Umbraco 7 - if loop for content picker problem

I have a page with a content picker as one of the doc types.

I am using an if/else statement to test if content has been picked. If no content has been picked then I get an error. I've seen some other posts about this but none of the solutions help me. thanks for your help

here is the code

@inherits Umbraco.Web.Mvc.UmbracoViewPage<LiveOnTheLine>


@{
    Layout = "Master.cshtml";
}


@{ 
    var nextStream = Model.OnNext;
    var thisNextStream = nextStream.GetPropertyValue("streamProgram") as Program;
    var nowShowing = Model.NowShowing;
    var thisNowShowing = nowShowing.GetPropertyValue("streamProgram") as Program;
    var noNow = Model.GetPropertyValue<IPublishedContent>("nowShowing");

}

<section class="grid-container py24 md:py48">
    <div class="grid-x grid-padding-x grid-margin-x align-center" >
        <div class="cell medium-6 text-center">
            <div class="grid-x align-center">
                <h3 class="heading mb16 vlarge">Streaming Now</h3>
                @if ((Model.NowShowing != null) && (Model.NowShowing.ToString() != ""))
                {
                    <div class="cell lotl-bg-img" style="background-image: url('@thisNowShowing.HeadingHeroImage.Url')">

                    </div>
                    <div class="cell up small-10  px32 py32 md:px48 md:py48 lw-bg-yellow">
                        <h4 class="">@thisNowShowing.SmallTitle</h4>
                        <p>10AM, Friday 23rd October</p>
                        <a class="button my16" href="@nowShowing.Url">Watch Now</a>
                    </div>
                    }
                else
                {
                    <div class="cell lotl-bg-img" >

                    </div>
                    <div class="cell small-10 px32 py32 md:px48 md:py48 lw-bg-yellow">
                        <h4 class="">Nothing is currently streaming</h4>
                        <a class="button my16" href="#online-program">View online program</a>
                    </div>
                }
            </div>

Any insight about how to get this working would be great. I've been trying for hours now and I just can not work it out