Defusing The Bomber

Defused: Martyn "Bomber" Bradbury's exclusion from Radio New Zealand's Afternoons with Jim Mora's "The Panel" was unfair to the man and embarrassing for public radio, but it was also, in the intimate little country New Zealand has always been, utterly predictable.

I WAS A LITTLE SURPRISED, and a lot impressed, when the production team behind Radio New Zealand – National’s Afternoons with Jim Mora invited Martyn “Bomber” Bradbury on to “The Panel”. Surprised: because Bomber’s style is about as far away from the decorous National Radio tradition as it’s possible to get. Impressed: because it confirmed Afternoons’ determination to remain at the cutting-edge of public service radio in New Zealand.

Since the demise of Radio New Zealand’s commercial arm in the 1990s, and the Fifth Labour Government’s craven refusal to honour its promise to establish a publicly-owned, commercial-free, nationwide youth network, Radio New Zealand – National  has drifted, like a piece of pre-Rogernomics cultural flotsam, in hostile neo-liberal seas.

For nearly two decades the public network has struggled to re-invent itself – with limited success. How could it be otherwise, when the funding increases required for genuine experimentation were consistently withheld by Radio New Zealand’s political masters.

To be utterly dependent on non-hypothecated state funding cannot help but foster an institutional culture of acute self-awareness. Radio New Zealand’s broadcasters have become experts at sensing where the invisible political trip-wires had been laid – and how to avoid them.

“The Panel” – a sort of radio adaptation of TV3’s much-loved The Ralston Group – brought its staff and their guests about as close to those trip-wires as Radio New Zealand’s bosses were prepared to go. And, like The Ralston Group, “The Panel’s” survival depended on its guests fully understanding and respecting the show’s parameters.

I well remember TV3’s Head of News & Current Affairs, Rod Pedersen, telling Ralston’s guests (most of whom were experienced journalists) that he trusted them, as professionals, to know the difference between fair comment and defamation, and thus to keep the network out of the courts. To my knowledge, no one ever let him down.

The producers of Afternoons weren’t as explicit as Rod Pedersen, and yet it was always pretty clear to me that the “culture” of Radio New Zealand was very different indeed from the culture of Newstalk-ZB, Radio Live, and commercial radio in general. Though it ended up as a sort of Ralston-Group-without-pictures, it was originally conceived as a radio version of the BBC’s delightful show Grumpy Old Men – a witty and wistful programme by and for ageing “Baby-Boomers”. You could be many things on Afternoons – but strident wasn’t one of them.

I well remember the day I was ambushed on-air by a bitter and even more than normally vituperative Mike Moore. The former Labour leader really laid into me, landing verbal blow after verbal blow until, becoming very angry, I began to fight back – stridently. Immediately, I felt the vice-like grip of my fellow panellist, Richard Griffin, on my wrist. He shook his head emphatically, as if to say: “don’t go there, stay calm”. Meanwhile, the programme’s amiable host, Jim Mora, very adroitly and professionally, began defusing the confrontation.

This was the institutional culture that Bomber – a natural broadcasting talent honed at stations like BfM and Channel Z – was striding into: pre-written “Soapbox” diatribe gripped tightly in his hand, and that enormous, Gen-X, anti-Baby-Boomer chip he carries around balanced precariously on his shoulder. Talk about inviting Hamas to a bar-mitzvah! This was one gutsy call.

Bomber’s bombastic bloviations swept through Radio New Zealand’s studios – and into the middle-class parlours of the nation – like a noisome radical fart. And, presumably, that was the point. Why else bring Bomber onto “The Panel” unless you genuinely intended to get up the Afternoons audience’s nose? Unless, in the words of Theodore Roszak, you wanted your listeners to experience “an invasion of centaurs”? (Or, in this case, centaur?)

But what about the tripwires? Well, that’s why I was so surprised, impressed, and – yes – even delighted. Because Bomber, host of the high-rating (for Stratos) Citizen A show, and no-holds-barred poster on the Tumeke blog, was gloriously oblivious to any and all of the political tripwires lacing through Radio New Zealand’s corridors. And that could only mean, by inviting him on to Afternoons, one of the network’s highest-rating shows (and one of the highest-rating in the whole country) Radio New Zealand was ready to push out the boundaries of public radio – hard.

Too hard, it would seem.

Perhaps the Radio New Zealand producers were just so used to stepping carefully over all those political tripwires they simply assumed every other broadcaster was too. But there are all kinds of tripwires in broadcasting. In commercial radio they’re laid by the advertisers – via the Sales & Marketing Department – and the shock-jocks ignore them at their peril. In student radio, I imagine the ultimate sin is a terminal lack of “cool”.

As Bomber’s commentaries nudged the stridency levels higher and higher, and Afternoon’s Baby-Boomer audience grew weary of the Bradbury blame-game, the programme was dragged further and further away from its comfort-zone. Sooner or later, Radio New Zealand was bound to say: “Nup. That’s it. We’ve gone too far out on this particular limb.”

The moment came last Thursday afternoon. Bomber took aim at the Prime Minister and squeezed-off a sustained burst of heavy-calibre fire. It was no better or worse than a dozen other well-aimed political fusillades he’d unleashed over the past few months. But, it was one too many.

What happened? I don’t know – and I haven’t been able to find out. Did RNZ Board Chairman, Richard Griffin, put the vice-like metaphorical squeeze on CEO Peter Cavanagh’s wrist? I doubt it. The most likely explanation is that, quite suddenly, and without the clear warning he was entitled to and should have been given, Bomber crossed the invisible line from “gutsy call” to “major liability” – and the Bomber-disposal squad went into action.

Unfair to Bomber? Yes. Bad for the programme? Possibly. Deeply embarrassing for Radio New Zealand? Definitely. But in a society so small; so politically and professionally intimate; and so utterly dependent on invisible lines and unspoken rules as New Zealand, it was also very, very predictable.

This posting is exclusive to the Bowalley Road blogsite.