AUCKLAND (Save TVNZ7 / Pacific Media Watch): Save TVNZ7, the group trying to keep public service television alive in New Zealand, has lodged a complaint with the Ombudsman over Television NZ’s decision to close TVNZ7.
“We had some helpful advice from Mai Chen, New Zealand’s foremost public law expert, into the legality of the government’s decision to discontinue funding for TVNZ7,” says Myles Thomas, organizer of Save TVNZ 7.
"We hope the Ombudsman takes up our complaint against a broadcaster that seems to have failed in its duty to ‘have regard for the public interest’ and to provide ‘high quality content that is enjoyed and valued by New Zealanders’.
“On behalf of the 36,155 people who signed the online petition and the 1.6 million monthly viewers in TVNZ7’s last month, we ask the Ombudsman to investigate a government decision that brought to an end NZ’s last public service channel, severely limiting New Zealand’s television options.
“Last year TVNZ paid the government a dividend of $13 million, three times as much as the previous year, but at a time of shrinking revenue from advertising. Why? Despite cabinet papers showing decisions to close TVNZ7, the instructions from the Broadcasting Minister of the time, Dr Jonathan Coleman, do not appear to exist. This begs the question, why did TVNZ return such a dividend at the expense of TVNZ7?
“Ministers of the government are not allowed to interfere with editorial decisions made by TVNZ, yet by giving the broadcaster a ‘Hobson’s choice’ over whether to keep or close TVNZ7, we suspect cabinet were playing favourites with media that is more friendly vs less friendly. John Key’s antipathy towards Radio Nw Zealand is legendary yet he has weekly chats on commercial radio stations that seem to give him an easy ride.
"TVNZ7 screened programmes that made the government uncomfortable with more thorough analysis of the news - Media7, Court Report and Backbenches.”
This theory might also explain the unusual loan of $43 million to Mediaworks last year, and the recent gift of the Kiwi FM frequency to Mediaworks at no charge and with subsidy from NZ On Air.
Thomas said: “Could it be that by encouraging the closure of TVNZ7, the government were purposefully affecting TVNZ’s editorial decisions? If so, that would be unlawful and it is unlikely we’ll find any hard evidence to support this. Likewise there seems to be no concrete proof that Coleman did demand the impossibly high dividend from TVNZ that led to the closure of TVNZ7.
"Therefore our complaint is with TVNZ, which by returning the hefty dividend, had to close down the non-commercial TVNZ7. By doing so we believe they are neglecting their responsibilities to the public of New Zealand.”
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 New Zealand Licence.
Pacific Media Watch
