News media inquiry sought

Press, 16 June 1983, Page 4

News media inquiry sought

PA Wellington A private television executive has called for a Commission of Inquiry into the ownership of New Zealand’s news media, and for legislative controls. The Auckland-based City Television managing director, Mr Andrew Tyler, condemned what he called the aggregation of newspaper ownership into very few hands and the intrusion of “these monopoly companies” into other mediarelated fields including radio, television, viewdata, and video companies. Mr Tyler, an applicant for the first private enterprise television warrant, was speaking at a West Auckland Rotary Club function.

He said there was almost a conspiracy of silence about the whole issue because of the Wilson and Horton interest in television broadcasting. The company published the “New Zealand Herald” and other newspapers and also owned Northern Television, the other applicant for the warrant which would be decided in August, Mr Tyler said. Other newspaper companies had also expressed interest in getting a foot in the television door and he suggested it was for this reason that there had been

virtually no debate about cross-media ownership. “Just because, as a competitor, I see dangers in giving the warrant to the Wilson and Horton group—by far the biggest news media organisation in this country already—does not make those dangers any less real,” Mr Tyler said. Mr Tyler noted similarities between the situation in New Zealand and in Canada, where multi-media ownership was studied by a Royal Commission. The commission had been critical of the growth of news media monopolies, saying: “Too much power is out into too few hands and it is power without responsibility. Whether the power is in practice well used or ill used or not used at all is beside the point.” Mr Tyler said he had no doubt that the owners’and controllers of New Zealand newspapers were honourable men, but he asked, “Will their successors be?” He said he was critical of the press coverage his company’s bid for a television warrant had received, saying that if it had not been for the determined independence of a small group of journalists, City Television would still be unknown.

“I believe their support stems from their own vision

of the dangers inherent in cross-media ownership and monopolies,” he said. Mr Tyler called for a wide-ranging public debate in advance of the warrant hearing, which he described as the most vitally important news media decision which had had to be made in New Zealand for decades.

“What is in balance in the next few months concerns the ownership of the most powerful medium yet devised, the one that has

sound, motion, and emo-tion-television,” he said.

Mr Tyler said the question of news media monopoly was complicated and further complicated as the media expands into new technologies.

“It is nevertheless a very important question. The argument, I believe, will not rest until there is a Commission of Inquiry in this country and the necessity of legislation is looked at,” he said.