The Government has "a moral duty" to reveal the impact its Draft Charter will have on Television New Zealand's advertising revenue and audience share, National's Murray McCully said today.

TVNZ executives today told a Parliamentary select committee that they have prepared a report containing a range of forecasts on the likely effect fulfilling TVNZ's obligations under the Government imposed Charter will have on its advertising revenue and viewership numbers. That report has been given to the Government.

"If TVNZ loses audience share it will inevitably lose advertising revenue and that affects the value of the company as a whole. It is blatantly obvious that the worthy-but-dull objectives set out in the Government's Draft Charter will cost TVNZ a lot of viewers, decreasing the value of this publicly owned asset.

"The public is being asked to get behind this Draft Charter and it is essential that they should know what effects it will have on what is probably the most visible taxpayer asset.

"I demand that Marian Hobbs release those reports, so the public can know what effects her handiwork will have on TVNZ's viability as a company.

"I'm willing to bet Ms Hobbs will ignore this request, fully aware that the programmes which result from her precious Charter will send viewers dashing for the phone to order SKY decoders," Mr McCully said.

Ends

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Gordon Campbell: On The Skewed Media Coverage Of Gaza

Now that he’s back as Foreign Minister, maybe Winston Peters should start reading the MFAT website which is currently celebrating the 25th anniversary of how Kiwis alerted the rest of the world to the genocide in Rwanda. How times have changed ...

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