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Dame Julie Christie: Celebrity Treasure Island Creator on the NZ On Air funding boost for Kiwi made TV shows · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: More questions this morning over the future of our screen sector.
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: New Zella OnAir has dropped nearly three million dollars in
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: taxpayer cash on new seasons of Celebrity Treasure Island and
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: The Traitors comes hot on the heels of a two
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: and a half million dollar bailout for Shortland Street just
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: last week. Dame Julie Christie's a television producer and creative
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: Celebrity Treasure Island with me this morning, Dame Julie, Good morning.
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: Good morning.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: Is this it's an ungodly hour. I appreciate you being
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: here with me.
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: Should should I am Club? It's called isn't it?
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: That's right?
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: She's a very good book. Actually, there was a good
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: book called the five Am Club which helps with the
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: early mornings.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: Well, I should have read that a long time ago.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: Should we taxpayers be putting money into unscripted reality shows?
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: Well, I mean one of the side effects of the
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: movement of ed revenue away from traditional TV has been
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: the loss of actually the most popular shows because you know,
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: mostly because of their costs. I mean, for many years
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: drama has almost all New Zealand drama has been ordered
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: by government funding. And these shows actually deliver a big audience,
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: and bigger audience than any drama. We are facing having
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: no entertainment television at all on our screens, and you know,
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: we can't just have British, Australian and American shows. We
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: don't have the we don't have the the the I
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: guess the legislation which demands that you've got to make
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: so much local content in order to have a license
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: in this country to even be a broadcaster. So there
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: is no protectionism. So I think it's inevitable. It's a
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: really good short term decision, but we've got to find
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: a way to make it a hand up, not a handout.
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: So the long term sustainability is a challenge.
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: Really, we're all going on Netflix and watching American stuff
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: or British stuff, foreign stuff. Could you make an argument
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: that that's where we get our entertainment. But we also
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: now have social media. We see key we characters on
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: social media and we follow them and they entertain us,
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: and it's done in a different way perhaps to traditional television.
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: It is, But the great thing about these shows is
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: they are a shared experience. You know, I like, I mean,
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: Treasure has been around since nineteen ninety seven, so twenty
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: eight years I think. And one of the other decisions
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: which you probably didn't notice about the latest thing was
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: the return of My House, My Castle, which is you know,
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: I was twenty four years old, it ran for ten years.
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: It was actually TV two's answered to Fair Go on
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: TV one, which we produced way back then. So I
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: think these shows which enable people to sit down together
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: are actually really good for us, I feel. I mean,
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: the question is, you know, it's going to be much
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: harder decision for a New Zellin heir when the block
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: the Bachelor married at first site and those shows say
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: me too, So how do you decide which of these
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: sort of shows to fund? Is going to be a
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: much harder decision than funding this one. Normally New Zealand
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: on here would have what would always cite reflecting our
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: cultural identity as being a criteria for funding. But this
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: time they appear to have made a commercial decision, which
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: is pretty much needed.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: God that's said, isn't it. But the thing that I
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: saw I saw you sterday that the Traitor is not
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: even one of our formats. It's a foreign one.
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: No no, no, it's not it's not Treasure Onland is
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: original ip I mean, what does an ideal situation look
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: like to me anyway? And it's just my opinion. Is
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: it an ideal situation looks like is that we start
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: developing more New Zealand formats. We haven't had one for
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: many years actually, with exception of Guy Montgomery's unspelling B
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: which I think is now in Australia and New Zealand,
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: we're not developing those formats. So perfection looks like you
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: develop a New Zealand format, you create a hub like
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: a place where it can be made and all different
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: countries come in and make that show here in New Zealand,
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: therefore providing long term sustainability. We own the IP. There's
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: something of value, you know, that's a that's a that's
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: the what the ideal looks like. So to me, that
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: has to be the next step. If you're going to
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: go down this road, you've got to we've got to
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: look at New Zealand IP, We've got to look at
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: improving the things with things within our own industries. So
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: we're back creating those sort of shows which we used
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: to create a bit.
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: Of DIY don Julie Christie, I appreciate your time this
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: morning for more from Early Edition with Ryan Bridge. Listen
• 4:22
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• 4:25
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