By LOUISA CLEAVE
It's the sort of report card you would stuff into the bottom of your bag, hope the last of the lunchtime orange juice smudged the writing and then produce just as Dad is about to drift off in front of the telly.
Television's end-of-year report card came out yesterday in the form of nominations for the annual New Zealand Television Awards.
In the past few years, the main networks have been getting the message from the teacher: "must try harder." They haven't, and they've scored a big fat F for the first time.
TVNZ and TV3's failure to produce enough one-off dramas in the year ended June 30 led to this category being scrapped from the awards.
TVNZ managed to scrape up a D in the form of Duggan to dominate the drama category with nine nominations.
No one would begrudge the well-executed cop show its tally of nominations but the local whodunnit shares the competition for best series or serial with the only other nomination, sudster Shortland Street.
The half-bright kid who manages to fall into the remedial class might expect a glowing report. Jacksons Wharf picked up nominations in the best actress, actor and supporting actress lists but failed to join Duggan and Shortland Street.
In announcing the list, Academy of Film and Television Arts chairwoman Judy Callingham pulled out a cane but gave those responsible for commissioning programmes for TVNZ and TV3 only a light spanking.
"During this competition year only three New Zealand one-off dramas were screened. This was insufficient for competition and has forced us to cancel the Best Drama Programme category.
"This lack of drama has also had the effect of reducing the number of entries in other associated categories. The academy finds this regrettable, particularly since, to the best of our knowledge, this is the first time Best Drama Programme has not featured in any television awards in New Zealand."
The assessment continued to darken with the nomination of the recently canned arts programme Backch@t for best lifestyle programme.
Last year there were 90 finalists in 31 categories and this year there are 77 finalists in 28 categories.
Perhaps the academy could have filled the short-fall with a couple of new categories.
In a year dominated by reality television, these shows were not given the opportunity to compete for a gong (although they might have preferred a $25,000 treasure chest).
How about "best performance by a member of the public in a reality series?" or "best original idea for a local reality programme not lifted from America, Britain or Europe," surely a chance for the creators of Popstars to be given some recognition from the industry for exporting the first ever Kiwi television format to the United States.
In the face of such bad marks, television executives will no doubt offer the tried and true response: I'll do better next year.
There is enough local drama in the pipeline from TVNZ and TV3 to convince us they are trying harder.
But until next year's report card comes back with improved effort then maybe they should be grounded from the glitzy awards ceremony on November 11.
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