Govt may alter Broadcast Act

Press, 9 February 1982, Page 1

Govt may alter Broadcast Act

Parliamentary reporter If a legal opinion bars the Government from directing the Broadcasting Corporation to sell its programme lists, it will change the legislation to make it possible, said the Prime Minister (Mr Muldoon) yesterday. Speaking after the morning session of the Cabinet, Mr Muldoon said that if the Government were unable to make such a direction the Broadcasting Act would have to be changed, because it was faulty. “If the act did not permit such directions, as the Government believed it did, then the act would be amended so that the Government’s policy could be implemented,” he said. The chairman of the Corporation, Mr lan Cross, would “cause less fuss all round if he simply went ahead and did the thing, because it is going to be done.”

At present people wanting

formation had to buy the “Listener" and with it a “mass of material — on books, drama, films and film stars, some person’s curious ideas on economics, and rather precious letters to the Editor — which was useless to them” in many cases.

Mr Muldoon was asked if the Government might have to amend the act before the Broadcasting Corporation could be required to make its advance programmes available for a reasonable fee. He said he had not seen a legal opinion. The Government believed the act set out to give the Minister the right to make such direction publicly. The Broadcasting Corporation would also be directed by the Government in the matter of private television if it was not of a mind to fall in with the Government’s intentions to introduce it, he said.

Asked if he expected a publisher to be able to make programmes available at

less than the "Listener" cost of 50c, Mr Muldoon said the point was that a person should not be compelled to buy reading material he did not want to get what he did Want.

“I hear the ‘Sunday News’ is interested in buying advance programmes. The typical ‘Sunday News’ reader hasn’t much interest in most of what is in the ‘Listener'." Mr Muldoon said “some people who should know better" were saying the “Listener" was to lose its copyright. The magazine would retain its copyright, . but make it available and charge a reasonable fee for it.

“I hope someone will publish these programmes without most of the material which many of the people who buy the “Listener" are not interested in. so that they can get programmes compiled in a convenient form as a service to the public who watch television and pay licence fees,” Mr Muldoon said.