TV old-film glut denied

Press, 11 October 1979, Page 10

TV old-film glut denied

An assertion in Parliament that the restructured television system proposed fornext year would have a 40 per cent programme content of old movies has been de-' nied by , television programme planners. Mr R. O. Douglas, the’ Labour Party’s former Minister of Broadcasting, made the assertion during the introduction to Parliament of the Broadcasting Amendment Bill, which provides for the establishment of the restructured Television New Zealand. He was highly critical of the proposed programme schedule, published recently ‘ by the chairman of the; [Broadcasting Corporation; [(Mr lan Cross). ; The programming set out. ■ in the schedule "will not be i anything like the com-i

plementary television that we need,” Mr Douglas told the House. The schedule he referred to allows about 28 hours of television time each week to ‘ be devoted to old movies.; The bulk of these, about 20 [hours, would be shown on -TV2, which would have about 35 per cent of its transmission time filled with ■old movies, some of them presumably repeats. About 16.5 per cent of broadcasting time on TV2 is : taken up with old movies at present: about 12.5 per cent of TVl’s time is devoted to them. A significant reason for the increase in TV2’s perIcentage is the rescheduling [of children’s afternoon tele- ■ vision programmes to one [channel only. TVI, leaving the other channel free for (adult viewing. On the pub-'

| lished schedule, most of this “adult viewing” is devoted to movies. However, Mr Des MonagI han, controller of programming for T.V.N.Z., said that the schedule Mr Douglas had referred to was only a first draft and was not final. "That first draft will be changed round and improved upon until we come up with the tinal and most suitable one. I'm on my sixth draft already, and many ; more are still to come, he I said. Mr Monaghan said that the draft schedule was not an accurate guide to the ‘allotted transmission time for films. [ “By the time we finish, the number of movies shown [on television will be much I the same as it is now, he "said.