The available funding is up to a maximum of $10,000 plus the 10% Artist Creation Fee (ACF), total funding is $11,000 (plus GST if you are GST registered). The funds can be allocated between recording, video content and costs of promotion and marketing. The grant is split into three drawdowns paid as advances - $8,000 / $2,000 / $1,000 ACF split between various milestones across your Single project delivery. The ACF will be disbursed solely in the final drawdown.
A mandatory 10% Artist Creation Fee amounting up to $1,000 plus GST (if applicable), will be added to your grant and disbursed exclusively as the final Drawdown. This fee pertains to internal creative services provided to the project by the artist.
Artists need to meet certain criteria before entering an application for New Music Single (a minimum of 10 criteria from 30 options). This helps to demonstrate that you have already started reaching an audience with your music and there is some public demand for the music you’re making. You can view our detail New Music Single entry criteria [here](https://www.nzonair.govt.nz/documents/1212/NMS25_Criteria_and_Guidelines.pdf).
As part of your NZ On Air Music funding, we offer two free mentoring/planning sessions with a music industry professional via the Music Managers Forum Aotearoa (MMF). If you indicated consent for the sharing of your contact details with the MMF in your application, expect the MMF to reach out to you directly.
We also have our NewTracks initiative, curated by the Music Team, which is a monthly compilation of New Zealand releases that is serviced to broadcasters and media each month.
Before applications are accepted into the round, each application is subject to a criteria check to confirm the provided criteria information is correct. If your application is accepted into the round or if your application has been declined due to criteria not being met, this will show in your application status as ‘Not Yet Eligible’ when logging into the portal.
Our application portal does not send out emails regarding applications which do not meet criteria and are ineligible, so please monitor your ‘Funding Applications’ portal to see if your application has been accepted or declined.
If you have queries around this, please contact musicteam@nzonair.govt.nz
Status:
• Incomplete – The application has not been fully completed by the applicant
• Submitted – The application has successfully been submitted by the applicant
• Pending – The application is pending a criteria check review from NZ On Air
• Accepted – The application has been accepted into the funding round
• Declined – The application has been declined
• Not yet eligible – The application is ineligible and will not be considered for judging by the panel
Criteria Status:
• Passed – The criteria provided by the applicant has passed. This means the criteria provided has reached the benchmark criteria of 10 or more criteria examples.
• Failed – The criteria provided by the applicant is under the required benchmark criteria count needed to be apply and your funding application has not been accepted.
Please contact musicteam@nzonair.govt.nz if you would like further clarification on your application.
If applying for multiple rounds at once, bear in mind how multiple applications may trigger differing funding limits (e.g.: applying for New Music Project and New Music Single concurrently) and therefore may affect your outcomes. If concerned, reach out to musicteam@nzonair.govt.nz
If the song is a collaboration between multiple artists or contains a featured artist the criteria must refer to one single main artist/applicant only. Examples of collaboration or features with many artists:
- ‘Artist A feat. Artist B’;
- ‘Artist A x Artist B’;
- ‘Artist A, B, C & D’
No. You must have made some headway in terms of generating audience with your new band. You must answer all sections except the Awards and Recognition section with the artistic entity you are applying for and cannot use previous track record for any other sections.
No, your New Music Single cannot be a live recording. You must deliver a studio recorded / produced song for servicing to broadcast platforms under this funding scheme.
No. Cover versions, acoustic versions, remakes or remixes of older released songs are not eligible under the New Music Single scheme. Due to the incredible demand for funding support each round we are focused on new songs only. NZ On Air can only support the production of new original music under any of our New Music funding schemes. You must hold all the necessary rights including Performers' Rights to release the song for any music you submit for funding consideration. If you have a sample contained within your song then it must be completely cleared before the track can be considered for funding support.
Unfortunately, no. Your song cannot be released on any DSPs until after the funding results have been announced.
You can find the funding decisions date for each round here: https://www.nzonair.govt.nz/funding/funding-deadlines/
You can apply for funding for only the video content and promotion of a song, but the song cannot be released and publicly available*, and you will not be eligible for reimbursement of any of the recording costs associated with that song.
* e.g. ‘Publicly available’ meaning if you have released the song through a DSP (’Digital Service Provider’). The only exception to this rule could be if it were a single on an already released album or EP. Please contact musicteam@nzonair.govt.nz to discuss.
Twice. Once your song has been considered by two different New Music Single funding panels our policy is you need to choose a different single if you are going to apply for NZ On Air Music funding again. If you apply a third time with the same song, your application will be declined.
An artist may apply once per round. The artist's name you apply under may also appear as a feature or collaborator on another artist’s application, but you cannot be the main artist applicant more than once per round.
However, please note you may only have one New Music Single fund open and zero New Music Project funding open if you are applying for any NZ On Air music funding. If you have any uncompleted music funding, please contact newmusic@nzonair.govt.nz to complete your outstanding grants.
Artists can also only receive a maximum of three New Music Single (or focus round funding) for any one album/EP release campaign.
The New Music Single funding scheme is now more flexible about video content. Previously we required an official music video with every funded song, but this has changed. We are less prescriptive about the form your video content may take to promote the song. Moving image content is important in the promotion of your music, but whether this is a full music video, a series of video teasers, mini-documentary footage, behind the scenes content or something else is up to you to decide. This is a creative decision that should be made depending on what you think your potential audience will best respond to, and will give you most value for the grant money.
Please note, we still require the video content you create to be the best quality possible to effectively reach an audience, but the format is now less prescribed. You will still need to submit budgets for the different stages of the grant, including video content. Also the video content is to promote the funded song only, therefore filming of multi-song live sets or multi-song DJ sets do not qualify.
It is expected that each Single project will have some budget to spend on promotion, publicity and marketing to get the funded song noticed by a larger audience.
Eligible costs are the costs we will consider as part of your budget that the NZ On Air grant can go towards. We do not provide funding for capital purchases, international travel, per diems, live tours, expenses related to the manufacturing of physical products, koha, gifts, and similiar expenses. All costs must be related directly to creating the audio and video content for broadcast and online audiences in New Zealand, and the costs of promoting that music content to that audience. Refer to the Budget Expectations document [here](https://www.nzonair.govt.nz/documents/1214/NMS25_Budget_Expectations.pdf).
Absolutely yes. This is a requirement of the grant process - you will need to keep all evidence of expenditure related to the grant. You can reasonably expect to be asked to supply all invoices and receipts after the second drawdown of your grant. If you are unable to supply them this will put the remainder of your grant on hold and could jeopardize any further funding opportunities with NZ On Air.
As of July 2019, we have removed the need for a 20% co-investment for New Music Single funding, but this only applies to grants from that date onwards. All grants received between July 2016 and June 2019 still require 20% co-investment. Regardless we still expect you to invest additional resources into the release of your funded Single where possible, to give it the very best chance of cutting through and finding an audience.
You have 2 months from when you get the grant to sign and execute your contract. You have 6 months from the date of your contract to complete the Single project - unless you contact us to extend the delivery timeframe. The best idea is to keep in contact with us so we know where the project is at if there are any delays. We understand in the music industry things can change and we understand that. It’s just important to keep us in the loop! You can contact us at newmusic@nzonair.govt.nz in regard to any updates to your funding.
Under New Music Single, you can receive funding three times from three separate rounds within a 12-month period.
However, please note you may only have one New Music Single fund open and zero New Music Project funding open if you are applying for any NZ On Air music funding.
If you have any uncompleted music funding, please contact newmusic@nzonair.govt.nz to complete your outstanding grants.
If you are experiencing technical difficulties with your application, try these steps before contacting us:
- Make sure your web browser is up to date with the current system
- Go into your history settings and ‘Delete browsing data’. Then clear your cookies and cache
- Try another web browser from the one you are using
If you are still having difficulties after doing this, please contact musicteam@nzonair.govt.nz
NZ On Air is a government broadcast funding agency. We are a Crown Entity and our legal name is ‘The Broadcasting Commission’. We fund local content for broadcast (including online) outcomes for New Zealand audiences, so we can extend local content choices for our local audiences. The definition of ‘broadcast’ for our funding purposes covers traditional radio and television broadcast, and online consumption through digital platforms (including websites and audio and video streaming services).
NZ On Air helps fund New Zealand music to help get more local content exposed on-air and online. The primary purpose of the funding support is to help enhance the quality of NZ songs and the promotional activity around those songs to give them the best chance to cut through to find audiences. We look to fund quality music content, diverse music content and enhance the discoverability of that content for our local audiences.
