Callers support Mr Dryden in bid for TV channel

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 32849, 24 February 1972, Page 2

Callers support Mr Dryden in bid for TV channel

(New Zealand Press Association)

AUCKLAND, February 23.

Calls and messages of support from as far away as Australia have been received by Mr G. W. J. Dryden, who is making a single-handed bid for a private television warrant.

Mr Dryden said this afternoon that an offer of share subscription had come from Australia, and other callers had offered finance.

He said he was encouraged by the public support for his venture. It was an indication of public feeling on television.

He said the public television trust fund, from which the funds for his campaign would come, would be launched tomorrow. An Auckland firm of solicitors had undertaken to act as co-ordinating trustees.

Within the next few days he hoped to name the other trustees of the funds.

Mr Dryden said he was particularly encouraged by calls from New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation staff, supporting his plan.

He said the measure of support indicated to him that the Labour Party would have to change its policy on a second television channel. New Zealanders seemed to back trustee enterprises, by their support of trustee savings banks and trust hotels. The Labour Party, which favoured a second television channel run by a State corporation in competition with the N.Z.B.C. would have to recognise this attitude, he said.

TRANSMISSION COSTS The Minister of Broadcasting (Mr Walker) said today that any responsible company or organisation which seriously contemplated applying for a warrant to run a second television channel should have no difficulty in obtaining a reasonably accurate estimate of the cost of transmission through leased equipment. "If a potential applicant is able to state precisely what is required in the way of facilities—either existing or additional—to be leased from the Post Office or the N.Z.8.C., and to indicate the extent to which they will be used, I am sure that both would cooperate in making figures available,” he said.

“Bearing in mind that it could be 18 months or more after a warrant is granted before j actual transmissions could begin, it is obvious that estimates made at this stage could not be regarded as firm commitments, detailed down to the last dollar and cent. “However, they should be sufficiently accurate to eniable any competent accountant to prepare financial estimates to support an application for a warrant.” He discounted a suggestion that in the event of a warrant being granted to some party other than the N.Z.8.C., the rental to be

paid for leasing N.Z.B.C. and Post Office facilities would be fixed by the Minister of Broadcasting.

He said the Broadcasting Authority report on the extension of television services was quite clear on this point.

It had concluded that the rent to be paid and the terms of any such lease should be mutually agreed between the warrant holder and the N.Z.B.C. and Post Office. “Although the authority does suggest that the Minister of Broadcasting should approve the terms of any rental arrangement, it clearly indicates that the actual fig-

ure should be mutually agreed among the parties concerned, at a level sufficient to enable the N.Z.B.C. and the Post Office to recover the cost of providing and maintaining the transmission facilities, at a figure commensurate with usual commercial practice.

“It is only in the event of the parties concerned failing to reach agreement that the authority recommends that rental fees would have to be fixed by the Minister of Broadcasting or bv an arbitrator appointed by the Government for the purpose," Mr Walker said.