I’ve seen on TV since I posted the playlist. This mystifies me: If a company’s goal is to get as many people as possible to see an ad, wouldn’t it make sense to post videos of the ads to a site as widely accessible as You Tube is? Apparently not. My original post is also updated to include my annotations about the ads. To get to the Playlist, simply follow the link above.
Saturday, December 07, 2024
2024 New Zealand Christmas TV Ads
New Zealand's Christmas TV advertising has been a bit odd this year. The first one I saw (Number 1 below) was aired on or about October 25—around a week before Halloween. That sort of early start to Christmas TV ads isn’t unusual—for example, the first ad I saw last year also started airing before Halloween. I still think that’s far too early for any Christmas ads, however, the economy’s been horrible, so I expected an avalanche of Christmas ads—and then nothing happened.
Other ads started (very) slowly popping up, but there have been very few ads specifically for Christmas, and several that are (more or less…) haven’t been uploaded to YouTube, at least not yet. The key thing is that the ads must be on the company’s official website, because I learned when I made 2022’s playlist that ads that aren’t posted to official YouTube Channels are more likely be deleted (that happened to ad number 7 that year). However, even official videos can be removed or made private (as happened to Number 2 on last year’s playlist). Whenever an ad is removed/unlisted, I have to remove it from the playlist or the playback of the playlist will stop when it gets to that point, which I think is pretty dumb, actually. In any case, I just delete the removed ad from the playlist and it plays normally—and I don’t get the big black “Video unavailable” box where a video once was, as happened frequently when I used to post individual ads. Sure, playlists are a bit more work, and sometimes, like this year, posting a playlist may be delayed while I wait for ads to be posted on official YouTube channels (if they are…), but despite all that, I still think it’s the best option.
As always, I compiled this year’s Christmas ad playlist in the order that I first saw the ads on TV, and if any of the other ads posted later on, I’ll add them to the playlist and the descriptions below. And, of course, if any are deleted, I’ll update the playlist and this post.
The criteria: Ads must must be airing on New Zealand television (not merely online or on social media or whatever). Second, they have to be New Zealand companies, or companies that are connected to New Zealand. This is because international ads might be seen in many countries, though our ads aren’t necessarily seen elsewhere. Finally, as I said, the ads must be on an official YouTube Channel, not one belonging to third parties.
A warning: Just like in past years, the annotations below include spoilers, which I mention in case you want to watch the videos first. All that out of the way, here’s a bit more about the videos, all of which are, as I said, in the order I first saw them on TV:
1. “Give a Gift That Unleashes Theirs | Spark Christmas 2024” – Spark NZ. This ad is for Spark NZ, one of the largest mobile phone (etc…) companies in New Zealand. When I first saw this ad around October 25 (!), I didn’t realise it was a Christmas ad. I was making dinner, and that's a time I don’t pay close attention to ads if I see them at all: Many nights I only hear ads because I’m busy in the kitchen. I suppose I should’ve realised what it was right away, since the first scene has a woman wrapping a present, but the surreal animation (which reminded me of the work of artist Peter Max) kind of threw me off—until I actually paid attention to the ad. This ad is much more subtle than other Christmas ads from the company, but I kind of like the laid-back vibe. [Full disclosure: At the moment, I’m a Spark NZ customer.]
2. “New World Christmas 2024 - 30” – New World. This ad is one of my two favourite Christmas ads this year. New World is owned by one of two supermarket companies in New Zealand, and the only one that’s New Zealand-owned (each store is individually owned, and together they’re part of a cooperative). This year’s ad is part of their “find your wonderful” series of ads, and I think it hits all the right emotions for Christmas, and is a truly heartwarming ad. I think it works especially well because it’s not centred on folks shopping in their supermarket, but instead focuses on the human connection to the food (and each other) that the supermarket helps facilitate. It creates subtle positive vibes about New World without smacking viewers in the face with “Buy! Buy! Buy!” messaging, and this year's approach is actually more likely to make viewers feel good about shopping there because who doesn’t want to feel a connection with our loved ones? A very well done ad.
A bit of trivia: The theme song used ad series (that’s played in the background in part of the ad), is sung by a young woman who actually worked at New World and was picked when the company was looking for a singer to record the song. [Full disclosure: I shop at both New World and Australian-owned Woolworths.]
3. “Feels like Christmas at Woolworths” – Woolworths NZ. This is an ad for Australian-owned supermarket chain Woolworths (formerly called Countdown in New Zealand, but since rebranded to match the branding in Australia). This ad is part of their “Fresh food feeling” series of ads, many of which highlight New Zealand farm-grown produce sold by Woolworths, and the centring of this ad on a farm is in keeping with that, as is the shot of a Woolworths truck leaving the farm. However, the down-home wholesome family farm feeling is a slight departure for the company’s ads—and I think it’s extremely well done. The ad is cute, reinforces the other ads in the series, and in particular the “Fresh food feeling” message. Most import for a Christmas ad, it has an actual connection to the holiday, one that’s appropriate for the business Countdown is in. What I said about New World’s Christmas ad (Second on this year’s list), is equally true about this ad, that it’s “not centred on folks shopping in their supermarket, but instead focuses on the human connection to the food (and each other) that the supermarket helps facilitate.” All of which is why this is my other favourite for this year. [Full disclosure: I shop at both Woolworths and New Zealand-owned New World.]
A bit of trivia: The central North Island town of Ohakune is known colloquially as “the carrot capital of New Zealand”, and the town features a giant carrot, which, the Wikipedia article on the town says, “is reputedly the world's largest model carrot”. When I think of carrots, I really do associate them with Ohakune.
4. “Let the Magic Find You This Christmas #AirNZXmas” – Air New Zealand. Air New Zealand starts their Christmas TV advertising a little later than many others (usually somewhere around the beginning of December), and that’s fine with me! This year’s ad is more focused on the airline as an airline than some other years have been, and I think the surreal magic taking place aboard the plane is, well, magical—as a good Christmas should be. I bet “certain people” will be saying “Bah! Humbug!” when they see the Christmas ornament emblazoned with “Meri Kirihimete”, but one can hope that their grinchy hearts might grow three sizes (metaphorically speaking) that day, and that they can, ya know, get over it.
This isn’t exactly trivia, but a bit of a fact check for other kinds of “certain people”. The kid's seat back screen shows that the magical flight is from San Francisco to Auckland, and the date of arrival is listed as “Dec 26”, which is why the mother says to the son, “I promise we won’t miss Christmas next year,” and the flight attendant sees the sad boy, and the cabin crew launches into magic making—with all of them waiting until it officially becomes December 25 on board, meaning the plane took off on December 24. So, they lost a day? YES! It happened to me: When I flew to New Zealand to live, I took off on October 31, 1995 and arrived on November 2, 1995—I had NO November 1, 1995 (something I wrote about back in 2012). So, while the ad depicts a magical trip, that doesn’t include magically altering time. However, people doubting that the passengers would ever all be asleep at the same time do have a point—it’s magic!
Some possible trivia: In the past, Air New Zealand always used actual employees in ads and safety videos. I don’t know if that’s true for this ad, but I think it’s kind of nice to think it might be. [Full disclosure: I personally prefer to fly Air New Zealand over any other airline.]
Update – December 22, 2024: I found a couple more ads that started airing, or the videos only became available, after the original post. They are:
5. “All I want for Christmas...” – Mitre 10 New Zealand. Mitre 10 New Zealand is a chain of New Zealand-owned home improvement and hardware big box stores, and this particular ad is part of their “With you all the way” series of ads and instructional and “How To” videos. It’s appeared on both TV and on YouTube, though on TV they’re also running ads from their 2022 Christmas ad series [see also Number 6 on my 2022 Christmas ad playlist].
6. “Where you'll find everything Christmas.” – The Warehouse. This ad is part of a series of ads NZ's discount retailer The Warehouse began running a few weeks ago. To me, the series is weird: They each show a family doing autotuned singing of new lyrics to Lou Bega’s 1999 global Number One hit, “Mambo No. 5 (A Little bit of…)” [WATCH/LISTEN to the original] as they shop in store, filling the trolley to overflowing. To me, the first ad in the series [WATCH/LISTEN the 60 second version] is closest to Bega's original, but when I first saw that ad, it was definitely a "WTF?" moment for me. I'm used to it now, I suppose (and the backing track is undeniably catchy), so, maybe in that sense it works? In any case, it takes my award for New Zealand's Oddest Christmas Ad of 2024. [Full disclosure: I sometimes shop at The Warehouse].
As always, there are more NZ Christmas ads I’ve seen on TV, but they're not on the companies’ official YouTube Channels. For example, Michael Hill Jeweller has been running very brief ads (10 seconds), but I've mainly seen them on YouTube videos. The common theme is people in older high rise apartment buildings in some Northern Hemisphere city giving each other jewellery for Christmas as it snows outside. Most retailers’ ads this year are just generic promotions for specific products on special, the kind of ad they might run for any special promotion tied to any holiday. If any of those ads were online, they might create a dilemma for me, because they’re not Christmas ads as such. Maybe I need to tighten my criteria?
At any rate, these are the only ads available at the moment, though if more NZ Christmas TV ads do become available on an official YouTube Channel I’ll (probably?) add the videos to the Playlist and annotations to this post, and then post an announcement on the blog that the playlist is updated. However, you can also follow the direct link the YouTube Playlist if you’d rather skip my comments, or even just to share the playlist.
In any event. Merry watching-mas!
Other ads started (very) slowly popping up, but there have been very few ads specifically for Christmas, and several that are (more or less…) haven’t been uploaded to YouTube, at least not yet. The key thing is that the ads must be on the company’s official website, because I learned when I made 2022’s playlist that ads that aren’t posted to official YouTube Channels are more likely be deleted (that happened to ad number 7 that year). However, even official videos can be removed or made private (as happened to Number 2 on last year’s playlist). Whenever an ad is removed/unlisted, I have to remove it from the playlist or the playback of the playlist will stop when it gets to that point, which I think is pretty dumb, actually. In any case, I just delete the removed ad from the playlist and it plays normally—and I don’t get the big black “Video unavailable” box where a video once was, as happened frequently when I used to post individual ads. Sure, playlists are a bit more work, and sometimes, like this year, posting a playlist may be delayed while I wait for ads to be posted on official YouTube channels (if they are…), but despite all that, I still think it’s the best option.
As always, I compiled this year’s Christmas ad playlist in the order that I first saw the ads on TV, and if any of the other ads posted later on, I’ll add them to the playlist and the descriptions below. And, of course, if any are deleted, I’ll update the playlist and this post.
The criteria: Ads must must be airing on New Zealand television (not merely online or on social media or whatever). Second, they have to be New Zealand companies, or companies that are connected to New Zealand. This is because international ads might be seen in many countries, though our ads aren’t necessarily seen elsewhere. Finally, as I said, the ads must be on an official YouTube Channel, not one belonging to third parties.
A warning: Just like in past years, the annotations below include spoilers, which I mention in case you want to watch the videos first. All that out of the way, here’s a bit more about the videos, all of which are, as I said, in the order I first saw them on TV:
1. “Give a Gift That Unleashes Theirs | Spark Christmas 2024” – Spark NZ. This ad is for Spark NZ, one of the largest mobile phone (etc…) companies in New Zealand. When I first saw this ad around October 25 (!), I didn’t realise it was a Christmas ad. I was making dinner, and that's a time I don’t pay close attention to ads if I see them at all: Many nights I only hear ads because I’m busy in the kitchen. I suppose I should’ve realised what it was right away, since the first scene has a woman wrapping a present, but the surreal animation (which reminded me of the work of artist Peter Max) kind of threw me off—until I actually paid attention to the ad. This ad is much more subtle than other Christmas ads from the company, but I kind of like the laid-back vibe. [Full disclosure: At the moment, I’m a Spark NZ customer.]
2. “New World Christmas 2024 - 30” – New World. This ad is one of my two favourite Christmas ads this year. New World is owned by one of two supermarket companies in New Zealand, and the only one that’s New Zealand-owned (each store is individually owned, and together they’re part of a cooperative). This year’s ad is part of their “find your wonderful” series of ads, and I think it hits all the right emotions for Christmas, and is a truly heartwarming ad. I think it works especially well because it’s not centred on folks shopping in their supermarket, but instead focuses on the human connection to the food (and each other) that the supermarket helps facilitate. It creates subtle positive vibes about New World without smacking viewers in the face with “Buy! Buy! Buy!” messaging, and this year's approach is actually more likely to make viewers feel good about shopping there because who doesn’t want to feel a connection with our loved ones? A very well done ad.
A bit of trivia: The theme song used ad series (that’s played in the background in part of the ad), is sung by a young woman who actually worked at New World and was picked when the company was looking for a singer to record the song. [Full disclosure: I shop at both New World and Australian-owned Woolworths.]
3. “Feels like Christmas at Woolworths” – Woolworths NZ. This is an ad for Australian-owned supermarket chain Woolworths (formerly called Countdown in New Zealand, but since rebranded to match the branding in Australia). This ad is part of their “Fresh food feeling” series of ads, many of which highlight New Zealand farm-grown produce sold by Woolworths, and the centring of this ad on a farm is in keeping with that, as is the shot of a Woolworths truck leaving the farm. However, the down-home wholesome family farm feeling is a slight departure for the company’s ads—and I think it’s extremely well done. The ad is cute, reinforces the other ads in the series, and in particular the “Fresh food feeling” message. Most import for a Christmas ad, it has an actual connection to the holiday, one that’s appropriate for the business Countdown is in. What I said about New World’s Christmas ad (Second on this year’s list), is equally true about this ad, that it’s “not centred on folks shopping in their supermarket, but instead focuses on the human connection to the food (and each other) that the supermarket helps facilitate.” All of which is why this is my other favourite for this year. [Full disclosure: I shop at both Woolworths and New Zealand-owned New World.]
A bit of trivia: The central North Island town of Ohakune is known colloquially as “the carrot capital of New Zealand”, and the town features a giant carrot, which, the Wikipedia article on the town says, “is reputedly the world's largest model carrot”. When I think of carrots, I really do associate them with Ohakune.
4. “Let the Magic Find You This Christmas #AirNZXmas” – Air New Zealand. Air New Zealand starts their Christmas TV advertising a little later than many others (usually somewhere around the beginning of December), and that’s fine with me! This year’s ad is more focused on the airline as an airline than some other years have been, and I think the surreal magic taking place aboard the plane is, well, magical—as a good Christmas should be. I bet “certain people” will be saying “Bah! Humbug!” when they see the Christmas ornament emblazoned with “Meri Kirihimete”, but one can hope that their grinchy hearts might grow three sizes (metaphorically speaking) that day, and that they can, ya know, get over it.
This isn’t exactly trivia, but a bit of a fact check for other kinds of “certain people”. The kid's seat back screen shows that the magical flight is from San Francisco to Auckland, and the date of arrival is listed as “Dec 26”, which is why the mother says to the son, “I promise we won’t miss Christmas next year,” and the flight attendant sees the sad boy, and the cabin crew launches into magic making—with all of them waiting until it officially becomes December 25 on board, meaning the plane took off on December 24. So, they lost a day? YES! It happened to me: When I flew to New Zealand to live, I took off on October 31, 1995 and arrived on November 2, 1995—I had NO November 1, 1995 (something I wrote about back in 2012). So, while the ad depicts a magical trip, that doesn’t include magically altering time. However, people doubting that the passengers would ever all be asleep at the same time do have a point—it’s magic!
Some possible trivia: In the past, Air New Zealand always used actual employees in ads and safety videos. I don’t know if that’s true for this ad, but I think it’s kind of nice to think it might be. [Full disclosure: I personally prefer to fly Air New Zealand over any other airline.]
Update – December 22, 2024: I found a couple more ads that started airing, or the videos only became available, after the original post. They are:
5. “All I want for Christmas...” – Mitre 10 New Zealand. Mitre 10 New Zealand is a chain of New Zealand-owned home improvement and hardware big box stores, and this particular ad is part of their “With you all the way” series of ads and instructional and “How To” videos. It’s appeared on both TV and on YouTube, though on TV they’re also running ads from their 2022 Christmas ad series [see also Number 6 on my 2022 Christmas ad playlist].
6. “Where you'll find everything Christmas.” – The Warehouse. This ad is part of a series of ads NZ's discount retailer The Warehouse began running a few weeks ago. To me, the series is weird: They each show a family doing autotuned singing of new lyrics to Lou Bega’s 1999 global Number One hit, “Mambo No. 5 (A Little bit of…)” [WATCH/LISTEN to the original] as they shop in store, filling the trolley to overflowing. To me, the first ad in the series [WATCH/LISTEN the 60 second version] is closest to Bega's original, but when I first saw that ad, it was definitely a "WTF?" moment for me. I'm used to it now, I suppose (and the backing track is undeniably catchy), so, maybe in that sense it works? In any case, it takes my award for New Zealand's Oddest Christmas Ad of 2024. [Full disclosure: I sometimes shop at The Warehouse].
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As always, there are more NZ Christmas ads I’ve seen on TV, but they're not on the companies’ official YouTube Channels. For example, Michael Hill Jeweller has been running very brief ads (10 seconds), but I've mainly seen them on YouTube videos. The common theme is people in older high rise apartment buildings in some Northern Hemisphere city giving each other jewellery for Christmas as it snows outside. Most retailers’ ads this year are just generic promotions for specific products on special, the kind of ad they might run for any special promotion tied to any holiday. If any of those ads were online, they might create a dilemma for me, because they’re not Christmas ads as such. Maybe I need to tighten my criteria?
At any rate, these are the only ads available at the moment, though if more NZ Christmas TV ads do become available on an official YouTube Channel I’ll (probably?) add the videos to the Playlist and annotations to this post, and then post an announcement on the blog that the playlist is updated. However, you can also follow the direct link the YouTube Playlist if you’d rather skip my comments, or even just to share the playlist.
In any event. Merry watching-mas!
Tuesday, December 26, 2023
The King's Christmas Broadcast 2023
The video above was probably broadcast in New Zealand on Christmas Day, right after the 6pm news broadcast. I say “probably” because I was nowhere near a TV at the time. When I got home last night, I checked for the video on YouTube, but it wasn’t posted yet, which has happened before. I think they may try to post it after it airs in the UK. At any rate, I didn’t watch it until this evening.
I said last year that the in his first Christmas Broadcast, King Charles expressed some of the same overt religiosity as the late Queen did, and I added that “I also think he was pivoting.” I still think he’s doing that. To me, the use of the Christian Christmas Story seemed a bit forced at times, but I noticed that he constantly talked about the themes being relevant to all people, whatever religious beliefs, if any, they may have. I also noticed he talked subtly about climate change when he talked about looking after the world “for our children’s children”.
Overall, his delivery was quite good: He seemed more relaxed and at ease in front of the camera than his late mother did, and that may help him keep the monarchy somewhat more relevant than otherwise may have been the case. We’ll see, I suppose.
As I’ve mentioned in previous years, I used to want to watch the Queen’s message on TV every year (something that kind of amused Nigel and his family). But I never saw one of the messages until I moved to New Zealand, and I can’t remember if I even knew they were a thing before then—maybe? In any case, I’m still fascinated by them, as bits of contemporary history, and for 28 years, a bit of my own, too.
Previously:
The King’s first Christmas Broadcast – 2022
The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast 2021
The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast 2020
The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast 2019
The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast 2018
The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast 2017 (and 1957, too…)
The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast 2016
The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast 2015
Previous years’ broadcasts are no longer available.
I said last year that the in his first Christmas Broadcast, King Charles expressed some of the same overt religiosity as the late Queen did, and I added that “I also think he was pivoting.” I still think he’s doing that. To me, the use of the Christian Christmas Story seemed a bit forced at times, but I noticed that he constantly talked about the themes being relevant to all people, whatever religious beliefs, if any, they may have. I also noticed he talked subtly about climate change when he talked about looking after the world “for our children’s children”.
Overall, his delivery was quite good: He seemed more relaxed and at ease in front of the camera than his late mother did, and that may help him keep the monarchy somewhat more relevant than otherwise may have been the case. We’ll see, I suppose.
As I’ve mentioned in previous years, I used to want to watch the Queen’s message on TV every year (something that kind of amused Nigel and his family). But I never saw one of the messages until I moved to New Zealand, and I can’t remember if I even knew they were a thing before then—maybe? In any case, I’m still fascinated by them, as bits of contemporary history, and for 28 years, a bit of my own, too.
Previously:
The King’s first Christmas Broadcast – 2022
The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast 2021
The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast 2020
The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast 2019
The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast 2018
The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast 2017 (and 1957, too…)
The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast 2016
The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast 2015
Previous years’ broadcasts are no longer available.
Sunday, December 03, 2023
My 2023 Christmas Ad Playlist has been updated
Exactly one week after I posted ”2023 New Zealand Christmas TV Ads”, my annotated post with this year’s edition of my annual YouTube Playlist, the last ad I was expecting, Air New Zealand, was posted on YouTube and also started airing on TV. I didn’t have a chance to update the playlist until today, partly because I also wanted to search YouTube for any other ads I’ve seen on TV (the Animates ad, Number 7, was also there—and may have been broadcast before the Air NZ ad). After updating the Playlist itself, I then also had to update that November 24 post so it includes the updated video playlist as well as my annotations for the newly included ads (and all the ads in the Playlist, of course). To get to the Playlist, simply follow the link above.
Friday, November 24, 2023
2023 New Zealand Christmas TV Ads
New Zealand's Christmas advertising began late last month ago—once they were done with Halloween and the NZ General Election. This year, I shared the first Christmas TV ad I saw, mainly because of how surprised I was to see an ad in October—far too early for Christmas ads. However, last year the ads began even earlier, and it’s at least possible that election advertising may have helped delay Christmas ads this year—which I guess is one good thing about them (there had to be something). At any rate, I started compiling this list the same day I posted that first ad.
In the nearly three weeks since I shared that first ad, a few more have started airing—but not all that many. Moreover, some of the ads that are on TV aren’t on YouTube, generally because the companies don’t do much (or even anything…) with their YouTube Channels, and that presents a problem.
I learned when I made last year’s playlist to not share any ads that aren’t posted to official YouTube Channels. That’s because of one ad, for retail chain Noel Leeming (originally Number 7 on last year’s list). I found it from an unusual YouTube Channel that was eventually deleted, taking the video with it. I had to re-jig the playlist and update it, then update the blog post—all because of one ad that came from a “non-official” YouTube Channel. On the other hand, it allowed me to add the ad from Countdown supermarket, which I didn’t even realise they’d posted to their YouTube Channel (it was a couple weeks after I made the playlist). This year, Countdown has a revised version of that same ad, but it’s not on their YouTube Channel—maybe I’ll be able to add it later? [Update – December 3, 2023: I added ads 7 and 8 to the Playlist and to this post]
At any rate, I began doing these playlists because I had so many Christmas ad posts from previous years with missing videos—which makes those posts utterly pointless. I figured that if a particular ad was later deleted by the company, the playlist itself would still be fine. The Noel Leeming incident taught me that if an ad is deleted or made private, I need to delete it from the playlist or it will stop its playback when it gets to the deleted ad (it doesn’t just skip it). Always learning!
This year I used the same criteria I’ve used in the past: The ads must must be airing on New Zealand television (not merely online or on social media or whatever). Second, they have to be New Zealand companies, or companies that are connected to New Zealand. This is because international ads might be seen in many countries, though our ads aren’t necessarily seen elsewhere (the word “necessarily” is actually relevant to this list). However, if there was an “international” ad that was dubbed with NZ voice actors, I might consider including it for the novelty—assuming it’s not geoblocked, as such things so often are. Finally, as I said, the ads must be on an official YouTube Channel, not one belonging to third parties.
A warning: Just like in the past, the annotations below include spoilers, which I mention in case you want to watch the videos first. All that out of the way, here’s a bit more about the videos, all of which are, as before, in the order I first saw them:
1. “However you do Christmas, we've got you sorted at New World - 30 seconds” – New World. New World is owned by one of two supermarket companies in New Zealand, and the only one that’s New Zealand-owned (each store is individually owned). This year’s ad is more straightforward than last year’s, and maybe a bit less fun. Still, it’s a supermarket ad, so it does the job. [Full disclosure: I shop at both New World and Australian-owned Countdown.]
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3. “Give A Gift That Unleashes Theirs This Christmas” – Spark NZ. This ad is for Spark NZ, one of the two main mobile phone (etc…) companies in New Zealand. It was originally part of Telecom New Zealand until that company was broken into thirds to free up the market. The Spark name began in 2014.
This ad centres on a boy dancing around the house as the family snoozes after their Christmas lunch—a real enough thing, actually. He takes off the paper crown thing at some point and we see he’s wearing earbuds. The tagline on screen at the end underscores what the video is about: “Give a gift that unleashes theirs”, by which they mean a tech gift, one must assume, especially because the final shot of of earbuds given as a gift. [Full disclosure: At the moment, I’m a Spark NZ customer.]
4. “The Home of Christmas” – Farmers. This ad has the same name as last year’s ad, but it’s different. This year, there are more families shown celebrating Christmas, all giving each other presents they bought at NZ department store chain Farmers. Still, it’s a nice, upbeat ad, and, I think, better than last year’s. [Full disclosure: I sometimes shop at Farmers.]
5. “A Christmas to Remember” – Michael Hill Jeweller. This long-version ad, like the ones they’ve run for the past two years, was pretty obviously not shot in New Zealand, and also like previous years, the characters never speak out loud. Still, the company began in New Zealand, which is why it makes this playlist. The version in the playlist is 2:31 long—far longer than the version shown on TV, and that’s a good thing: When I saw the much shorter ad on TV, I couldn’t really work out what was going on, apart from the fact there was a sullen teenage girl, but the specific reason for it wasn’t obvious. This long version make it clearer what the characters’ story is, but maybe a better edit of the TV version would’ve made it clear, too? At any rate, this ad is all that's on YouTube, and I think it's fine—maybe not as good as the previous two years, in my opinion, but still good for what it is.
6. “Variety's Christmas Appeal 2023” – Variety New Zealand. This ad is from the New Zealand branch of Variety – The Children's Charity, and it promotes their Christmas Appeal. This isn’t the first time I’ve shared a charity Christmas ad, and I think they’re good reminders that Christmas isn’t just about gifts and lavish celebrations: It’s about people, children in particular.
7. “Christmas Brand Ad - 15 seconds” – Animates Vetcare NZ. This ad is for Animates (usually called “Animates Vetcare NZ” in social media, due to the co-location of many Animates pet shops with the company’s Vetcare vet practices), and, obviously, the ad promotes Christmas shopping for pets at their shops. This ad is based on a series of other TV ads that use the same music and focus on individual pets looking happy, and it’s fine for what it is—and the tune IS catchy. I don’t know, but I suspect that this may be an Animates-branded version of ads being run by its Australian owners in that country. While Animates began in 1996 in Christchurch, in 2014 it was bought by then-ASX listed Australian pet care company Greencross, which, in turn—well, let’s just say it ended up with the usual labyrinthine world of corporations’ fractured organisation. This ad was posted on YouTube on November 6, but I don’t remember seeing it on TV until very recently. [Full disclosure: I’ve long shopped at Animates, and my furbabies have been patients at Vetcare for years, too—and before that at the predecessors Animates aquired along the way.]
“Air New Zealand presents ‘The Great Christmas Chase’” – Air New Zealand. This adl like last year’s started airing on December 1, which is also when it was posted to YouTube. This year’s ad is—obviously—not about the airline’s service, even though it features a woman dressed as a flight attendant. In the YouTube description, they say, “The magic of Christmas makes the impossible, possible ðð”, which I suppose is kind of what the running woman is doing. The description continues: “…Seriously though, please don't rush at the airport or try this at work. All stunts are performed by professionals; have a nice, slow, safe, relaxing Christmas.” Um, okay? I think this ad is a bit more straightforward than last year’s, even if neither is particularly focused on the airline. Having said all that, I think it kind of works, and the very end is sweet: The flight attendant helps the boy hide the lost gift to his mum before exiting kind of adventure movie style, before the mum can see any of it, and ending with the boy whistling the music used. This ad is kind of a nice alternative to the crass “Buy! Buy! Buy!” of most other TV ads this time of year.
An ad for Mitre 10 has also been running, but it’s the same ad they used in last year, and it’s included in the 2022 New Zealand Christmas TV Ads playlist. I thought about including it again, but decided against it, mainly because if I included it on both playlists and the company later removes the ad from YouTube, it would cause problems for both playlists—and so, more work for me.
There are more ads I’ve seen on TV, but since they're not on the retailers’ official YouTube Channels, they’re not in this year’s playlist. Among those ads is one for Australian-owned supermarket Countdown, and it's similar to the one from 2022 that I mentioned above, but it also includes the rebranding of the chain as the company changes the name of the stores from Countdown to Woolworths, the same as the Australian parent.
As always, if more NZ ads start airing—and they’re available on an official YouTube Channel—I’ll add the videos to the Playlist and the annotations to this post (and post an announcement on the blog that the playlist is updated). However, you can also follow the direct link the YouTube Playlist if you’d rather skip my comments, or even just to share the playlist.
In any event. Merry watching-mas!
Tuesday, April 11, 2023
Our long holiday weekend
The four-day holiday that is Easter Weekend is over for another year. Once again, there were the ongoing debates over whether the trading bans are defensible in 2023, and the media obsessively reporting on the “holiday road toll”. There was also an annoying annual TV ad, too. Meanwhile, the weather was all over the place, as could be expected for April.
The Easter Weekend carries two days with trading bans, Good Friday and Easter Sunday. On those days, it’s illegal for many/most businesses to trade, depending on where they are and what the nature of their business is. To say the rules are labyrinthine, confusing, and contradictory would far too kind an assessment. On the very big plus side, there are no TV ads on trading ban days, though the TV channels run promotional ads for their own programmes, so it’s not all that different, really. Among the complications over Easter weekend is the fact the public holidays are Good Friday and Easter Monday; Easter Sunday just has a trading ban.
Labour unions want the trading bans maintained so that low-wage workers (in retail and hospitality in particular) can be sure to have holidays off with their families. I understand the sentiment, and I also understand that such workers have little (well, no…) power to negotiate time off on those holidays, however, if we want to ensure better treatment of low-paid workers, there must be a better way than the trading bans.
I don’t think that trading bans on Good Friday and Easter Sunday are justifiable because those days are aligned specifically with one particular religion, Christianity, which the vast majority of New Zealanders don’t practice, even if a slight majority (may still) call themselves “Christian”. The other full trading ban day, Christmas Day, is now mostly secular, and having trading bans in place that day has a much more universal tone. The half-day trading ban is Anzac Day morning, and while that day has religious overtones due to choices made by some communities in the way it’s commemorated, the day itself it completely secular. I’ve never heard anyone say that the half-day ban on Anzac Day should be abolished.
Another argument for the status quo is that Easter Weekend is the only certain four-day weekend we have each year. While Christmas and New Year holiday weekends are often four-day weekends—two in a row, no less—that’s not true every year: If the two-day public holidays (Christmas Day/Boxing Day and also New Year’s Day and the day after) fall on Tuesday/Wednesday or Wednesday/Thursday (the latter will be the case in 2024), then the weekends are normal. Even so, the trading bans aren’t necessarily integral to that.
There’s one thing that all holiday weekends share: Sombre talk about in the media about the “road toll”, the number of people who die on the roads in official holiday periods. We hear a lot about it in the lead up to a holiday weekend, throughout the weekend, and once the weekend is over.
For Easter 2023, the official holiday period began at 4pm on Thursday, April 6 and ended 6am today (this covers the period when people head out to holiday destinations and when they return to their regular lives). One person died over that period, making 2023’s toll the lowest since 2020’s zero deaths, but was a year when all of New Zealand was under a Lever 4 Covid Lockdown. This year, the person who died did so yesterday, which means that if they had died at 6:01am today, it apparently wouldn’t have counted in the toll. Statistics can be kind of arbitrary.
In any case, overall, the road toll in all holiday periods has been trending down for years, despite a big spike over this past Christmas, and a much smaller bump over Labour Weekend 2020 (Labour Weekend is a three-day holiday weekend), and that’s good news.
There’s one more thing that happens every Easter: An annoying TV ad. It’s run by a seemingly evangelical Christian group—though they’d probably prefer the adjective “ecumenical”. While they use neither word, they describe themselves as being “supported by a diverse group of Christian churches throughout New Zealand”. I’d mainly call them evangelical—in the strictest sense of the word—because they are clearly evangelising. This isn’t meant to suggest what their particular ideological/theological slant might be, because I simply don’t know (and I have no interest in watching all their videos to try and work it out). My annoyance with their ad is aesthetic rather than political or theological.
The oddly staged ad features a woman reciting “An Easter Poem to Consider” [the ad is on YouTube], and promotes an expressly Christian message “you may wish to take to heart”. The poem, however, sounds like something written by an angsty teenager who focuses on Jesus rather than the latest hunky actor or singer like her schoolmates do. It’s banal and the language is far too desperately earnest—in my opinion, of course (Arthur’s Law, and all that). What annoys me, though, isn’t that I don’t think it’s very good as an ad or a poem (again, Arthur’s Law…), it’s that you can’t avoid the thing: It plays on TV several times during, at least, the early evening. Saturation repetition doesn’t make the ad or the poem or the message even slightly more appealing—it’s quite the opposite, actually. Ironically, because it’s an ad, it can’t be broadcast on Good Friday or Easter Sunday because of the trading bans. Maybe that’s an argument for keeping the bans in place? That could be why they run their ad so much in the lead up to Easter.
This past weekend had a lot of weird weather, too: There were four tornados in three days, for example. There have also been warnings of more severe weather this afternoon, too. Sigh.
All that aside, Easter Weekend has never been a big deal for adult me, though I remember one year in Chicago a friend insisted I make roast lamb for an Easter dinner, which I thought was vaguely sacrilegious (the Paschal Lamb…), but I did it, anyway, and even made fresh mint sauce, something I’ve never done since.
Here in New Zealand, if Nigel and I did anything at Easter, it might be to go visit family (since it was a four-day holiday weekend), but we didn’t do that every year. I tried to give Nigel Easter chocolate every year, though. I haven’t bought any since he died. On Saturday, I went to my mother-in-law’s to have dinner with her and a visiting sister-in-law, which was lovely. Other than that, though, it was a very quiet weekend, and that suited me perfectly.
Our next public holiday is Anzac Day on Thursday, April 25, then it’s eight weeks until King’s Birthday on June 5 (3-day weekend), then Matariki nearly six weeks later, on July 15 (another 3-day weekend). There’ll be nothing for three months, until Labour Day on October 23 (a 3-day weekend), then nothing for a further two months when we have Christmas Day and Boxing Day (a 4-day weekend this year). And that’s our public holiday schedule for the rest of 2023. Nice.
The Easter Weekend carries two days with trading bans, Good Friday and Easter Sunday. On those days, it’s illegal for many/most businesses to trade, depending on where they are and what the nature of their business is. To say the rules are labyrinthine, confusing, and contradictory would far too kind an assessment. On the very big plus side, there are no TV ads on trading ban days, though the TV channels run promotional ads for their own programmes, so it’s not all that different, really. Among the complications over Easter weekend is the fact the public holidays are Good Friday and Easter Monday; Easter Sunday just has a trading ban.
Labour unions want the trading bans maintained so that low-wage workers (in retail and hospitality in particular) can be sure to have holidays off with their families. I understand the sentiment, and I also understand that such workers have little (well, no…) power to negotiate time off on those holidays, however, if we want to ensure better treatment of low-paid workers, there must be a better way than the trading bans.
I don’t think that trading bans on Good Friday and Easter Sunday are justifiable because those days are aligned specifically with one particular religion, Christianity, which the vast majority of New Zealanders don’t practice, even if a slight majority (may still) call themselves “Christian”. The other full trading ban day, Christmas Day, is now mostly secular, and having trading bans in place that day has a much more universal tone. The half-day trading ban is Anzac Day morning, and while that day has religious overtones due to choices made by some communities in the way it’s commemorated, the day itself it completely secular. I’ve never heard anyone say that the half-day ban on Anzac Day should be abolished.
Another argument for the status quo is that Easter Weekend is the only certain four-day weekend we have each year. While Christmas and New Year holiday weekends are often four-day weekends—two in a row, no less—that’s not true every year: If the two-day public holidays (Christmas Day/Boxing Day and also New Year’s Day and the day after) fall on Tuesday/Wednesday or Wednesday/Thursday (the latter will be the case in 2024), then the weekends are normal. Even so, the trading bans aren’t necessarily integral to that.
There’s one thing that all holiday weekends share: Sombre talk about in the media about the “road toll”, the number of people who die on the roads in official holiday periods. We hear a lot about it in the lead up to a holiday weekend, throughout the weekend, and once the weekend is over.
For Easter 2023, the official holiday period began at 4pm on Thursday, April 6 and ended 6am today (this covers the period when people head out to holiday destinations and when they return to their regular lives). One person died over that period, making 2023’s toll the lowest since 2020’s zero deaths, but was a year when all of New Zealand was under a Lever 4 Covid Lockdown. This year, the person who died did so yesterday, which means that if they had died at 6:01am today, it apparently wouldn’t have counted in the toll. Statistics can be kind of arbitrary.
In any case, overall, the road toll in all holiday periods has been trending down for years, despite a big spike over this past Christmas, and a much smaller bump over Labour Weekend 2020 (Labour Weekend is a three-day holiday weekend), and that’s good news.
There’s one more thing that happens every Easter: An annoying TV ad. It’s run by a seemingly evangelical Christian group—though they’d probably prefer the adjective “ecumenical”. While they use neither word, they describe themselves as being “supported by a diverse group of Christian churches throughout New Zealand”. I’d mainly call them evangelical—in the strictest sense of the word—because they are clearly evangelising. This isn’t meant to suggest what their particular ideological/theological slant might be, because I simply don’t know (and I have no interest in watching all their videos to try and work it out). My annoyance with their ad is aesthetic rather than political or theological.
The oddly staged ad features a woman reciting “An Easter Poem to Consider” [the ad is on YouTube], and promotes an expressly Christian message “you may wish to take to heart”. The poem, however, sounds like something written by an angsty teenager who focuses on Jesus rather than the latest hunky actor or singer like her schoolmates do. It’s banal and the language is far too desperately earnest—in my opinion, of course (Arthur’s Law, and all that). What annoys me, though, isn’t that I don’t think it’s very good as an ad or a poem (again, Arthur’s Law…), it’s that you can’t avoid the thing: It plays on TV several times during, at least, the early evening. Saturation repetition doesn’t make the ad or the poem or the message even slightly more appealing—it’s quite the opposite, actually. Ironically, because it’s an ad, it can’t be broadcast on Good Friday or Easter Sunday because of the trading bans. Maybe that’s an argument for keeping the bans in place? That could be why they run their ad so much in the lead up to Easter.
This past weekend had a lot of weird weather, too: There were four tornados in three days, for example. There have also been warnings of more severe weather this afternoon, too. Sigh.
All that aside, Easter Weekend has never been a big deal for adult me, though I remember one year in Chicago a friend insisted I make roast lamb for an Easter dinner, which I thought was vaguely sacrilegious (the Paschal Lamb…), but I did it, anyway, and even made fresh mint sauce, something I’ve never done since.
Here in New Zealand, if Nigel and I did anything at Easter, it might be to go visit family (since it was a four-day holiday weekend), but we didn’t do that every year. I tried to give Nigel Easter chocolate every year, though. I haven’t bought any since he died. On Saturday, I went to my mother-in-law’s to have dinner with her and a visiting sister-in-law, which was lovely. Other than that, though, it was a very quiet weekend, and that suited me perfectly.
Our next public holiday is Anzac Day on Thursday, April 25, then it’s eight weeks until King’s Birthday on June 5 (3-day weekend), then Matariki nearly six weeks later, on July 15 (another 3-day weekend). There’ll be nothing for three months, until Labour Day on October 23 (a 3-day weekend), then nothing for a further two months when we have Christmas Day and Boxing Day (a 4-day weekend this year). And that’s our public holiday schedule for the rest of 2023. Nice.
Friday, December 30, 2022
The shop repairing stories
I talk a lot about stories because I believe it’s the thing that most sets us apart from our fellow animals—as far as we know, anyway. Everything we do, say, think, imagine, all of it, is related to our own stories, the stories of others, and/or how they intersect. Even objects in our life relate to our stories, and that’s at the centre of one of my favourite television shows.
I began watching the BBC television series The Repair Shop from its first broadcast in New Zealand. I don’t remember precisely when that was, but shows began airing in the UK in March 2017, and there’s always been quite a delay before they get to New Zealand. For example, the episode that aired tonight was broadcast in the UK on April 2, 2021—around 20 months before New Zealand. At any rate, though, I know that the show began airing in New Zealand before Nigel died.
Each episode centres on expert craftspeople repairing/restoring family heirlooms that are damaged for whatever reason. I was originally drawn into the show because I was fascinated by the work the craftspeople did and the results they achieved. I was particularly interested in the woodworking repairs, and enjoyed watching master craftsman Will Kirk, who, to be fair, I also rather fancied. Mainly, though, I enjoyed seeing some techniques I wasn’t familiar with.
Similarly, I was drawn to the work of the other master craftspeople, and was frequently surprised by how much work went into seemingly small things—except, of course, they were all committed to doing the job right, and not just quickly or to a minimum standard.
This continued for the first couple years or so, and then recently I was struck by something: The items being brought in often had little or no monetary value, but to their owners they often had value that was beyond measure. There were childhood toys that had survived the London Blitz, items that people smuggled out of Europe as they fled the Nazis, the only item a family has from a great great grandfather, and so on. Many of the items and the stories around them are interesting in themselves, but the depth of meaning the items carried for some of theirowners caretakers was utterly astounding.
There were episodes in which my cheeks were constantly wet watching the reveal segments, and ordinarily I’d make a joke at my own expense, laughing at how sometimes I get all teary-eyed watching a commercial. While that’s true, it’s also dismissive of the very real feelings, my own and the folks for whom the objects meant so much.
This is what led me to yet another bloody obvious realisation: The objects mattered precisely because of the stories they carried, and the meaning they wore. Watching the master craftspeople work their magic on the items is endlessly fascinating to me, but watching the repair and saving of the stories attached to those items, that matters far more.
The show was overseen by the BBC’s head of daytime and early peak television, New Zealander Carla-Maria Lawson. In an interview with RNZ, for whom she worked as chief reporter before moving to the UK more than two decades ago, she said, "People need that sense of positivity and recognition of people doing something lovely. It features people doing something for little reward.” Exactly. And the resons she thought it would work are the same things that appeal to me—and so many others, too.
I believe that everything we do, say, think, imagine, all of it, is related to our own stories and possibly the stories of others. Any TV show that enhances and protects those stories is likely to be a winner with me, and The Repair Shop certainly is.
The trailer for the show is the video up top, and video excerpts from various episodes are on their YouTube Channel.
I began watching the BBC television series The Repair Shop from its first broadcast in New Zealand. I don’t remember precisely when that was, but shows began airing in the UK in March 2017, and there’s always been quite a delay before they get to New Zealand. For example, the episode that aired tonight was broadcast in the UK on April 2, 2021—around 20 months before New Zealand. At any rate, though, I know that the show began airing in New Zealand before Nigel died.
Each episode centres on expert craftspeople repairing/restoring family heirlooms that are damaged for whatever reason. I was originally drawn into the show because I was fascinated by the work the craftspeople did and the results they achieved. I was particularly interested in the woodworking repairs, and enjoyed watching master craftsman Will Kirk, who, to be fair, I also rather fancied. Mainly, though, I enjoyed seeing some techniques I wasn’t familiar with.
Similarly, I was drawn to the work of the other master craftspeople, and was frequently surprised by how much work went into seemingly small things—except, of course, they were all committed to doing the job right, and not just quickly or to a minimum standard.
This continued for the first couple years or so, and then recently I was struck by something: The items being brought in often had little or no monetary value, but to their owners they often had value that was beyond measure. There were childhood toys that had survived the London Blitz, items that people smuggled out of Europe as they fled the Nazis, the only item a family has from a great great grandfather, and so on. Many of the items and the stories around them are interesting in themselves, but the depth of meaning the items carried for some of their
There were episodes in which my cheeks were constantly wet watching the reveal segments, and ordinarily I’d make a joke at my own expense, laughing at how sometimes I get all teary-eyed watching a commercial. While that’s true, it’s also dismissive of the very real feelings, my own and the folks for whom the objects meant so much.
This is what led me to yet another bloody obvious realisation: The objects mattered precisely because of the stories they carried, and the meaning they wore. Watching the master craftspeople work their magic on the items is endlessly fascinating to me, but watching the repair and saving of the stories attached to those items, that matters far more.
The show was overseen by the BBC’s head of daytime and early peak television, New Zealander Carla-Maria Lawson. In an interview with RNZ, for whom she worked as chief reporter before moving to the UK more than two decades ago, she said, "People need that sense of positivity and recognition of people doing something lovely. It features people doing something for little reward.” Exactly. And the resons she thought it would work are the same things that appeal to me—and so many others, too.
I believe that everything we do, say, think, imagine, all of it, is related to our own stories and possibly the stories of others. Any TV show that enhances and protects those stories is likely to be a winner with me, and The Repair Shop certainly is.
The trailer for the show is the video up top, and video excerpts from various episodes are on their YouTube Channel.
Tuesday, December 27, 2022
The King’s first Christmas Broadcast
On Christmas Day, right after the 6pm news broadcast, I watched the first Christmas Broadcast from King Charles—and it sounds so weird to say that! I thought it was pretty good. Charles expressed some of the same overt religiosity as the late Queen did, however, I also think he was pivoting.
He spent most of his time talking about service to others (which, to be fair, is what Christianity is supposed to be all about…), something his mother might’ve done, likewise the acknowledgment that ordinary people are struggling. It was at the end of his message that I saw the strongest—and most subtle—indicator of change: He explicitly acknowledged people who have no religion.
I have have an open mind about the king. I’m a firm republican (lower case R only…), however, Charles has the opportunity to modernise the monarchy, just as his mother did, and make it possible for it to meet the challenges of the 21st Century. We’ll see.
These annual broadcasts now have lots of personal history for me. Before YouTube, I used to want to watch the Queen’s message on TV every year, and that amused Nigel. That was because he grew up with them—it was no big deal to him. I think he was also intrigued by how fascinated I was by it all. That figures: Right up to the end, we kept surprising each other.
At any rate, another annual blog tradition is completed—in a new guise, the same but very different. Much like life throughout the past few years.
Previously:
The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast 2021
The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast 2020
The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast 2019
The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast 2018
The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast 2017 (and 1957, too…)
The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast 2016
The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast 2015
Previous years’ broadcasts are no longer available.
He spent most of his time talking about service to others (which, to be fair, is what Christianity is supposed to be all about…), something his mother might’ve done, likewise the acknowledgment that ordinary people are struggling. It was at the end of his message that I saw the strongest—and most subtle—indicator of change: He explicitly acknowledged people who have no religion.
I have have an open mind about the king. I’m a firm republican (lower case R only…), however, Charles has the opportunity to modernise the monarchy, just as his mother did, and make it possible for it to meet the challenges of the 21st Century. We’ll see.
These annual broadcasts now have lots of personal history for me. Before YouTube, I used to want to watch the Queen’s message on TV every year, and that amused Nigel. That was because he grew up with them—it was no big deal to him. I think he was also intrigued by how fascinated I was by it all. That figures: Right up to the end, we kept surprising each other.
At any rate, another annual blog tradition is completed—in a new guise, the same but very different. Much like life throughout the past few years.
Previously:
The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast 2021
The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast 2020
The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast 2019
The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast 2018
The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast 2017 (and 1957, too…)
The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast 2016
The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast 2015
Previous years’ broadcasts are no longer available.
Thursday, December 01, 2022
My 2022 Christmas Ad Playlist has been updated
Two weeks ago tonight, I posted my annual YouTube Playlist of New Zealand Christmas TV ads. Since then, I found a copy of one ad that was missing from the Playlist, and another ad (Air New Zealand) just started airing today. That post is now updated to include all that, and it has my annotations for all the ads in the Playlist, with things like background, my reactions, etc. To get to the Playlist, simply follow the link above.
Thursday, November 17, 2022
2022 New Zealand Christmas TV Ads
It’s the Christmas Season (already…), because New Zealand's promotional and advertising push actually began at least a month ago, when I saw the first Christmas ad on TV. I held off sharing any ads then, not only because I felt early/mid October was far too early for Christmas, but also because, at the time, I’d only seen one ad on TV.
In the weeks since I saw that first ad, more have joined the pack, so I started creating this year’s YouTube playlist (above). I began this new playlist tradition last year when I noticed how many posts now have missing videos (ads in particular), which kind of makes those posts pointless. It’s only been one year, but so far this has proven to be a good idea: All of last year’s ads are still available.
I have a set of criteria I use for the ads I include in the playlists. First, they must be airing on New Zealand television, not merely online or on social media or whatever. Second, they have to be New Zealand companies, or companies that are connected to New Zealand. This is because international ads might be seen in many countries, though our ads aren’t necessarily seen elsewhere (the word “necessarily” is actually relevant to this list).
At any rate, on to this year’s list. The annotations below include spoilers, so you may want to watch the videos first. All that out of the way, here’s a bit more about the videos, all of which are included in the order I first saw them:
1. “Make Someone Happy” – Michael Hill Jeweller. This is what I was actually thinking of when I said ads “have to be New Zealand companies, or companies that are connected to New Zealand”, because Michael Hill Jeweller, although founded in New Zealand in 1979, is an international company headquartered in Brisbane, Australia. They operate in New Zealand, Australia, and Canada, and their Christmas ads run in all three countries, however, they “aren’t necessarily seen elsewhere” (which is why this ad is “relevant to this list”). If they have a Christmas TV ad next year, I can just link to this rather than explain it again, right?
Anyway, this ad focuses on a small part of last year’s ad, “Make Their Christmas”—literally. The little boy in that ad passes a present to a girl through a stone wall, and that scene is repeated in this ad—and updated with the now-adult characters. In last year's ad, the boy also hands a Christmas present to his mother with the tag, “to the love of my life”, one assumes from his father, and that line is also repeated in this year's ad. Finally, the backing song is, once again, "Only You" by Yazoo, a song I blogged about in 2020 because it had become strongly personal for me. In fact, it still is, which is probably why I like the ad so much—even if New Zealand doesn’t have snow at Christmas. It's also kind of refreshing to see ads revisit characters from previous ads and show them in an entirely new context. That's not done enough, in my opinion.
The rest of the ads on this year's playlist are from New Zealand companies.
2. “Let's make Christmas magic (30 seconds)" – New World. New World is one of two supermarket chains in New Zealand, and the only one that is New Zealand-owned (each store is individually owned). I think this ad is fun—especially the guy’s rapid-fire explanation for why they’re doing the “impromptu Christmas song”. One of the people sings about “glasses for free”, and glassware is in a lot of shots. This year, New World is offering a glassware promotion, but the song is the only place it’s even hinted at, unlike last year’s “Something’s cooking at New World” ad, which prominently featured the cookware promotion they had on at the time. Personally, I much prefer this year’s approach. [Full disclosure: I shop at both New World and Australian-owned Countdown.]
3. “Get Christmas magic delivered (15 Seconds)” – New World. This ad is related to the ad Number Two, but promotes Christmas delivery of groceries. I thought this ad was a clever add-on to their main Christmas ad. [Full disclosure: I've never used New World's delivery service, but I do use the one from Countdown.]
4. “Nigel's Christmas Wish” – The Warehouse. This ad is—well, kind of odd. It reminds me of some UK stores' Christmas ads from years past, and it’s nice and all, but I kind of don’t get the message? I mean, apart from the obvious, the “Whatever your Christmas wish. The Warehouse.” tagline. I any case, I didn’t know it was called “Nigel's Christmas Wish” until I went to create this year’s Christmas ad playlist, and it made me smile. I think my Nigel would’ve smiled, too. [Full disclosure: I shop at The Warehouse.] Update – December 1: The Warehouse has been partnering with a radio station brand on “12 Days of Wishmas” to give people around the country a prize package and $3,000 cash, and part of that involves taking “Nigel” on tour around the country for the presentations. The short videos of each stop are broadcast each evening during the news broadcast (and can be seen at the link).
5. “The Home of Christmas” – Farmers. This ad is for Farmers, a 113-year-old New Zealand department store. They’re also running some specific product ads, but this is their sort of general Christmas ad. The ad is fine, but their ads are generally not particularly special or creative—not that it matters to me: I shop at Farmers (especially for clothes), both in person and online, and it’s probably my favourite department-type store in New Zealand.
6. “Mitre 10 With You All The Way This Christmas” – Mitre 10 New Zealand. This ad is from Mitre 10, a New Zealand-owned chain of home improvement stores. Unlike it’s largest competitor, Australian-owned Bunnings, Mitre 10 is a co-operative. This year’s ad is built on a series of TV ads they’ve run promoting DIY [for example, watch one such ad, “Mitre 10 With you all the way 45 sec”]. I think the ad works by itself, and also as part of the series. [Full disclosure: I often shop at Mitre 10, as well as Austrian-owned Bunnings Warehouse.]
Update – December 1, 2022: Additional ads either started airing or the videos only became available after the original post. They are:
7.
8. “Air New Zealand presents ‘Not quite Silent Night’” – Air New Zealand. Air New Zealand started their Christmas TV advertising a little later this year than last year (this ad just started airing on December 1), and this year’s ad is less focused on the airline than previous years’ ads have been. Maybe it’s intended for multiple markets? It’s a simple, sweet ad, but I bet that “certain people” will be upset about the use of Christian Christmas Carol as the backing music in an ad centred on Santa Claus, but I know for sure that “certain people” definitely will be upset by the fact the song is sung in Te Reo MÄori. Bah! Humbug! Personally, I don’t have a problem with either, but I did think that “Silent Night” was an odd kind of song choice, though the ad takes its title from the song.
9. The Countdown to Christmas is now underway" – Countdown. This is an ad for Australian-owned supermarket chain Countdown, and I almost missed it—mainly because it's so similar to their ordinary weekly promotional ads. On the other hand, it's actually not all that different from other supermarket ads promoting Christmas supermarket shopping that I've shared in the past, including ads from overseas, so it makes sense to include this ad, too. The last notable Christmas ad they've had (in my opinion…) was back in 2018.
Those are all the Christmas ads—so far, at least. It's possible I missed some by not watching at the right time (or maybe just not paying attention during the ad breaks…), but I don't think so. Actually, it seems to me that there’s been less variety in Christmas ads the past couple years than there used to be, especially not as many international ads (like, for example, Christmas ads for soft drinks). There's another ad running, one for NZ Post, but I featured that one in my first Christmas Ad post in 2019, and it hasn't changed.
If any more NZ ads start airing—and it's still possible since, as of today, it's still more than five weeks until Christmas. If there are more, I’ll add the videos to the Playlist and the annotations to this post. However, you can also follow the direct link the YouTube Playlist if you’d rather skip my comments. In any event. Merry watching-mas!
Friday, May 27, 2022
Meanwhile…
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern was on the USA’s CBS “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” recently, and guns partly dominated the discussion, as they have on her entire trip. The Prime Minister did very well, and even still managed to do her main goal, promoting tourism to New Zealand. It’s her second time on the show, and both times were casual and relaxed. I think she did very well.
The interview is in three separate videos on YouTube (I watched them mere hours after the show aired in the USA), so I decided to post them here in order so no one else has to work out what order they go in (they were out of order in the YouTube App for my TV that I used to watch them.
The interview is in three separate videos on YouTube (I watched them mere hours after the show aired in the USA), so I decided to post them here in order so no one else has to work out what order they go in (they were out of order in the YouTube App for my TV that I used to watch them.
Tuesday, March 22, 2022
A mini-project that wasn’t (yet)
I’ve always had projects, going back decades, really. Some are big, most aren’t, some take a long time to finish, some don’t. But it’s kind of rare for one to go away because it became unnecessary. That’s what just happened.
Yesterday, I ended a post with what I thought was my final foreshadowing of a topic I’d be explaining in greater detail "soon". In the closing paragraph to that post, I said:
Ever since the storm a few weeks ago, my TV reception hasn’t been good, although it was better after I replaced the aerial and internal splitter. I said yesterday that “it seems obvious to me, I need a signal amplifier”, but that was merely one possibility at the time. There was a also a possibility that the there was something wrong with the transmission itself, something I thought might be improved by the impending channel changes. But another possibility was that the Android Box itself had a fault.
The problem was, how could I tell what the problem was? There was one channel, Choice TV, that I couldn’t get at all: There was either nothing at all, or it was very badly pixelated, like when a storm interrupts the satellite signal for NZ's broadcast pay TV service, Sky TV. Pixelation was also an intermittent problem on TV One. This last one was something I was pretty sure an amplifier would fix.
To test the faulty Android Box theory, I hooked the aerial directly to my TV, but it couldn’t tune in more than a handful of the channels. That suggested an amplifier was needed. I next hooked the aerial up to our original Freeview receiver/DVR, but that was still tuned for use at the old house (different transmitters). I was able to get it to check for channels using buttons on the machine, but that was it: I didn’t have the remote and couldn’t do anything else, including trying to change a channel. I still have no idea where the remote is.
So: At the end of my initial tests, I still couldn’t rule anything in or out, but I decided to put off buying a new signal amplifier until after the channel realignment. That change began Monday night and finished sometime in the early hours of the morning. The storms yesterday delayed my tests with the new alignment (because I’d disconnected the aerial), and doing that after the weather cleared is what I hauled myself into the lounge to do.
After having the Android Box scan for TV and radio stations available, I went through the channels one at a time. While the EPG (“Electronic Programming Guide” was wrong a lot, all the channels worked—and I mean all of them. Choice TV’s successor channel, eden, was fine, but so was the channel at Choice’s old channel position. So, too, were all the god channels and Chinese channels I couldn’t get (though I didn’t care about any of them), and also returning were the formerly missing radio channels, Parliament TV, and, possibly importantly, the channel that carries Juice TV, NZ’s only remaining free-to-air video music channel. All were fine, all were present. This suggests that the transmission itself was the problem.
Which is not to say that everything is now perfect: TV One still sometimes pixelates, so it looks like I do still need a signal amplifier. There’s another problem with the Android Box: I can’t watch YouTube videos on it anymore, not since the App signed me out and I can’t sign back in. The Box’s remote has no keyboard, as most don’t, and if I encounter a field where I have to enter something (like a username and password), clicking on the field is supposed to bring up a way to click on the letters, etc., needed to fill in the field. It’s slow, tedious, and annoying, but it works—or, it used to work. Maybe a software revision will fix that? Maybe adding a different remote will work?
So, I’ve had to start using the YouTube App on my Apple TV to watch their videos on TV, and that involves switching devices, and that’s an annoying extra step, especially if I want to see what's on broadcast TV. Right now, there’s not much I can to about it.
What all of this means is that, for now, I don’t need to replace the Android Box, though I still want to find the remote for the other device, partly “just in case”. Also, I still need the signal amplifier, I think, but that’s not urgent. And because of all that, the mini-project I was talking about is, for now, cancelled. TV watching works, even if I sometimes have to take extra steps to get there.
Lucky for me, it’s not like I have a shortage of other projects to work on.
Yesterday, I ended a post with what I thought was my final foreshadowing of a topic I’d be explaining in greater detail "soon". In the closing paragraph to that post, I said:
“Right now, though, I need to haul myself out to the lounge to take on another part of a mini-project, and that, too, relates to recent blog posts. It’s the circle of blogging, or something.”That project was about what I call the "Android Box”, which I said in my post about the storm yesterday, “receives and decodes the digital UHF TV signals” from the aerial. I said in that post, and also in my post last Thursday about the changes to our television channels, that the Android Box was its own topic.
Ever since the storm a few weeks ago, my TV reception hasn’t been good, although it was better after I replaced the aerial and internal splitter. I said yesterday that “it seems obvious to me, I need a signal amplifier”, but that was merely one possibility at the time. There was a also a possibility that the there was something wrong with the transmission itself, something I thought might be improved by the impending channel changes. But another possibility was that the Android Box itself had a fault.
The problem was, how could I tell what the problem was? There was one channel, Choice TV, that I couldn’t get at all: There was either nothing at all, or it was very badly pixelated, like when a storm interrupts the satellite signal for NZ's broadcast pay TV service, Sky TV. Pixelation was also an intermittent problem on TV One. This last one was something I was pretty sure an amplifier would fix.
To test the faulty Android Box theory, I hooked the aerial directly to my TV, but it couldn’t tune in more than a handful of the channels. That suggested an amplifier was needed. I next hooked the aerial up to our original Freeview receiver/DVR, but that was still tuned for use at the old house (different transmitters). I was able to get it to check for channels using buttons on the machine, but that was it: I didn’t have the remote and couldn’t do anything else, including trying to change a channel. I still have no idea where the remote is.
So: At the end of my initial tests, I still couldn’t rule anything in or out, but I decided to put off buying a new signal amplifier until after the channel realignment. That change began Monday night and finished sometime in the early hours of the morning. The storms yesterday delayed my tests with the new alignment (because I’d disconnected the aerial), and doing that after the weather cleared is what I hauled myself into the lounge to do.
After having the Android Box scan for TV and radio stations available, I went through the channels one at a time. While the EPG (“Electronic Programming Guide” was wrong a lot, all the channels worked—and I mean all of them. Choice TV’s successor channel, eden, was fine, but so was the channel at Choice’s old channel position. So, too, were all the god channels and Chinese channels I couldn’t get (though I didn’t care about any of them), and also returning were the formerly missing radio channels, Parliament TV, and, possibly importantly, the channel that carries Juice TV, NZ’s only remaining free-to-air video music channel. All were fine, all were present. This suggests that the transmission itself was the problem.
Which is not to say that everything is now perfect: TV One still sometimes pixelates, so it looks like I do still need a signal amplifier. There’s another problem with the Android Box: I can’t watch YouTube videos on it anymore, not since the App signed me out and I can’t sign back in. The Box’s remote has no keyboard, as most don’t, and if I encounter a field where I have to enter something (like a username and password), clicking on the field is supposed to bring up a way to click on the letters, etc., needed to fill in the field. It’s slow, tedious, and annoying, but it works—or, it used to work. Maybe a software revision will fix that? Maybe adding a different remote will work?
So, I’ve had to start using the YouTube App on my Apple TV to watch their videos on TV, and that involves switching devices, and that’s an annoying extra step, especially if I want to see what's on broadcast TV. Right now, there’s not much I can to about it.
What all of this means is that, for now, I don’t need to replace the Android Box, though I still want to find the remote for the other device, partly “just in case”. Also, I still need the signal amplifier, I think, but that’s not urgent. And because of all that, the mini-project I was talking about is, for now, cancelled. TV watching works, even if I sometimes have to take extra steps to get there.
Lucky for me, it’s not like I have a shortage of other projects to work on.
Thursday, March 17, 2022
My prediction came true
New Zealand’s television line-up is about to get a bit of a shakeup, with more to come. From next week, channel positions will change, and much later on, the government plans on forming a new public broadcaster out of two Crown-owned media entities. Some of this is quite meta, and much of it only of interest to New Zealanders, but it will also mean changes for this blog—because my prediction came true.
Back in September of last year, I wrote about Discovery Networks NZ (aka Discovery, Inc) buying the TV channels of Mediaworks, and I noted that their two free-to-air music video channels were likely doomed: “It seems highly improbable that the new owners will keep the music video channels.” In that same post I noted that Discovery had a lot of programming that it owned, and so, it had plenty of content to fill those two channels. I said:
The company is ending The Edge TV and The Breeze TV on Monday, March 21, and that means the only free-to-air music video TV channel (one I’d describe as currently broadcasting music “most of most days”) will be Juice TV. I talked about that channel back in May of 2020, and I’ve noticed that it’s now more likely to broadcast mainstream music videos than the original version did, but its content is still largely not mainstream. The two former video channels will be available to stream from their respective radio channels’ websites, but, who actually does that? I never did before, and it seems unlikely I will now (I’d have to launch a web browser on one of my devices to watch it on TV, which is possible, but cumbersome.
The change to music video channels means that it’s improbable that I’ll find much new music, since I don’t listen to radio anymore, and so, the main driver of my old “Weekend Diversion” posts will be gone. That doesn’t mean they’re dead, though: I’ll talk about older music (as I’ve always done), and I’ll still occasionally run across new music by accident (usually when it’s a music bed in a video, or used in a commercial or something). We’ll see. At any rate, the loss of the free-to-air music video channels again will definitely affect what music I write about, and how often. Again
One of the music channels is being replaced by a new channel, called “Rush”. That channel appears to be a New Zealand—perhaps, “New Zealandised”—version of the company’s Australian channel, “9Rush”, which is a joint venture with Australian broadcaster, 9 Network. Its programming is supposed to be “adventure” stuff targeting males 25 to 54, the same demographic that TVNZ’s “Duke” channel originally targeted, though it no longer does.
Discovery’s other new channel is actually rebranding/replacing a channel they already owned, Choice TV. The rebranded it “eden” (all lowercase) is promising "A Better Everyday". The channel will apparently carry many of the same programmes Choice TV had, but also some drama, among other things, that Choice didn't broadcast. There will also apparently be at least one “local show”, though at the moment I’m not clear if that announced show is NZ-made or Australian-made. A eden+1 channel, which will carry eden programming on an hour delay, will also be added, replacing the other music video channel.
All of these are part of a larger re-jig of the channels on free-to-air Freeview and also on pay-TV Sky. Many of the changes are of a “housekeeping” nature, such as, putting all the +1 channels together and adding a one before their channel position (so, TV One+1 will become 11, Two+1 will be 21, Three+1 will become 13; the new eden channel will by 8, and its +1 will be on 18). This change makes a lot of sense for people with remotes that allow channel changing by number, which my current Android box doesn’t (that box is a topic for another day), so for me this change doesn’t give me or folks like me anything at the moment, but I think it might eventually matter for me.
A complicating factor in all this is that Discovery and Warner Media are merging into a new company (to be called Warner Bros. Discovery), which will, among other things, allow them to combine their online streaming services (the Discovery+ streaming service isn't very old and, as far as I know, neither it nor Warner Media's HBO Max service are available in New Zealand). I have no idea whether this merger will be good or bad for consumers, however, reducing the number of streaming services would be welcomed by a lot of people, including me: To access all programming available through streaming services, every month someone would probably have to spend at least five times what they’d pay for ordinary pay TV—though, if they had ordinary pay TV, they wouldn’t be able to access all the content available. Also, not all streaming services are available in New Zealand.
Meanwhile, other changes are in the planning stages. Last week, the NZ Government announced plans to merge TVNZ and RNZ into a new public broadcasting entity. The new entity will be funded by a combination of advertising, as TVNZ is now, and also government support, because the intent is to end the requirement that the entity has to return a dividend to the Crown, as TVNZ currently must (RNZ is commercial free). While details and specifics of the merger are awhile off yet, the new entity is intended to ensure public broadcasting will continue, and to provide New Zealanders “with high quality, independent, timely and relevant media content,” as Broadcasting and Media Minister Kris Faafoi put it.
The merger means that regardless of what the for-profit companies do, New Zealand content (especially MÄori content) will continue to be made and broadcasted. It’s way too early to tell if Discovery will make much local content for any of the channels it bought, but they may not be interested in producing New Zealand-specific and MÄori content when they have so much foreign content they can simply re-purpose. However, a strong public broadcaster making local content could provide strong competition for viewers, and so, advertising revenue—and that might provide an economic incentive for Discovery to make local content. Hopefully.
Things are definitely changing for television in New Zealand, and I’ll be interested to see what Discovery's new channels broadcast, even if it’s all foreign. I watch TV to be entertained and informed, and sometimes foreign content is—for me—better at one or the other than a local programme might be. Not always, but, the competition for eyes can make locally-made NZ content better, too. Hopefully.
Television hasn't been a unifying force ever since pay-TV took off and splintered audiences: With zillions of things to watch at any given moment, the odds there'd be a mass audience for one single broadcast became extremely rare—and that only become more true when streaming services appeared. Because of that, the changes made by Discovery may not really matter much. New Zealanders will still have NZ-made programming to reflect us and tell our stories, no matter what Discovery (and, evenetually, Warner Bros. Discovery) does. This is why my own reaction to all this change is mostly a shrug of the shoulders.
There's one thing, though, that I want to note for my personal history: Those video music channels kept me company during the original Covid lockdown, a period when I was also in my first year without Nigel. They were, at the time, very valuable to me. However, I gradually watched them less and less over time, and the channels I watched the most were TVNZ's TV One or a couple of Discovery's NZ channels, including Choice TV.
All of which means that whatever happens in the shakeups and rearrangements, we'll all adapt just fine, like we always have. We already have plenty of viewing options, after all, and we can always find something to watch.
Back in September of last year, I wrote about Discovery Networks NZ (aka Discovery, Inc) buying the TV channels of Mediaworks, and I noted that their two free-to-air music video channels were likely doomed: “It seems highly improbable that the new owners will keep the music video channels.” In that same post I noted that Discovery had a lot of programming that it owned, and so, it had plenty of content to fill those two channels. I said:
The company’s international division… owns a lot of channels around the world, so they have some options for what to use when replacing the two music video channels. It seems unlikely to me that they wouldn’t do that: They already own the programming, don’t need to license the content, and it would be much cheaper than making programming for New Zealand.I got it exactly right.
The company is ending The Edge TV and The Breeze TV on Monday, March 21, and that means the only free-to-air music video TV channel (one I’d describe as currently broadcasting music “most of most days”) will be Juice TV. I talked about that channel back in May of 2020, and I’ve noticed that it’s now more likely to broadcast mainstream music videos than the original version did, but its content is still largely not mainstream. The two former video channels will be available to stream from their respective radio channels’ websites, but, who actually does that? I never did before, and it seems unlikely I will now (I’d have to launch a web browser on one of my devices to watch it on TV, which is possible, but cumbersome.
The change to music video channels means that it’s improbable that I’ll find much new music, since I don’t listen to radio anymore, and so, the main driver of my old “Weekend Diversion” posts will be gone. That doesn’t mean they’re dead, though: I’ll talk about older music (as I’ve always done), and I’ll still occasionally run across new music by accident (usually when it’s a music bed in a video, or used in a commercial or something). We’ll see. At any rate, the loss of the free-to-air music video channels again will definitely affect what music I write about, and how often. Again
One of the music channels is being replaced by a new channel, called “Rush”. That channel appears to be a New Zealand—perhaps, “New Zealandised”—version of the company’s Australian channel, “9Rush”, which is a joint venture with Australian broadcaster, 9 Network. Its programming is supposed to be “adventure” stuff targeting males 25 to 54, the same demographic that TVNZ’s “Duke” channel originally targeted, though it no longer does.
Discovery’s other new channel is actually rebranding/replacing a channel they already owned, Choice TV. The rebranded it “eden” (all lowercase) is promising "A Better Everyday". The channel will apparently carry many of the same programmes Choice TV had, but also some drama, among other things, that Choice didn't broadcast. There will also apparently be at least one “local show”, though at the moment I’m not clear if that announced show is NZ-made or Australian-made. A eden+1 channel, which will carry eden programming on an hour delay, will also be added, replacing the other music video channel.
All of these are part of a larger re-jig of the channels on free-to-air Freeview and also on pay-TV Sky. Many of the changes are of a “housekeeping” nature, such as, putting all the +1 channels together and adding a one before their channel position (so, TV One+1 will become 11, Two+1 will be 21, Three+1 will become 13; the new eden channel will by 8, and its +1 will be on 18). This change makes a lot of sense for people with remotes that allow channel changing by number, which my current Android box doesn’t (that box is a topic for another day), so for me this change doesn’t give me or folks like me anything at the moment, but I think it might eventually matter for me.
A complicating factor in all this is that Discovery and Warner Media are merging into a new company (to be called Warner Bros. Discovery), which will, among other things, allow them to combine their online streaming services (the Discovery+ streaming service isn't very old and, as far as I know, neither it nor Warner Media's HBO Max service are available in New Zealand). I have no idea whether this merger will be good or bad for consumers, however, reducing the number of streaming services would be welcomed by a lot of people, including me: To access all programming available through streaming services, every month someone would probably have to spend at least five times what they’d pay for ordinary pay TV—though, if they had ordinary pay TV, they wouldn’t be able to access all the content available. Also, not all streaming services are available in New Zealand.
Meanwhile, other changes are in the planning stages. Last week, the NZ Government announced plans to merge TVNZ and RNZ into a new public broadcasting entity. The new entity will be funded by a combination of advertising, as TVNZ is now, and also government support, because the intent is to end the requirement that the entity has to return a dividend to the Crown, as TVNZ currently must (RNZ is commercial free). While details and specifics of the merger are awhile off yet, the new entity is intended to ensure public broadcasting will continue, and to provide New Zealanders “with high quality, independent, timely and relevant media content,” as Broadcasting and Media Minister Kris Faafoi put it.
The merger means that regardless of what the for-profit companies do, New Zealand content (especially MÄori content) will continue to be made and broadcasted. It’s way too early to tell if Discovery will make much local content for any of the channels it bought, but they may not be interested in producing New Zealand-specific and MÄori content when they have so much foreign content they can simply re-purpose. However, a strong public broadcaster making local content could provide strong competition for viewers, and so, advertising revenue—and that might provide an economic incentive for Discovery to make local content. Hopefully.
Things are definitely changing for television in New Zealand, and I’ll be interested to see what Discovery's new channels broadcast, even if it’s all foreign. I watch TV to be entertained and informed, and sometimes foreign content is—for me—better at one or the other than a local programme might be. Not always, but, the competition for eyes can make locally-made NZ content better, too. Hopefully.
Television hasn't been a unifying force ever since pay-TV took off and splintered audiences: With zillions of things to watch at any given moment, the odds there'd be a mass audience for one single broadcast became extremely rare—and that only become more true when streaming services appeared. Because of that, the changes made by Discovery may not really matter much. New Zealanders will still have NZ-made programming to reflect us and tell our stories, no matter what Discovery (and, evenetually, Warner Bros. Discovery) does. This is why my own reaction to all this change is mostly a shrug of the shoulders.
There's one thing, though, that I want to note for my personal history: Those video music channels kept me company during the original Covid lockdown, a period when I was also in my first year without Nigel. They were, at the time, very valuable to me. However, I gradually watched them less and less over time, and the channels I watched the most were TVNZ's TV One or a couple of Discovery's NZ channels, including Choice TV.
All of which means that whatever happens in the shakeups and rearrangements, we'll all adapt just fine, like we always have. We already have plenty of viewing options, after all, and we can always find something to watch.
Sunday, December 26, 2021
The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast 2021
The video above is the Queen’s annual Christmas Broadcast to the UK and The Commonwealth, and this year was a personal repeat of last year: I saw it when it was broadcast on New Zealand’s TV One, and not on YouTube. Just like last year, I was at home, with my Christmas Day festivities finished, and had the TV on in time to watch the broadcast. That seldom happened before to last year.
I thought she did a very good job this year, but when she talked about the loss of her “beloved Philip”, to me she seemed the most human. She mentioned how she only now really understood how holidays can be difficult for people mourning the loss of a loved one. I knew exactly what she meant because until I lost my own beloved husband, I didn't truly understand, either.
There was even a bit of her characteristic dry humour when she said, “as long as the tune is well-known”, which seemed to me like she was making a good-natured joke about people unable to carry a tune. Or, not. It doesn't actually matter. Personally, though, I thought that was a bit funnier when the carol played at the end had an arrangement of the song I’d never heard before.
In any case, that’s another Christmas tradition, the Queen’s Broadcast, completed.
Previously:
The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast 2020
The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast 2019
The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast 2018
The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast 2017 (and 1957, too…)
The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast 2016
The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast 2015
Previous years’ broadcasts are no longer available.
I thought she did a very good job this year, but when she talked about the loss of her “beloved Philip”, to me she seemed the most human. She mentioned how she only now really understood how holidays can be difficult for people mourning the loss of a loved one. I knew exactly what she meant because until I lost my own beloved husband, I didn't truly understand, either.
There was even a bit of her characteristic dry humour when she said, “as long as the tune is well-known”, which seemed to me like she was making a good-natured joke about people unable to carry a tune. Or, not. It doesn't actually matter. Personally, though, I thought that was a bit funnier when the carol played at the end had an arrangement of the song I’d never heard before.
In any case, that’s another Christmas tradition, the Queen’s Broadcast, completed.
Previously:
The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast 2020
The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast 2019
The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast 2018
The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast 2017 (and 1957, too…)
The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast 2016
The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast 2015
Previous years’ broadcasts are no longer available.
Sunday, October 17, 2021
Saturday really was pretty super
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern had set a Super Saturday goal of 100,000 jabs, and in the end there were a record 130,002 doses given, of which 39,025 were first doses and 90,977 were second doses. It was by far the biggest day for vaccinations since the campaign began earlier this year, and bigger than any single day since the current outbreak began, a period in which we’ve already seen several record-breaking days for vaccinations.
Because Auckland has been the starting point for all our outbreaks after the original one last year, it’s vital that they get to 90% vaccination to help protect the rest of New Zealand. Auckland had their own record-breaking day yesterday, with 8,957 people getting their first doses and 31,686 people receiving their second doses. That means that 89% of the eligible population in Auckland has been vaccinated with at least 1 dose. This is great progress, and it now seems inevitable that Auckland will hit, and hopefully surpass, 90% fully vaccinated.
Yesterday was a record day for MÄori people, too: 10,941 got their first doses and 10,874 got their second. However, MÄori lag far behind every other group when vaccinations per 1000 people are compared, ranking last among the major ethnic groups. The data hasn’t yet been updated with Saturday's data, but it seems unlikely to have changed dramatically.
There are many reasons why MÄori remain unvaccinated in such large numbers, however, what the Super Saturday event showed was that engaging with them in a culturally-aware manner, using MÄori health and community agencies, can pay big dividends (the same is true for Pacific communities, of course). As the government has said repeatedly, no one will be left behind in the race to the 90% mark. Super Saturday showed an important part of the way forward.
Yesterday, too, there was an 8-hour live event broadcast on TV and streamed over the Internet. Vaxathon, as it was called, was part of the strategy to energise New Zealanders—especially young people generally and MÄori and Pacific peoples—to get the jab. An historical note, the broadcast was a nod to the former Telethon, a televised event raising funds for charities and held in various years from the mid-1970s through to into the 1990s (and one in 2009). The actual Telethon programme faded away when the Lotto New Zealand was introduced in the last 1980s, because 100% of the net proceeds from the NZ Lotteries Commission go to various community and charitable organisations.
Stuff columnist Allison Mau summed up my thoughts about the day, including about Vaxathon, in her column today, ”'You could say this has shifted the dial': How Super Saturday was won”. I watched a lot of the broadcast (though not all of it), and was struck by the emphasis on MÄori, from the frequent use of the language through to references to MÄori culture, and, like Mau, I knew that was no accident. I can imagine the deep-sighing grumps typing madly in protest about all that as they spewed their comments anywhere that might let them, but they’re an angry (and largely older and white) minority. I can imagine it, but certainly haven't seen it—I mean, seriously, who reads the comments sections of major news sites anymore? Besides, I really don’t care what they think about the broadcast (Special note to such deep-sighing grumps: If you don’t like a broadcast, turn the bloody channel—or even turn the TV off!—and leave everyone else alone).
Yesterday was a pretty super Saturday, and it will hopefully energise people to make the final push to get the entire country past the 90% vaccination rate. Doing so is vital for us all.
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