Public broadcasting faces bleak future

Public broadcasting faces bleak future

By Josh Martin

AUCKLAND (Te Waha Nui (AUT) /Pacific Media Watch)

An Auckland television producer says the outlook is bleak for both public broadcasting in New Zealand and his own media current affairs show when the digital channel TVNZ7 goes off air in June.

Phil Wallington, executive producer for Media7 at Top Shelf productions, says time is running out for the Save TVNZ7 campaign to succeed in its uphill battle.

“After the first couple of years of broadcasting it was obvious that TVNZ7 was going to die in a ditch somewhere.”

Wallington says former Broadcasting Minister [Dr Jonathon] Coleman, who discontinued TVNZ7’s funding, had “the attitude of a philistine”.

The current Minister for Broadcasting, Craig Foss, says there are many avenues to access New Zealand content and public service broadcasting and this will continue after the closure of TVNZ7.

“Just because the funding for TVNZ7 in ending in June, does not mean that those programmes cease to exist,” says Foss.

He says, in the digital age and internet access, online distribution of public access media means there is plenty of opportunity for producers.

But Media7 is a long-format interview show that relies on “having a long adult conversation” and would not find a home on commercial channels, Wallington says.

“I dread to use the term ‘dumbing down’ but look at TVNZ’s Close-Up. Commercial imperatives mean they’re like: ‘Now we’re going to have a story about Madonna or a dog riding a skateboard to work’,” Wallington says.

He says TVNZ will lose the “fig leaf” of public broadcasting when TVNZ7 closes and moral high ground that comes with it.

The consequences of diminished public service broadcasting for democracy are well known to University of Auckland senior lecturer Dr Joe Atkinson.

“Holding the powerful to account is unlikely to occur. There will be virtually no close scrutiny or robust discussion of matters of public concern,” he says.

Green MP Gareth Hughes says, despite the campaign’s online and academic supporters and that public service broadcasting was “desperately needed”, the NZ government is ignoring them.

“National has been very tough on austerity measures for things they don’t like and they ideologically oppose public service broadcasting,” says Hughes.

Wallington says a remedy could be regulating pay-tv broadcasters to sponsor and broadcast some public broadcasting, because they have “unrivalled dominance” in the industry.

* Television New Zealand is due to cease broadcasting the digital channel TVNZ7 by June 30.
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