NZ: Māori TV targets Hawkes Bay for regional strategy

Simon Maude
AUCKLAND (Te Waha Nui / Pacific Media Watch): An AUT journalism graduate working for Māori Television says it is “awesome” the broadcaster is sending her back home to Hawkes Bay to broadcast local stories. 

Aroha Treacher, who reports for the station’s nightly te reo news programme, Te Kāea, will begin presenting stories from Heretaunga, starting July 8.

“Now that I’ve spent so long away from there I’m really looking forward to reconnecting with my people and telling their stories,” she says.

Speaking to journalism students at AUT University, the station’s general manager for news and current affairs, Julian Wilcox, says the Hawkes Bay move is part of a wider regionalisation strategy for the television network.

“I think greater regionalisation of our services will give us greater credibility,” he says.

Plenty of stories
Wilcox says details are still being finalised about where Treacher will be based, but she and a dedicated cameraperson will cover an area from Wairoa in the north to Woodville in the south.

He says the new service will be funded out of the television station’s existing news and current affairs budget.

“It’s hard to do more with less. One of the ways we hope to get around that is to work with community video journals. We’ll have five stories a week coming out of Hawkes Bay,” he says.

Treacher says there are plenty of stories waiting to be told. “Hawkes Bay is such a humongous area. It’s got so many stories that aren’t being covered.”

Among these are issues around oil exploration affecting wahi tapu (sacred places). 

Wilcox says the June 29 byelection for the vacant eastern Māori seat of Ikaroa-Rawhiti is of considerable interest to Māori and is a good starting point.

Worthwhile?
Tini Molyneux, a producer for rival Television New Zealand’s Te Karere news service, questions if it is worth Māori Television being in Heretaunga for the longer term. 

“I suppose it’s a good place to be at the moment with the by-election, but after that . . . what then?”

Molyneux says TVNZ can call on local Hawkes Bay journalists if a story needs covering. She also says she would not categorise the relationship between TVNZ and MTV’s news and current affairs shows as competitive.

“We get funded by the same group of people, we’re trying to achieve the same thing, and if Māori TV sees it as a competition we know the ratings . . . so that’s all that matters to us”.

But both Treacher and Wilcox believe an element of competition for Māori viewers between TVNZ and MTV makes reaching regional iwi worthwhile.

Treacher says: “We’re competing for those viewers. There’s definitely a competitive edge between with Te Karere and Māori Television.”

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