B.C.N.Z.'s $50,000 Reminder

Press, 19 August 1982, Page 6

B.C.N.Z.'s $50,000 Reminder

The Broadcasting Corporation has begun a $50,000 advertising campaign in N.Z. newspapers to remind listeners and viewers of the service they are getting and that the licence fee has not increased for seven years. There will be three fullpage advertisements during the next six weeks. The first appeared in “The Press” and nine other newspapers earlier this week. It said: “Public broadcast-

ing: the other side of the coin ... what would you expect to pay for two colour television networks, the concert and national programme networks, 30 local radio stations, a national orchestra (and other services). How does 12c a day strike you?” Mr Charles Martin, the Broadcasting Corporation’s director of public affairs, said that the corporation had been hit recently by a succession of events — the Gen-

eral Election, the Springbok tour, the-new Broadcasting Act, the FM warrant decision in Auckland, the tribunal hearings on radio warrants — which had given rise to a slight imbalance in the public mind on what broadcasting was all about.

“The aim of the advertisements is to try to redress that imbalance. The public should' be aware that they are getting the best value for money of any outfit in the world as far as public broadcasting is concerned,” said Mr Martin. The advertisements were not designed to soften up the public for a licence fee increase — “however much we try we have not been able to get an increase for seven years... The price freeze makes it very unlikely now,” he said. The Cabinet decided if there was to be a licence fee increase and the size of it. Mr Martin said that if the fee had kept pace with inflation it would now be $lO7. It was now far below the lowest of overseas broadcasting services where the

revenue came partly from the fee and partly from advertising. A licence cost $45 in New Zealand. In.the Netherlands it is s7l,', . France $B7, Ireland $BB,. .Switzerland $95, Finland. $l2B, and Austria $l3O. <

The Broadcasting Corporation’s chairman,- Mr lan Cross, warned , in his recent annual report to Parliament that without a fee increase the corporation would have to consider, cuts in services that did not produce revenue or more commercials, the YC stations, for instance. Mr Martin said yesterday that changes along those lines might be made before the end of the year. The corporation’s advertising campaign has been criticised by one of the private television companies, Alternative Television Network.

A.T.N.’s managing director, Mr Michael Wall, said: “The campaign is purely directed at achieving its own political ends. It is time New Zealaders scrutinised the B.C.N.Z.’s finances more closely.”