IT MAKES ME PROUD .....

...... to be a Kiwi when I listen to the programmes on National Radio and the various presenters.

We have a great tradition of intelligent and interesting presenters and interviewers so that when a significant overseas personality is being interviewed I don't suffer from 'cultural cringe' and all too often the interviewee compliments the interviewer on the standard of the questions asked. This can only be that they are used to dumb, ill-informed questions from interviewers in their own countries.

I don't have any great knowledge of the standard of public radio in most other countries around the world but have listened a lot over the years to public radio (the equivalent of National Radio in New Zealand) in Australia, UK, Canada and USA.

Australia's ABC is close to RNZ National but just misses and gives the feeling that the Ocker presenters would just love to let rip and do some yahooing drive-time DJ stuff.

In the USA the National Public Radio (NPR) does a similar job but is seemingly underfunded and has a schizophrenic identity being both publicly and privately funded. Being in the US it of course comes under attack for being: politically biased (to either side); elitist (to the rednecks; pro Israeli (to the non Jewish; and wimpy (to the major corporation followers. As a consequence it fails to attract the best in journalism and is a bit of a mixed bag.

In Canada the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) does a pretty good job but the overall feeling is that it's a bit 'tweedy' meaning that the presenters and journalists, not being the big earners in private broadcasting seem to want to air their education and cultural breeding and come across as a bit stuffy and wannabe BBC presenters. As a consequence they definitely do suffer from a bit of cultural cringe.

The biggie - BBC in the UK is far superior to the others having a century of tradition to live up to. It has broken itself up into 4 entities now BBC 1 through 4 catering to different demographics. Generally NZ National is like a combination of BBC 2, BBC 3 and BBC 4 with some of BBC1 showing on Saturday afternoons.


While not having the might of BBC, Radio NZ National, I think, does just as good a job and is arguably truer to the 'charter' than BBC is.


So there!






BBC Radio