TV plans for southern region

Press, 29 February 1984, Page 17

TV plans for southern region

Southern Television is the only private television contender seeking to provide a third channel for the South Island. It was formed expressly for that purpose, and is the only contender, along with associated groups Northern Television and Central Television, to have advocated consistently the regional third channel approach. Now the Government has opted for that, the Northern/ Central/Southern group is best prepared of the contenders vying for warrants. Southern will be initiated by four South Island newspaper companies — Otago Press and Produce, Ltd (publishers of the “Otago Daily Times”), the Christchurch Press Company, the Ashburton Guardian Company, Ltd, and the Southland Times, Ltd. Preparing the warrant application for Southern is Mr Tony Petre, chief reporter of “The Press” who has been seconded to Southern Television. A warrant application is an expensive exercise, requiring technical surveys and a large amount of work costing $lOO,OOO or more. Mr Petre says that applicants would need up to six months to prepare, and then the Broadcasting Tribunal would have to hear them in perhaps six or seven regions around the country. Once the decisions are issued and assuming none is appealed, the various companies will have to raise funds and establish their operations, as well as arrange joint approaches to networking and purchasing. Mr' Petre believes a twoyear starting time looks optimistic. “When we take all these factors into account, it’s not just around the corner at all,” he adds. The problems will not end there, once regional television companies are established. Mr Petre says it is unlikely that private stations would make any immediate profit. “Some stations have taken five years to make a profit in Australia, and they are not facing two Stateowned commercial competitors,” he adds.

The setting-up costs in Christchurch might amount to $4 millionss million, and the station would have outgoings of about $3 million a year. “There is only so much advertising revenue around to pay for this,” Mr Petre says. Despite these difficulties, he remains optimistic about the future of private television. It would succeed, he believes, because it would offer a real alternative to existing television services. I' “What must be *®ade clear is

that we are not talking about more of the same.” Southern would place a heavy emphasis on regional affairs. “The whole concept is of a downhome thing,” he says. “You wouldn’t expect to see Wimbledon tennis, but you might well expect to see that week’s top high school football match.” He suggests that a British private television programme “Your man in Westminster,” which examines what area M.P.s are doing, might be a possible model'for a programme here. It is hoped there would be a high local content of variety shows, pop shows, children’s, drama, cooking, gardening and quiz programmes, and talent quests. “In all those cases, people will not tolerate lower technical standards than they now expect from overseas programmes. We must put out programmes of a comparable standard,” he says. 1 Mr Petre emphasises that local flavour would be injected into home-grown productions. “The degree of this will depend on the size of the regions. There is a conflict between getting a region small enough to provide and retain a community of interest, and which is also big enough to be commercially viable.” News coverage would also heavily emphasise local content. A

large portion of the daily news programme would cover local news, dealing with items such as local bodies, city planning and development, and local issues. The daily news would also cover national and international items. All regional stations would contribute to a national news service that would probably be stationed in Wellington. International news would be bought from an overseas supplier different to the one used by T.V.N.Z., and it is probable a

networking committee would arrange the purchase. Mr Petre says that sport would feature heavily on regional channels because of its great attraction. Much of the present popularity of sports such as cricket and tennis derives from their television programmes. Regional channels would not compete with T.V.N.Z. for big overseas and national sporting events. Instead, they would concentrate on local sport, and national and international sports fixtures not covered by T.V.N.Z. Does he think sports that are ignored by T.V.N.Z. at present, such as local fixtures, would be popular? “It has been proved overseas that local sport is a major attraction for viewers,” Mr Petre says. There would be a number of overseas programmes as well as local ones, such as comedy, drama, variety shows and movies, that would be shown on a network basis on all the regional channels. Initially, regional stations would probably be operating from 5 p.m. to 11 p.m. during the week, and from 5 p.m. to 12 p.m. at weekends. These hours would be expanded as soon as could be afforded, with extensions for one-off events such as sporting fixtures. “Initially, there will be a conflict between things we would like to do

and things we can afford to do,” Mr Petre says. “Many people think there will be a lot of cultural programmes on regional television. That is not the case. We will have to cater for the interests of the majority.” Mr Petre disputes the view that control of private television by newspapers would have the undesirable side-effect of monopolisation of news. It is unrealistic, he says, to consider newspapers as a news monopoly because they compete vigorously among themselves for news. “We would want to encourage competition in news gathering between newspapers and T.V.,” he says. “The organisations must have editorial independence from the commercial side of the business. The links with newspapers will be very slim, in that the way they gather news is very different.” Each operation would be run as. a separate entity in every respect. Allowing newspapers to get into television news would break the present State monopoly in that area. Mr Petre dismisses as an invalid argument the suggestion that having a private channel would draw revenue away from public television, causing programme quality to suffer. “Any television service will have to run within its budget, but if it provides a service the public does not wish to watch then it will be a commercial failure. Viewers can vote with their selector dial.” Mr Petre does not foresee too much problem in getting the public to buy UHF converters, for older sets. These will be needed because of the shortage of VHF bands available. He says that mass production could cut down the cost of converters considerably. “A reasonable suggestion has been that we could provide viewers with a kit comprising an aerial, cable, and a ‘black box’ for around $120,” he adds. “Viewers could regard it as a one-time only license fee.” Mr Petre says the first big problem to be overcome is sorting out equitable regions and networking arrangements. “At the end of the day everyone has got to sit down together and sort out a networking arrangement, probably with a networking committee, and come up with a formula for things such as joint purchase of programmes.” He concedes, however, that the biggest long-term hurdle to be overcome is whether it can be made to work financially. “It will pay, but not immediately.” "