A decision on FM radio

Press, 26 February 1981, Page 16

A decision on FM radio

The Government’s decision not to allow FM radio to be introduced but to hold out the possibility that permission for its introduction will be given later in the year smacks rather of political expedience. The advocates of FM radio have continued to press hard for its introduction and have threatened to use the Government’s continuing reluctance to bow to their wishes to embarrass it in an election year. The Government has claimed that its previous reasons for resisting the introduction of FM radio no longer carry the same weight; these were general economic constraints and the need to complete coverage by Television Two throughout the country before embarking on any new expansion of broadcasting services. Its holding out the prospect now that FM radio will be introduced before TV2 coverage is complete throughout the country suggests it has found it increasingly difficult to deny that this linking of the two expansions of broadcasting services meant that the Government intended FM radio to be a monopoly of the Broadcasting Corporation. The Government’s argument on costs in times of economic stringency was also appearing weak as evidence has mounted that many homes were already equipped with FM receivers and that some private radio stations at least were equipped to begin FM transmissions without significant further expenditure. When its reasons for refusing to entertain FM radio were apparently weakening and when the pressure for its introduction was apparently mounting, it was obviously wise politically to appear to acquiesce, especially since both the Social Credit League and the Labour Party had indicated they favoured granting FM licences. The Government’s proposal is that the Broadcasting Tribunal should hold a public inquiry on the introduction of FM radio and report to the Minister of Broadcasting before September.. This would be a sensible course to follow if what were needed were further facts about the costs of introducing FM radio, an assessment of its advantages in relation to those costs and careful consideration of the benefits of allowing private radio stations to make FM broadcasts or reserving a monopoly of such broadcasts to the public broadcasting system. These are all matters which have been investigated already, most recently by a committee which made its inquiries in 1978, and which made its findings public last year. The time-table for the possible introduction of FM broadcasting on something approaching a national scale will have to be updated, but it should be possible-,

according to the committee, to find frequencies for two stations in the larger cities using aerials now employed for television.

If the Broadcasting Tribunal makes firm decisions about whether the country should have FM radio, when it should be introduced and under whose control, the Government has still to decide whether to implement those decisions. The tribunal should not find reason to delay the introduction of FM radio, unless the reason is a technical one. The time-table envisaged by the VHF-FM Sound Broadcasting Committee in 1978 would have to be greatly speeded if the FM plan is to carry any conviction against claims that a service could be introduced more or less overnight. The claims should be tested by the tribunal without delay and applications for licences considered and determined. If the applicants do not succeed, nothing would be lost in seeking successors.

There should certainly be no question of the Broadcasting Corporation’s diverting its resources from completing TV2 coverage throughout New Zealand into providing FM radio broadcasts, and the corporation has acknowledged that such a diversion is no longer necessary.

If the essential problem remains the limiting of FM broadcasting to two stations in each city, the tribunal’s main question is whether the frequencies shall be allotted to established broadcasters, public and private, or whether new FM broadcasters be allowed to take the frequencies. The opportunity is almost certain to be used by some applicants to try to obtain licences which they would stand little chance of getting for AM broadcasting against the objections of existing radio stations. From the listeners’ point of view it is a question of whether for some years, they have additional stations, devoted solely to FM broadcasting, and little or no improvement in the services already provided, or whether a proportion of the existing stations be enabled to supply what is hearalded as s great advance in the quality of sound.

If the 1978 committee remains correct in its estimates of the availability of very high frequencies in the next few years, the listeners to established stations would not get the benefit of the improvement in sound quality for several years should any new stations be given licences. Provided that the demand for national coverage is not urgent, the economics of an initial thrust into FM broadcasting seem to be a great deal less knotty than deciding who will get the first and, for a-time, exclusive chance to use the frequencies.