I've just sent the following email to Cam Wallace, CEO of MediaWorks, which owns Magic FM and Magic Talk. If anyone else feels inclined to do the same, the email address is feedback@mediaworks.co.nz
Dear Mr Wallace,
I want to thank you for providing me with the incentive to
download Spotify Premium after putting it off for many years.
Let me explain. For as long as it has existed, Magic FM has
been my radio station of choice. As long as it played the type of music I
wanted to hear (at least most of the time), I felt no need to turn to
alternative sources.
That all changed with the announcement that Sean Plunket was
leaving Magic Talk – obviously not out of choice, but because of pressure from
virtue-signalling advertisers and online vigilantes.
I’m not a Magic Talk listener, but at that point I decided I
could not, in conscience, support a media company that so timidly succumbed to
pressure from corporate advertisers with no commitment to, or understanding
of, the importance of free speech in a democracy.
Accordingly, Magic FM has been wiped from my radio pre-sets
at home and in my car and I’m now happily streaming Spotify. As a bonus, I don’t
have to listen to commercials (or Neil Diamond several times daily).
I don’t necessarily expect banks or telecoms companies to
respect free speech principles, but I do believe a company that’s in the
business of providing news and information should show a bit of spine.
Yours faithfully,
Karl du Fresne
A very good letter. I'm torn because I think it's important to keep supporting Peter Williams on Magic Talk in the face of Grant Robertson's puerile attempt to "cancel" him. Williams asked a perfectly reasonable question about a major initiative of the Davos-based World Economic Forum and he did not deserve the appalling treatment he has received. We are however switching our accounts away from the corporate bullies behind Plunkett's ousting.
ReplyDeleteGood on you for supporting Peter Williams, who must be feeling quite exposed. And good on you for withdrawing your support from the corporate bullies, as you accurately describe them.
ReplyDeleteAs for Grant Robertson, his withdrawal from Peter Williams' show looks suspiciously like an opportunistic attempt to put further pressure on a weak station management that's not prepared to stick up for its hosts.
While I have no interest in talk back radio, I'd swim through crocodile infested waters to turn up the volume if I heard Neil Diamonds Tap Root Manuscript playing on the Marconi.
ReplyDeleteHi Karl
ReplyDeleteI wrote to Vodafone, (I'm a customer) who pulled their advertising from Magic Radio asking them how deep their "purity test" was when it came to their own internal practices. Did they supply services to organisations that sold products or services that we know can kill people or significantly damage their health and well-being, tobacco, alcohol, gambling services?
Well of course they do. Theirs is the kind of virtue that costs them nothing.
They had the curtesy to reply.
I'd move providers as well, but Spark is just as bad, and they are the only viable alternative. I have had similar conversations with the former CEO of the trading bank we use. I also challenged the bank when they thought it was an act of corporate virtue seeking to have Israel Folau's wife kicked out of NZ Netball for the 'crime' of supporting her husband.
We need to write, push back and to let them know that not all of their customers are onboard with their oppressive cancel culture. Good on you for speaking up.
Well said, Karl
ReplyDeleteI’m very keen to set up a database of these woke organisations so that conservatives can spend their money with companies run by kids who are simply into virtue signalling and have no spine.
The examples of woke organisations is building - Vodafone, KiwiBank, Countdown - the list goes on....
Bob McCoskrie
Sorry to be a downer Karl but you really should be aware of Spotify's wokeness as well.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2020/09/22/joe-rogan-spotify-strike/
The right need to stop complaining about cancel culture and get on board. I personally have not been anywhere near a Newshub site since the last election. And Vodafone and Kiwibank are well of my Christmas card list.
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ReplyDeleteAll you commentators above : you are so right. All that each of us can and should do is firstly to attack the smug woke’ists with calm, rational, convincing words from every platform available (and Karl’s blog is such platform) - and secondly to put our actions where our mouths are and stop supporting them in the most practical, economic ways possible.
ReplyDeleteI doggedly and often write my opinions to both the National Party and to ACT – but not to Labour or the Greens. I will not cast my pearls before swine. And I have scrapped my subscription to STUFF- the very worst offender.
I deleted my comment because it didnt read well. I might try again
ReplyDelete