$12 million funding for TVNZ announced twice

The Government must be struggling for good news stories because it’s decided to announce for a second time the $12 million funding for TVNZ to implement its “Charter” according to National’s Broadcasting spokeswoman Katherine Rich.

“We are now in the fourth year of waiting for ‘the charter’, first announced in 1999, then 2001 and 2002 - here we are again.

“Don’t forget it took 18 months to write in the first place.

“So much for it being a priority (*Marian Hobbs 28 June 2002) for Labour if it returned as Government after the July 2002 election!

“If it was so important why was the Bill to make the charter a reality allowed to languish on the Order Paper for most of last year,” she says.

“If the Government had not run down the TVNZ business, there would be more money for local content without the need for tagged funding from the taxpayer.

“The Labour agenda is now clear, ‘we pay, we say’ in terms of television content.

“This $12 million is a band-aid.

“It will fund very few new programmes and certainly won’t provide the raft of changes promised,” says Katherine Rich.

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