24 March 2013 - 0 Comments

Topping twenty...

New Zealand music content on the radio is holding up at just over 20% for the 2013 calendar year to date. According to RadioScope, it's 20.17% (as at 03 March). That's all radio including commercial, student and iwi. On commercial radio on its own, it's not so rosy (provisionally) 16.32% for the year to date. The most-played New Zealand song at the moment is Stan Walker's (pictured) Making Tracks-funded song Take It Easy from the movie Mt. Zion, which is not just the most-played New Zealand song, but the most played of all songs. At #2 is OpShop with Never Leave Me Againand at #3 is the phenomenon known as Lorde with Royals.

Back to more Making Tracks

After two months off, Making Tracks is back. The first funding round for the 2013 calendar year was February. We took in a record 215 applications and funded 23 projects, including new songs from old friends like The Phoenix Foundation and new songs from new friends like Wellington's Estère, who picked up her first NZ On Air grant. So far this financial year, we have taken in 799 applications and funded 146 projects (18%), of which 57% have been dubbed as suitable for the commercial broadcast media by the funding panels of the day, and 43% have been thought suitable for alternative broadcast media.

More than a million

Our new music discovery website, theaudience, run by Amplifier, continues to grow nicely, with solid increases in all key metrics. Website visits at the end of January (eight months after the launch of the site) were up to 392,962 (up from 289,927 in October) and the number of unique visitors was up to 155,571 (from 116,378 in October). Website page views were over the million mark at the end of January (up to 1,230,049).

Showcasing new music

The third of our radio showcases for the 2012-2013 year is scheduled for 27 March. The invite-only showcases are held at Back Beat in Auckland. So far this year we have showcased Jamie McDell, The Wyld, the Jupiter Project, the resurrected Goodshirt, Aaradhna, Loui The Zu, and Five Mile Town. On 27 March, we will feature Massad, Jesse Sheehan, Brooke Duff and The Phoenix Foundation.

Congratulations to

As we planned, the Making Tracks music reforms opened the funding doors to a wider range of music genres intended for play on outlets additional to commercial radio. An example is the Auckland folk duo called Great North. They have had two Making Tracks grants so far, and we're delighted Great North has just picked up the 2013 NZ Music Awards Tui for Best Folk Album.

Our congratulations too to the finalists for the 2013 Pacific Music Awards, which will be held in Auckland on 30 May. NZ On Air sponsors two awards at the Pacific Music Awards - an award for the song by a Pacific artist that picked up the most play on radio in the qualifying year and a new award for the best music video by a Pacific artist. The finalists for the inaugural NZ On Air Best Pacific Music Video award are Aaradhna (pictured) for Lorena Bobbitt, Iva lamkum for Doo Bop and Vince Harder for Far From Here. All three are NZ On Air Making Tracks-funded videos. Aaradhna has five finals berths at the Pacific Music Awards for her (NZ On Air-funded) album Treble & Reverband Iva Lamkum is a finalist in four categories.

And, of course, our congratulations to the wonderful Kimbra for her two Grammys, including Record Of The Year, for her part in the Gotye/Somebody That I Used To Know phenomenon. That's two Grammys, six Tuis and two Arias in the last 12 months for Kimbra. An amazing achievement .

Music Funding Decisions - February Making Tracks

Blacklist - 'Burn'
Brooke Duff - 'The Real You'
Cairo Knife Fight - 'Numb Distraction'
Dane Rumble Feat. Jupiter Project - 'Not Alone'
Dudley Benson - 'Muscles'
Estere - 'I Spy'
Farah Loux - 'Great Escape'
Lisa Crawley - 'Tide Is Low'
Little Oceans - 'Focus Harder'
Little Oceans - 'Illuminated'
Ria Hall - song title TBC
Sam Allen - 'Assurance'
Smashproof - 'Paint Fade'
The Phoenix Foundation - 'Thames Soup'
Titanium Feat. Jupiter Project - 'Soundtrack to Summer'
Von Voin Strum - 'Take Me Home'
At Peace - 'Flowers'
Clara Van Wel - 'Beautiful'
Craig Terris - 'The Hills Of Song'
Hurricane Kids - 'Over'
Ladi6 - 'Fall In Love'
Males - 'So High'
Randa - 'Frankenstein'

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