Murray McCully
East Coast Bays MP

31 August 2004

Maori TV should come clean on audience share

"The Maori Television Service is behaving like an organisation with something to hide - releasing once again inadequate figures relating to its audience share," says National Party East Coast Bays MP Murray McCully.

"In releasing new 'cumulative figures' today, the service is continuing to overstate the size of its real audience.

"I challenge Maori Television to release its real ratings, calculated using the same formula that our other leading broadcasters use. MTS has those ratings but it refuses to release them.

"The public can only be suspicious about why MTS guards those figures so jealously.

"Cumulative audience numbers represent the number of people who may have tuned in, if only for a few seconds, while channel surfing.

"And in a further insult to the intelligence of the New Zealand public, the 'new' MTS statistics include viewers watching via the Sky digital platform for the first time.

"Given those factors, it's hardly surprising the numbers are up.

"MTS is doing the public of New Zealand - its shareholders - a profound disservice by continuing to misrepresent its ratings," says Mr McCully.

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