Crime does pay, on TV
New Zealand puts millions of dollars into producing true crime stories for TV every year. Jack Van Beynen wonders why we find them so fascinating.
Murders, rapes, kidnappings – Kiwis love ’em. At least, we love to watch television shows about them. Sunday night’s episode of Forensics NZ, which focused on the 2008 murder of deaf Christchurch woman Emma Agnew, was no exception.
The episode ‘‘Operation EMZ’’ was a factual look at how police caught killer Liam Reid, but New Zealanders appear just as interested in dramatised versions of high-profile crimes.
Last year’s Resolve, about the murder of Chris Crean, and Catching the Black Widow, about Helen Milner’s poisoning of husband Phil Nisbet, were feature-length dramatisations of real murders.
Both rated strongly – more than 400,000 people stuck with Black Widow for its entire run-length, according to Nielsen data.
TV funding body New Zealand On Air appears to recognise there’s a demand for true crime stories on TV and has pumped millions of dollars into the genre in recent years.
Forensics NZ has received more than $1 million from NZOA for each of its two seasons. Cold Case, an upcoming documentary series reexamining significant unsolved crimes, got $1m in December 2016. Last year In Dark Places, a telefeature dramatising Teina Pora’s wrongful conviction over the murder of Susan Burdett, was awarded almost $3m. Resolve got $2.5m and Catching the Black Widow $2m. Going back a little further, Doubt: The Scott Watson Case, which aired in 2016, got $1m, and
How to Murder Your Wife, Venus and Mars,
which both aired in 2015, and Consent – The
Louise Nicholas Story, 2014, were funded to the tune of more than $2.5m each.
‘‘True crime stories are popular but they are a small part of the range of content we support,’’ an NZOA spokesperson said. ‘‘The ones we support tend to view the story through a different lens – in this case using science to show how a case has been built. Forensics is more a story of science than of crime.’’
Forensics’ host Simon Morton says the true crime genre ‘‘seems to be exploding at the moment’’. With his show people come for the crimes and stay for the science.
He thinks there are several reasons true crime stories hold such appeal for New Zealanders. One is that there’s a ‘‘voyeuristic’’ aspects to the stories.
‘‘We’re able to get insights into victims’ and criminals’ lives that come from different socioeconomic backgrounds or different cultural backgrounds. We get to look through their lens for a little while in terms of their point of view.’’
People are interested in exploring the how and why of murders from the comfort of their living rooms, Morton says.
‘‘People are intrigued about what it actually takes to kill someone . ... Most of these crimes happen in the communities that we live in.
‘‘They might have been to so many places of these crimes, driven the same roads, gone to the same schools as the kids of the victims or the criminals, eaten at the same restaurants. ‘‘They’re in their community, and so having a way to see into what actually happened – I guess people are intrigued by it.
‘‘These are humans, these are people we live shoulder-by-shoulder with in the community.’’
University of Canterbury criminology professor Greg Newbold is quick to point out that a fascination with true crime isn’t a recent thing, and neither is it unique to New Zealand.
‘‘Shakespearean plays were the same back in the 17th century. Julius Caesar and MacBeth, those are crime stories. I think you need to look at it in a wider context,’’ he says.
He attributes that universal appeal to the fact that crime stories typically involve strong emotions, and stimulate audiences without actually putting them in danger.
‘‘It’s the need for people to be stimulated without actually being endangered by what happened. They can be stimulated by the trauma that someone else experienced.’’
He says the crime stories that grab the public’s attention tend not to be white-collar crime.
‘‘No one gets excited about [white-collar crime]. It’s always a rape or a murder or a robbery or something like that. It’s always something which gets the heart pumping.’’
Shows like Forensics provide a useful function in preventing the public forgetting crimes, Newbold says. ‘‘I think it’s important that the public doesn’t forget what happened to Emma, because it’s easy to forget these things, and I think it’s good that people get reminded about that, because sooner or later Liam Reid’s going to come up for parole, and I think everyone should remember what he did.
‘‘And I think the parole board and the general public should be aware of what happened, and not think, ‘Oh it happened a long time ago, it doesn’t matter.’ Because it does matter. That girl’s life is
‘‘People are intrigued about what it actually takes to kill someone.’’ Simon Morton (left)
over and he was responsible for it. I don’t think we should ever forget that.’’
Morton says he hopes his programme might prevent crime by showing how hard it is to get away with. ‘‘Hopefully it will prevent people from committing crimes, because you’re not going to get away with it, basically. The odds are you’re not going to get away with it, with the way technology now is working, the way every contact leaves a trace and the way environmental DNA leaves a trace,’’ he says.