Chris Chetland of Kog Transmissions describes RIANZ as a retirement agency. "I have no idea what RIANZ does", admits Fiona McDonald. "Oh hang on, they do the Music Awards, don't they?"

RIANZ: What Is It and What Does It Stand For?

By Peter McLennan (originally published in NZ Musician December 1999)

RIANZ - heard the name before? RIANZ stands for the Recording Industry Association of New Zealand, in fact an association of record companies. While the name may sound familiar to musicians, just what RIANZ does is a mystery for most. Its nature of business is formally described as 'to establish and promote the rights of producers of sound and/or video recordings'.

RIANZ, through its sister organisation PPNZ (Phonographic Performances New Zealand Ltd), collects money for licensing the broadcast (TV/radio), public performance (in bars, restaurants, nightclubs), and copying of sound recordings on behalf of record companies and record distributors.

PPNZ then annually re-distributes that money to the record companies, in amounts according to their local market share of retail sales. The bulk of this, which obviously derives from the works of international artists, is returned to the record company head offices, who in turn distribute the money to their artists (or not) as they see fit.

PPNZ is a non profit limited liability company which is the authorised agent of the record companies. Its board make up is essentially that of RIANZ. All the money it collects (over $2.5 million per annum) is distributed, less administration costs.

In part PPNZ has a similar role to APRA, the organisation that collects royalties for public broadcast on behalf of the songwriters, and AMCOS, which collects money on behalf of music publishers. PPNZ collects royalties on behalf of music manufacturers (record companies) and distributors.


"Does RIANZ represent the New Zealand music
industry as a whole, or just an exclusive
(ie. multi-national) part of it?"



RIANZ stages the annual New Zealand Music Awards, co-ordinates the Top 50 singles and album charts through another affiliate company RPL (Record Publications Ltd), operates a music gift voucher scheme and is involved in lobbying Government on issues such as copyright and piracy. It also works with IFPI (International Federation of the Phonographic Industry) on similar global issues.

For an organisation that represents an industry worth over $180 million in retail sales alone per year (1998 recorded music sales in this country were $186.4 million), 5 to 10% of which is generated from New Zealand music (at least $9 million worth), RIANZ has a very low profile among Kiwi artists. It surprised me that an overwhelming majority of the local musicians I spoke to while researching this story had little or no knowledge of RIANZ and its workings.
Chris Chetland of Kog Transmissions described it rather amusingly as a retirement agency. "I have no idea what RIANZ does", admitted Fiona McDonald. "Oh hang on, they do the Music Awards, don't they?".

So does RIANZ represent the New Zealand music industry as a whole, or just an exclusive (ie. multi-national) part of it? I spoke with RIANZ Chief Executive Terence O'Neill Joyce, and President (also Managing Director of Sony Music NZ) Michael Glading, to try to find out more.

RIANZ was founded in 1953 by Fred Smith, who worked at HMV in Wellington, handling copyright. It is an incorporated society, and is essentially a trade organisation for record companies, both the multi-nationals and the small local indies. RIANZ set up Phonographic Performances New Zealand (PPNZ) in 1957 to specifically handle the licensing of the record companies' copyright over their product for public performance and broadcast, i.e. radio, TV, restaurants, bars, nightclubs, etc.

CEO since 1997, O'Neill Joyce told me he initiated the setting up of the RAP (Recording Artist and Producers) Fund in 1995, while he was President of RIANZ. The RAP Fund was in fact introduced in anticipation of legislative changes with the new Copyright Act which was enacted in 1994. Tony Chance, longtime Secretary of RIANZ and General Manager of PPNZ (he was the public face of RIANZ from 1975 to 1997, when it decamped from Wellington to Auckland), says that the legislation changes were based on the British Copyright Act of 1988, which he describes as "one of the most advanced pieces of copyright legislation in the world. It (the RAP Fund) was a joint initiative on the part of RIANZ board members and the industry, recognising the moral rights of (New Zealand) performers. It goes back to 1984, and had been discussed at board meetings, and several discussion papers had been written on the subject".

RIANZ has been closely involved in the drafting of copyright legislation: Chance was also the executive secretary on the Copyright Council (indeed he helped set it up), an independent body of film makers, writers and people from the creative industries, who lobby and advise Government on copyright issues.

The RAP Fund aims to distribute 10% of the total licensing income returned to the record companies directly to local musicians and producers. (The term 'producers' used here as in the record labels who manufacture and distribute music, not recording studio producer types). This 10% is distributed on the basis of radio airplay logs for New Zealand artists received on computer discs from APRA, but only to those musicians who have registered their recordings with the RAP Fund. Due to protracted accounting problems the first such payments were made just a few years ago with the 1998 payments now imminent. RIANZ repeatedly refused to indicate the amount distributed annually, saying it was 'commercially sensitive information'.

It would seem that very few bands have registered with the RAP Fund, due to a very low awareness of its existence. The only advertising was at the time of its establishment, with no subsequent active promotion directed to musicians, drawing speculation from some that this low awareness is a deliberate policy. I suggested to RIANZ that if musicians knew how much money was distributed annually they might be motivated to register and get their share of the pie.
However, they still did not want to release this figure, but said they would be happy to tell any musician who wanted to phone them up the names of other musicians who had received money from the RAP Fund.

Independent label owner Murray Cammick (Wildside, Felix) says he has been working at making sure his artists are registered for the RAP Fund. "… because RIANZ has made some initiative to try and make sure the money they collect on behalf on New Zealand artists gets to them, and at the moment some of those artists and labels, like my own, have been a bit slack in making sure that happens." Currently, Dead Flowers are the only act on Wildside or Felix registered with the RAP Fund. Lead singer Bryan Bell says he has received two payments, both for around $30 to $40, saying "… anything helps I guess."

Dave Dobbyn, one of the most prolific and highly played local musicians, is another artist who receives money from the fund. "It all adds up. Nothing comes in lump sums but the more funds for the artist the better." Greg Johnson also receives cheques from the fund. "People who don't make the effort are just short changing themselves really." He says the cheques are not large and not regular but do come.

Because it is based on radio logs, in order to get a large sum, you'd need to get a significant amount of radio airplay. The RAP Fund does not make payments under $10 and a lot of artists will not reach the matching airplay threshold. Given RIANZ reluctance to discuss money issues its impossible to know where the remaining unallocated recording artist income, the unclaimed and unclaimable amounts, end up.

RIANZ is best known for presenting the annual New Zealand Music Awards bash, celebrating the commercial and artistic successes of our local music industry. This year's event was the 35th. It is commonly suggested that this event is just an excuse to placate local musicians with free alcohol, but O'Neill Joyce says that "this suggestion diminishes the basic sincerity that underpins the effort that goes into presenting the Awards each year."

Glading also notes that the Awards event aims to "give publicity to and highlight the vast wealth of New Zealand music talent. The New Zealand Music Awards is very much a promotional exercise at reminding the public how active our music is."

"...the pitiful negligence of RIANZ in not exerting leadership or vision to rally the indies into the future lies at the heart of the soulless state of the industry at present." Phil Tripp.


This is obviously a key function of the event, especially with TV coverage of the Awards bringing it to homes right across the nation. The year 2000 event is scheduled for March 4 and there's apparently more to it than just free alcohol!
There are also feelings among the music community that the Awards are behind the times in some areas, such as overlooking the highly visible rise of the local electronic music scene. This will undoubtedly change, as local electronica continues to gain prominence in the mainstream. The APRA Silver Scroll Awards, held to reward songwriting (an event which has suffered similar criticism in the past), this year reflected a shift in focus to a more diverse range of music including the winner, hip hop artist King Kapisi.

Record Publications Ltd, a RIANZ offshoot, is responsible for compiling the weekly Top 50 albums and singles charts. When asked about the potential of manipulating the charts, Glading acknowledges there have been problems in the past with this, but says that they are rapidly moving towards fully computerised monitoring of retail sales for chart stores to solve this. For example, the country's biggest music retailer, The Warehouse, already provides its returns to RPL via computer, direct from their till system.
Responding recently to such criticism the charts are now based 50% on airplay and 50% on sales. The information is sent out to a third party contracted to process this data for RIANZ.

RIANZ administers the Jerry Wise Young Performers scholarship, founded in 1994 after the death of Festival Records' boss Jerry Wise, who was a vocal supporter of local music. This scholarship is made annually to four students (last year to five), with RIANZ contributing $10,000 annually, and Creative New Zealand adding in the same amount.

RIANZ also operates a music gift voucher scheme turning over more than $1.5M annually, and assists with donations to projects such as New Zealand Music Week (which received around $3,000 in 1999), the Green Ribbon airplay quota campaign, etc.

Glading says that RIANZ is very closely involved in defending their members' rights, "… which are under enormous attack, not only by the idiotic parallel importing legislation that we now have to live with, but also the attacks from MP3. The piracy issue is quite a big issue too, probably bigger than most people realise."

One reason RIANZ was based in Wellington until a year and a half ago was its political lobbying role. When it was set up almost 50 years ago, the recording industry was based in Wellington, and there were several record manufacturing plants there. The current Auckland base is appropriately enough the former Mandrill Recording Studios in York St. The move north has also resulted in closer ties with APRA, something which did not happen much in the past according to O'Neill Joyce, due to "a clash of personalities".

The income RIANZ collects is distributed according to market share, the majors obviously getting the lion's share, as they have a bigger slice of the market. As noted earlier, the music industry here turns over more than $180 million a year at retail (over $38 billion a year worldwide), of which Glading estimates that 5 to 10% is local product. The exact figures are not available, though he was sure they could be easily collated by the industry. By comparison, internationally, people are buying more local music than ever 65% of worldwide sales are made up of local repertoire (ie. local artists), according to the IFPI. While we will never achieve such a high level here given our small population base, there is definitely room for improvement.

Both Glading and O'Neill Joyce were keen to clear up misconceptions surrounding RIANZ, such as why they are perceived as not being as pro-active as APRA. O'Neill Joyce mentions that unlike APRA which has a strong support network from their Australian counterparts, RIANZ is self reliant for its accounting systems. The slowness of RAP Fund pay outs was complicated by the only RIANZ staff member knowing the system passing away unexpectedly, but they are catching up.

O'Neill Joyce also reasoned that, while APRA is connected with everyone in this country who writes a song, not all of those people have released a record.
Glading adds: "APRA's charter is very different to RIANZ's charter. APRA is there to promote New Zealand songs, songwriters, etc. We're actually here to control rights. Ours is not a promotional body. People see APRA, and they say well, RIANZ should be the record company equivalent, and it's not, it can't be. Because of anti-trust legislation, the record companies can't work together, it would be a monopoly."

RIANZ' reluctance to assist in increasing the market share of New Zealand music, irks many. Both Labour and National included the establishment of a music commission/forum among their pre-election cultural initiatives, acknowledging that the music industry is lacking effective infrastructure. One has to ask, why the music industry heads (which RIANZ represents) haven't previously taken this initiative.

RIANZ was described to me as a secretive cartel, only concerned with aggressively protecting the interests of the major labels, to the detriment of the smaller labels. O'Neill Joyce comments that "it appears at times that we support only the multi nationals. You can't get rid of that perception when 90% of music sold here is generated by those multi nationals. We have to protect their interests, and their rights as well. Now, protecting their rights is no different to protecting the rights of (Auckland label) Scoop De Loop or (Dunedin label) Yellow Eye."

RIANZ currently has five fulltime and one part time staff member. All six of the major labels are full members, paying $5,000 a year, and 35 smaller independent labels are affiliate members, for $250 a year. Some of the indie labels have membership under the umbrella of their major label distributors. The major labels (EMI, Universal, BMG, Warners, Sony, Festival) all hold positions on the RIANZ board, along with Eldred Stebbing of Stebbing Recording Centre, which meets quarterly. According to the most recent financial statements we could source the board members earn around $12,000 annually for their trouble.

O'Neill Joyce was the representative of the indie labels while on the board, as owner of Ode Records, and says he has tried to encourage the other indie labels to get involved, offering to make available the RIANZ board room for get togethers. One indie label person I spoke to said that they had suggested at a previous RIANZ annual general meeting that it would be good to hear more frequently from RIANZ, an idea the board were apparently keen on. The next time said indie label heard from RIANZ was notification of the next AGM, a year later.

Murray Cammick notes: "If the independents have a lack of say in RIANZ, it's our own fault, through being too preoccupied with staying alive, really. If there are failings with RIANZ, it's because people like me or people from a more independent sector are not getting off their bums and contributing and being part of the democratic process."

O'Neill Joyce is currently seeking two members, one from the RAP Fund and one from the Affiliate members, to become involved on the Board, with each one alternating year by year.

So while RIANZ and PPNZ have a clear financial agenda, do they have a cultural agenda? Glading says they most definitely do, and are active in music education, making financial contributions towards cultural events such as the Smokefree Rockquest for the last 4-5 years (to the tune of $3,000 - 5,000).
O'Neill Joyce, who was one of the five music industry representatives to recommend a Youth Radio Network for the National government, says that he personally would like to "try and restore some kind of cultural balance in the nation, and get the politicians, the people who govern, to realise that one of the vital ingredients of building a nation is allowing young people a voice. You don't hear a lot of poetry around, these days. People used to laugh at poets, but the poets of today are the Dave Dobbyns and the like and they need - we need - a level playing field. We need a balance between sport and music."

Phil Tripp (Australian publisher of Immedia's AustralAsian Music Industry Directory since 1988) commented in a letter to Real Groove magazine last year that "The amount of backbiting and jealous antagonism in the industry (in New Zealand) must be soul destroying for those who (are) try(ing) hard to make a living ... equally the lack of music support organisations and the pitiful negligence of RIANZ in not exerting leadership or vision to rally the indies into the future lies at the heart of the soulless state of the industry at present." He also noted however that "It's easy to draw targets on RIANZ's back and also kick the butts of the Big Boys."

There is a high level of awareness and willingness in the industry to support New Zealand music, and to grow it. RIANZ would seem to be one of the very few organisations available to help do this. While it is tempting to point the
finger and harangue them for past sins, RIANZ seem to be slowly starting to pick up the pace, and go into bat for New Zealand music. They are just padding up a little slower than the spectators would like.

Note: Responding to this article, RIANZ/PPNZ are adamant that payments are not in fact made to members of the Board of Directors, but remain unwilling to reveal any matters financial.

www.rianz.org.nz