1 May 2001

TVNZ Charter disappointing - Kedgley

Green Party Broadcasting Spokesperson Sue Kedgley today said the new TVNZ Charter was disappointing in both its content and the timeline for its implementation.

"Given that this Charter has been 18 months in the making the Greens are disappointed at its brevity, limited scope and ambiguity," said Ms Kedgley. "We are also very disappointed at the slow pace of its implementation.

"This Charter makes no mention of the high level of violence on TV - let alone any commitment to reducing it - and I am concerned that it does not commit to reducing or eliminating advertising during children's programming. Instead they have settled on a provision which is essentially meaningless," she said.

"I am extremely disasppointed that Labour appear to have completely abandoned their pre-election pledge to remove advertising during children's programmes."

Ms Kedgley said she was disappointed that there were no performance measures set out in the Charter to measure progress in achieving the Charter's goals. "Without performance measures the objectives are meaningless.

"The Greens had expected the Charter to guarantee TVNZ's editorial and programming independence and to also guarantee the broadcaster freedom from political inteference. We are concerned that no explicit guarantee has been given."

Ms Kedgley said the Charter was also weak in terms of addressing how TVNZ was to be funded - especially if commercial imperitaves were to be reduced.

"It is totally unrealistic to expect TVNZ to implement the new Charter without setting aside funding for this. I am worried the Charter will place high expectations on TVNZ which the organisation will not have the budget to deliver on.

"Given the lack of substance in this document and the crawling timeline for its implementation, one has to wonder whether this will ever become any kind of working document," said Ms Kedgley.

ENDS

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