The effects of Covid-19 continue to provide a great deal of uncertainty and raise a lot of questions
for the music community. There are many challenges ahead, and while we all try to adapt to this new normal, we want to assure you that the music industry bodies are operating at full capacity, and continuing to meet twice a week to share plans, actions, ideas, and resources to try and reimagine the future.
We wanted to provide music whanau with a further update as we head into the weekend, with a few pieces of good news that might be helpful at this time.
MUSIC INDUSTRY HUI - YOU'RE INVITED
The collective music organisations are hosting an online hui next Thursday at 11am on Facebook, to update you all on the various actions and initiatives we're working on, and connect with our music whanau.
Representatives from NZ On Air, NZ Music Commission, Creative NZ, Recorded Music NZ, Te Māngai Pāho, and APRA AMCOS NZ will speak, moderated by wonderful Teresa Patterson from MMF NZ, with support from IMNZ, OneMusic NZ, SOUNZ, and MusicHelps.
It will be an opportunity to ask questions and share ideas. Everyone is welcome, and if you're not able to join in live, the video will be available to watch afterwards.
WHEN: Thursday April 9, 11am
WHERE: Facebook and YouTube Live (you’ll see links on all of social media pages next week)
WHAT: Updates and Q&A from the collective music industry organisations
MUSICHELPS LIVE
While we absolutely appreciate that very few people in the music industry are in a position to make charitable donations at the moment, we wanted to let you know about this new MusicHelps campaign that's going on, raising some emergency funds for the NZ music community. MusicHelpsLive launched on Monday, and so far has raised $205,782 from 141 generous donors. The aim is to raise $2 million to see kiwi music people through the coming winter. All funds raised will be distributed to those music workers whose livelihoods have been shattered as a result of the COVID-19 crisis.
It's wonderful to see artists helping to spread the word about MusicHelpsLive already - Vodafone and LiveNation's Lounge Jam series with Tiki Taane, Hollie Smith and Dave Dobbyn; NicNak's Lockdown Live series with Ashy, Harry Parsons, and Dillastrate; and OUSA's Jam On Toast music festival, have all committed to helping the cause. Get in touch with MusicHelps if you're keen to get involved! www.musichelpslive.co.nz
NZ ON AIR FUNDING
NZ On Air announced their next New Music Single round will still go ahead as planned with the deadline of 23 April and results announced 21 May.
They also confirmed the second of their Pasifika focus rounds - New Music Pasifika. Applications for this focus round will open on Thursday 7 May and close on Thursday 21 May and more details and criteria will be coming soon. Follow @nzonairmusic on social channels or see nzonair.govt.nz for updates.
NZ On Air is also keen to emphasise to artists and creators who have a funded Single or Project in the works that they completely understand there are likely to be delays given the current Covid-19 Alert level 4 status in NZ. They just ask that artists contact NZ On Air to update them on the revised plans for your release – or just to advise that it’s delayed until you can make a plan! Best email address for these updates is newmusic@nzonair.govt.nz
The latest NZ On Air NewTracks release for April was released this morning and contains a massive 40 brand new NZ tracks across a range of genre. The compilation goes to a wide selection of media both in NZ and Australia including radio networks and streaming services.
NZ On Air is also working closely with the stations of the Student Radio Network who support a huge amount of New Zealand artists. Like all media advertising revenue has slumped for this sector so NZ On Air are working with those stations to try and provide some stability through these trying times so they can continue to expose a wide range of new NZ music and artists.
NZ MUSIC COMMISION - OUTWARD SOUND GRANTS
The Music Commission’s Outward Sound international investment programme has a round scheduled to close on 20 April. For this round, Outward Sound will be accepting targeted applications for artists to continue promoting recent international releases in overseas markets.
More information is available here.
MMF MENTORING SESSIONS
The MMF are holding bi-weekly group mentoring sessions with a selection of their mentors starting next week and will soon be starting weekly online seminars covering a range of topics.
RECORDED MUSIC NZ ROYALTY DISTRIBUTIONS
RMNZ are in the process of finalising the 2020 distribution and intend to bring the date forward as soon as they can. In order to swiftly and efficiently make that distribution they are asking everyone to make sure they register all new recordings released in 2019 with them prior to the deadline of 30th April 2020.
There is still a small number of artists have not claimed their royalties from the 2019 distribution, if this may be you please access your RMNZ artist login page and complete the details. If you have any questions please contact the membership team: memberservices@recordedmusic.co.nz
Also, you can now check out all of the weekly radio airplay charts online and they are now available via www.radioscope.co.nz . These charts are based on airplay data collected from 60 stations including all major commercial stations, student and iwi radio.
APRA AMCOS NZ ROYALTY DISTRIBUTIONS
In an effort to get money into the hands of members as urgently as possible, APRA are bringing the Performance Report royalty distribution forward from November to May. Any members who have played live between July 2019 and April 2020 need to get in touch with the member services team to discuss what they need to do before April 9.
Please read further info here.
Also if you haven’t lodged a performance report for performances in previous years (up to three years prior), you should get in touch with member services to file a retrospective report, so you can get those royalty $$. International distributions will continue to happen monthly, and all other royalty distributions will continue to happen quarterly. APRA are also looking a new ways to do workshops and seminars in an online environment, and will have more details about these opportunities in coming weeks.
AWARDS
Congratulations to Shona Laing, who has been announced as the very deserving recipient of the 2020 Taite Music Prize Independent Music NZ Classic Record Award for her wonderful 1987 album ‘South’, which includes the seminal track (Glad I’m) Not A Kennedy.
Shona will receive the award at the Taite Music Prize ceremony, alongside the winners of the Auckland Live Best Independent Debut, and the Taite Music Prize.
This ceremony was due to take place in April, but is being reimagined for current circumstances, with a new date and venue to be confirmed soon.
Also, while the upcoming Pacific Music Awards, NZ Children’s Music Awards, NZ Country Music Awards, and NZ Jazz Awards have all been affected by the Covid-19 restrictions, it’s still very important that songwriters and artists are celebrated for their work, and there are plans for all of them to take place in a yet to be confirmed online form, and dates will be announced as plans are finalised.
I LOST MY GIG NZ
We've had nearly 600 responses to the I Lost My Gig NZ survey so far, totalling around $8.9million in lost income, but we know there are plenty more of you out there who may not have heard about the survey, or perhaps not gotten around to filling it out yet - please do!
It's very helpful for the music industry organisations to get a greater picture of the scale of loss in the NZ music community, and to be able to use this information to advocate to government for support.