Regulator’s $100K karaoke party If Maori TV doesn’t mean Maori . . .
The staff of the Financial Markets Authority love a shindig, with latest figures showing the government agency dropped close to $100,000 on its annual staff conference.
About 160 staff and board members attended the event at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in downtown Auckland, and with nearly all the bills in, the cost stands at $93,300.
‘‘Some of the costs included are estimated based on quotes we have, but most final invoices have come through,’’ an FMA spokeswoman said.
FMA staff from Auckland (100), Wellington (54) and one from Christchurch took part in a range of activities including team building and listening to motivational speakers during the two-day conference. A highlight of the gettogether was an awards dinner complete with drinks and singing.
‘‘The evening included a predinner drink and karaoke with restricted table drinks and a cash bar,’’ the spokeswoman said.
‘‘The evening festivities finished at 11.30pm.’’
But while $93,000 might seem a lot compared to the more frugal Commerce Commission – which is expected to spend about $25,000 on an upcoming development day for its 180 staff – the FMA event is so far about $15,000 under budget and well short of the $112,395 cost of last year’s staff conference.
The spokeswoman said the FMA’s Auckland office could not have accommodated the 160 conference attendees so ‘‘we looked at six Auckland venues. Crowne Plaza was selected because it was the lowest cost, had a suitable location within walking distance from the FMA’s Auckland office, and the size was right for our numbers.’’
Outside speakers and facilitators cost about $18,000 and a media panel were rewarded with four bottles of wine costing $155.62 and $300.
The spokeswoman said nearly all Auckland staff went home at the end of the first day although, because the cost of a taxi home would have been over $120 for six of the Auckland staff, the FMA paid this amount towards their room cost.
The figure of $93,300 included venue hire, food and beverage and travel costs including airfares.
‘‘It should be noted that a number of Wellington-based staff scheduled their trip to Auckland for the conference to also include other meetings in the Auckland office or with market participants so the travel costs attributed to the conference actually also include normal business as usual travel costs,’’ she said.
The FMA will spend $285,000 on staff training in the 2016/17 financial year. Maori Television may drop the word ‘‘Maori’’ from its name as it seeks to increase its weekly audience to more than a million viewers.
The channel was reviewing its ‘‘brand identity’’, but no decisions had yet been made on what the new-look channel would be called, spokeswoman Lana SimmonsDonaldson said.
Mana Movement leader Hone Harawira blasted the idea of tampering with the channel’s brand, saying that would be foolish.
Harawira said Maori TV could grow beyond ‘‘the struggle from which it was born’’, but if it was embarrassed by the Maori brand it should ‘‘piss off to mainstream television’’.
Simmons-Donaldson said Maori TV’s review was part of a wider work programme aimed at growing its audience, which had risen more than 16 per cent since it introduced new programming in March.
‘‘Our programmes have broad appeal with just as many nonMaori viewers watching as there are Maori viewers, which helps us achieve our goal of growing the use of te reo Maori.’’
Audience growth had come from new shows such as Native Affairs, Game of Bros and Sidewalk Karaoke, and from movies broad appeal, she said.
The channel realised the importance of its brand if it was to succeed within ‘‘a highly competitive market context’’ and wanted to ensure both its brand and content ‘‘remain relevant’’, she said.
The review would take ‘‘the fullness of time’’ and no decisions had been made with regard to the channel’s name or whether the word ‘‘Maori’’ might be dropped.
Harawira bristled at the suggestion with of a name change, saying Maori TV had become an ‘‘icon of indigenous broadcasting the world over’’.
‘‘To tinker with that brand and image shows a lack of vision and understanding of where Maori Television came from, which was a claim empowered by the Waitangi Tribunal.
‘‘If you get caught up in that very ‘corporate’ vision, anything is possible, including very dumb moves.’’
Harawira said there was always room for improvement in Maori TV’s content mix.
‘‘You should never be satisfied with what you have achieved because the world is changing every day.’’
He was unsure whether Maori TV was doing enough to respond to the ‘‘invasion of social media’’ into people’s lives.
‘‘My view is Maori Television should always be bold and innovative, and it has done that, and because of that they should look to furnish that image rather than change it,’’ he said.
Labour broadcasting spokeswoman Clare Curran questioned how much the review would cost and whether it signalled a change in direction for the channel, which she said was facing the same kind of funding restrictions as Radio New Zealand.
‘‘I would question what the motivation for a rebrand is. If their audience numbers have increased over 16 per cent, then why bother?’’
Maori TV was launched in 2004 and has been credited with helping to encourage the use of te reo.
The station received $10.6m funding boost in the 2016 Budget over four years, on top of its annual funding of around $33m from the Government and Te Mangai Paho.