RNZ Concert Partner Update

Tuesday 29 November, 2022

Dear partners, 

With Christmas in sight, I’d like to share some developments underway at RNZ Concert, and I have a request for your help please.  

RNZ Concert for the rest of 2022 

Our newly appointed presenters – Bryan Crump, Siliga Sani Muliaumaseali’i and Carey McDonald have received warm welcome from our listeners, and we are all looking forward to what they will add to the RNZ Concert experience. Our Breakfast and Afternoon shows will now also have dedicated producers for the first time, to support audience engagement. The presentation team is thriving with the leadership of Clarissa Dunn. 

Refreshed programmes designed with these production teams will begin in the new year, following our summer schedule which will run from 19 December 2022 – 22 January 2023. 

In the background we are also completing a major broadcast technology upgrade for RNZ Concert which will make our work easier when completed in the next month or two. 

Hints of what is to come in 2023 

We will continue to improve RNZ Concert’s radio offering to our audiences. We are not planning a sudden change, more of an evolution based on best practice radio programming, audience research, and working to the strengths and expertise of our presentation team. 

The morning show will be music-focused, bright and breezy to accompany the start to most people’s day, hosted by Siliga Sani Muliaumaseali'I from Monday to Thursday, and Carey McDonald Friday to Sunday. 

During the day you can expect longer pieces, complete works and highlights from our live recordings, hosted by Nick Tipping. 

We will be taking a new approach to spoken content on RNZ Concert (e.g. interviews, talk features/podcasts). The pandemic required us to pause our lunchtime interview programme Upbeat and we’ve used that time to review our approach to providing this important service in a way that our radio audience will embrace. 

The afternoon show, presented by accomplished interviewer Bryan Crump and produced by former Upbeat producer Robyn Jaquiery, will be the destination for most of the talk content on RNZ Concert in the new year, but we will place stories in the best broadcast spot for the audience. 

All story ideas, interview pitches and publicity information can be sent to our production team here: ConcertTalk@rnz.co.nz 

The evening programme with David Morriss will include Music Alive! With Clarissa Dunn. 

Music Alive! and our commitment to live music performance and Sound Lounge’s support of new and New Zealand composition remain priorities. 

We are already excited by your live performance programmes for 2023, our combined audiences are in for a great year of music. 

I Like Classical Music

We are taking this opportunity to review and refresh our music playlist too, with a campaign called I Like Classical Music.  

For the first time we will ask RNZ Concert and other classical music listeners what they think of the repertoire we have played the most often over the past few years.  

This involves people signing up online and taking some time to listen to short extracts of classical music, then indicating how they feel about each piece of music. 

Our request for your help 

It would be wonderful if you were willing to invite your audience to participate in the I Like Classical Music research. We need a good number of people with a range of classical music interest to complete the survey. 

Here is a link to the webpage with info on how it works as well as a link to the survey itself: 

https://www.rnz.co.nz/concert/programmes/concert-talk/audio/2018868408/i-like-classical-music 

The short URL for social or spoken use is www.rnz.co.nz/classical 

We have created some social media and newsletter assets you might like to use to share this info with your audience. These versions do not have the RNZ Concert logo on them. They are available via Dropbox here.

We are happy to share the results we get from this research with everyone who assists with this promotion. 

The ‘I Like Classical Music’ promotion will run until midnight 18th Dec. All promotion should stop on Friday 16th December. 

New Visual Imaging 

Concert is reimagined in rich blues and purples, with a jolt of red energy in fluid, flowing organic shapes that speak of richness, energy and our location in the south Pacific. 

If you include the RNZ Concert logo or branding in your work, please contact me for copies of the new designs, which we will use from now on. 

Please forward this update to others in your organisation who might find it useful, and/or let me know their name and email address so we can add them to our e-list. 

We wish you and your team a relaxing summer and excellent listening for 2023. 

Best wishes, 

LIISA and the RNZ Concert team