Life in NZ the day Stuff launched
Good morning!
That noise we’re hearing right now? That’s the alarm on our clock radio. It might be beeping, or tuned to Geoff Robinson on Morning Report. Marcus Lush might be playing Sisqo or Vengaboys on the ZM breakfast show.
Whatever sound emits from it, our clock radio with its blinking digital numbers is the only non-sentient thing that can wake us up.
Next to it, our cordless phone charges in its cradle.
Angela’s Ashes is on the nightstand. The morning paper is on the doorstep.
Our work is at work and our home is at home and ne’er the twain shall meet; we can’t check our emails until we get to the office.
It’s Tuesday, June 27, 2000. Today, news website Stuff goes live for the first time. But beyond the headlines, what is life like in New Zealand?
Well, with the Y2K non-crisis behind us, the 3.8 million of us have settled into the first year of the new millennium with aplomb.
We’re all very tech-savvy as we roll into the 21st century; the time is right for a new online news source.
More than half of us have internet access and, for many of us, that’s at home (for the rest it’s at our school or workplace).
We know the sequence of beeps and whirrs the single tangerine-coloured iMac in our family home makes when it’s dialling up as well as we know the theme tune to Shortland
Street. TVNZ is preparing for the soap’s 2000th episode, which will air in October.
The term ‘‘social media’’ hasn’t been popularised yet but we’re tapping messages to our friends on MSN Chat, or perhaps playing The Sims. It was released for Microsoft Windows (we’re running either the new Windows 2000 or Windows 98 Second Edition) in February and has already become the bestselling PC game of all time.
We’re watching a lot of TV as well. The top-ranked TV show in the country is One News, which will continue to hold the one or two spot for the next couple of decades. This month, however, nearly a quarter of us are tuning in to watch Richard Long and Judy Bailey every evening; in 20 years, around 8 per cent fewer of us will have a nightly date with Wendy Petrie and Simon Dallow.
We’re loving our property and home renovation shows, with Location Location Location and Mitre 10 Changing Rooms rounding out TVNZ’s top three for the month.
Perhaps that’s because the housing market is so buoyant. After all, the interest rate is sitting at a cool 2.61 per cent and the average house price across the country is $170,000.
The TV landscape is changing, too; the year-long phase out of the public broadcasting fee will be completed on July 1.
That’s returning a little bit of money to our pockets, which we might be putting towards groceries.
We have it pretty good in this area right now. In 20 years’ time, purchasing power for groceries will have declined by nearly 37 per cent.
Down at our local Woolworths or Big Fresh today, we can buy a kilo of apples for $1.28, or a litre of milk for $1.35. A dozen eggs will only set us back $2.54, a figure that is set to more than double in the next two decades.
We’re a social nation, and we’re finding new ways to connect.
More than half of all households have a mobile phone (households, not individuals – that would be crazy), and the introduction of the short message service or SMS has seen an explosion in the rate of use.
The No 1 movie at the New Zealand box office this week is
Gone in 60 Seconds. It stars Nicolas Cage, who’s married to Patricia Arquette, and Angelina Jolie, who’s married to Billy Bob Thornton.
For those of us who don’t have Sky, the way to watch movies at home is on either DVD or VHS – many of us have both players. We can rent home entertainment from places like Video Ezy or United Video, or buy discs or cassettes so we can watch our favourite movies from our couch.
In music, the song currently at the top of the Kiwi charts is Never Be the Same Again, which sees Melanie ‘‘Sporty Spice’’ Chisholm – that’s Mel C to you – team up with Lisa ‘‘Left Eye’’ Lopes for a non
Spice Girls, non-TLC single. It’s currently at the end of a three-week reign at the top of the charts, having beaten out Britney Spears’ Oops ... I Did it
Again, which was No 1 for just one solitary week.
What we don’t know, can’t yet know, is that we’re in the final furlong of the current world order. Bill Clinton is President of the United States, the Twin Towers stand in Lower Manhattan, you can carry whatever you like onto a plane.
In September of the following year, the phrase ‘‘24-hour news cycle’’ will take on new meaning. We will recognise the need for an outlet like Stuff like never before.