Subsidising market populism

With state-owned Television New Zealand facing increasing pressure these days to cut staff and compete with Sky TV, perhaps the government should be putting some thought into whether taxpayers should continue to subsidize mass-market entertainment.

Most of the programming on TV2 for example is popular soap-opera entertainment like Shortland Street, which is little different to the kind of television viewing produced by the private sector. And if such programmes can be made successfully in the private sector, then there's little justification for the public sector producing them as well.

The original rationale behind public broadcasting was to provide high quality content that the market was unable or unwilling to deliver. This relatively elitist approach to public broadcasting reached its cultural apex in the 1960s and 1970s, with the BBC in particular, delivering a number of excellent dramas, documentaries and comedies, which in many cases have not been bettered.

In the 1980s though, market populism began to take hold as an odd alliance of left-liberal egalitarians and neoliberal managers decided public broadcasting needed to take account of mass market tastes, i.e., the tastes of those US commentator Steve Sailer refers to as "people who like movies with big explosions."

Market populism, for better or worse, has also spread through the Anglosphere's education establishment with its notorious "communications" and "studies" majors, and through cultural institutions like museums which switched from being relatively hi-brow cultural repositories to kid-centric pop culture centres, guaranteed to insult the intelligence of anyone with an IQ north of a 100.

This was kind of sad, since in the 70s and 80s many had struck a pretty good balance in their displays, which made them accessible to the average person, while still being interesting to the well- educated.

In the new millennium public broadcasting reached further lows as public radio became little more than a left-liberal propaganda vehicle and public television sunk to the reality TV lows of Treasure Island, Big Brother and I''m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here.

From a conservative perspective, it would make sense for the commercially orientated TV2 to be privatised, and to reserve the limited state funding for the more educational and high-brow, but less commercially viable, Television One.

As far as Radio New Zealand goes, this should either be privatised, or made to present a more diverse range of political viewpoints.

A good start would be to include a few conservative and libertarian guests on its interview shows. If we have to listen to interviews with leftists like Howard Zinn or Naomi Klein, then why not interviews with independent right-wing figures like Ron Paul and Pat Buchanan?

The Concert Programme arguably deserves to stay, as its about the only arm of state broadcasting that's focused on preserving western culture and providing a genuine alternative to populist commercial media.

Whites, middle-class urbanites and South Islanders more trusting

New Zealand is one of those small, predominantly Protestant countries which is known for having a high level of trust. This is often reflected in those honesty tests reported in the media, where someone leaves a wallet in a public place to see if it will be pocketed or handed into the police.

A few weeks ago UMR Research conducted a survey of public opinion where people over 18 were asked the question:

"Generally speaking, would you say that most people can be trusted or that you cannot be careful in dealing with people?"

Nationally about 56 percent of people said most people can be trusted, with 39 percent agreeing with the later view that you can't be too careful.

However, there were significant differences according to class, income, ethnicity and region.

Among Maori and Pacific Islanders, 54 percent said you can't be too careful in dealing with people.

There was also a marked difference by income and occupation, with 69 percent of those earning $50,000 a year saying most people can be trusted, while only 45 percent of blue-collar workers and those earning less than $30, 000 a year agreed.

South Islanders were also more trusting, with 60 percent agreeing that most people can be trusted, as opposed to 55 percent of North Islanders.

Among the main centres, Wellingtonians were the most trusting (62 percent) and Aucklanders the least trusting (53 percent). As the capital city, Wellington has a high proportion of middle class white liberals, which suggests the country's SWPLs may have a higher degree of trust than other urbanites.

Generally it seems New Zealanders have a pretty rational view of whether people can be trusted, given the proclivities of the type of people they are most likely to come across in their social circles. A blue collar person for example, is more likely to be exposed to members of the criminal underclass than a white collar professional and so has more reason to be less trusting.

A common anomaly though, is that while people from low socio-economic backgrounds tend to be more suspicious of others, this often doesn't seem to carry through into their everyday behaviour.

From my observations, someone from a low socio-economic background is more likely to do dumb things like tell someone else their pin number while drunk, engage in risky sexual behaviour, or fall for money-making scams than a generally more trusting middle-class person.