AUCKLAND: Sixty one media academics have put their signatures to an open letter to the New Zealand government criticising its decision to stop funding TVNZ7.
The letter - sent today to Prime Minister John Key, Minister of Broadcasting Dr Jonathan Coleman , Minister of Communications Steven Joyce and Minister of Finance Bill English - said the issue of undermining public television had reached “crisis stage”.
“We are deeply worried about the ways in which the potential of public television has been undermined in our country,” the letter said.
The letter was coordinated by senior media studies lecturers Dr Trisha Dunleavy and Dr Peter Thompson of the School of English, Film, Theatre and Media Studies at the Victoria University of Wellington.
Signatories included the Pacific Media Centre.
The letter said it mattered little that the channels were not watched exclusively.
“We may not watch them exclusively but we value the fact that they are available.
Public broadcasting need
“Public service broadcasting expands the range of options in ways that commercial broadcasting simply cannot.”
The letter dismissed the assumption that Sky TV would cater for viewers in the absence of the public channels.
“It would be wrong to assume that Sky provides a range of programming that can replace the role of a public service channel,” it said.
“Sky provides relatively little in the way of local content outside of sports, the rights to which it has now effectively monopolised.”
It also said that the cost of Sky was “prohibitive” to many New Zealand households and that TVNZ appealed to more than the “elite”.
“It is wrong to assume that public service television merely panders to an educated elite who can always afford to subscribe to Sky if they are unhappy with free-to-air programmes.”
Government 'undermining'
It said that public broadcasting was not a luxury and that the government had been slowly whittling it away, and with it the chance of improving education, health and success in New Zealand.
“Over the past five years, one government decision after another has undermined the health of New Zealand’s broadcasting environment,” it said.
“Universally accessible public service broadcasting is not a luxury – it is a means of helping the country to meet its goals of literacy, higher education levels, better health outcomes, and the smart, flexible, creative thinking needed to be competitive in today’s world.”
The letter challenged the government to find a way to ensure that the “appropriate range of television content, and local programmes especially, continues to be provided on free-to-air channels” as well as doing this “in a way that insulates them from commercial pressures”.
Alex Perrottet
