THE PRESS FRIDAY, APRIL 27, 1984. Changes in broadcasting

Press, 27 April 1984, Page 12

THE PRESS FRIDAY, APRIL 27, 1984. Changes in broadcasting

The report of the Commission of Inquiry into staff contracts and advertising arrangements in the Broadcasting Corporation of New Zealand contains a rather dismal list of management failings and shortcomings. The Commission found that these deficiencies were particularly grievous in the administration of television. This much might have been expected from a perusal of evidence to the Commission, most of which dealt with allegations of impropriety and mismanagement in various of the corporation’s activities, but with particular reference to the production of a light entertainment programme made in New Zealand for television. Having made its observations on the particulars, the Commission has gone further than its specific terms of reference at first suggest. The Commission proposes a series of radical changes in the organisation of State broadcasting. Chief among the proposed changes is the restructuring of the Broadcasting Corporation into a limited liability company owned by the Government. Consequent upon this, Television New Zealand and Radio New Zealand would be incorporated as subsidiary companies. Responsibility for the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra and the “Listener” magazine would lie with the company that controlled radio broadcasting. According to the Commission, the changes would provide greater efficiency, “comparable with commercial enterprises,” and would improve the accountability of all sections of the corporation. The Commission also advances as a reason for the changes the fulfilment of another of its recommendations: the division of responsibilities of a chief executive and of an independent chairman of the board in separate posts. The present chairman of the corporation, Mr lan Cross, is also the chief executive, a dual role described by the Commission as “unhealthy.” The report and its recommendations will be studied by a committee of officials drawn from several Government departments; it will then be considered, together with the officials’ comments, by a special committee of the Cabinet. Changes such as those proposed by the Commission will need changes to the law that governs the corporation and the way it is run. Quite obviously, the report will receive detailed study and whatever action it prompts cannot be precipitate. No headlong rush towards change is needed just for the sake of change. In the last decade, broadcasting in New Zealand has undergone several sweeping changes; the law in relation to it has been repealed, substituted, or amended more than half a dozen times. The report of the Commission demonstrates that structural changes do not necessarily remedy problems and may, in fact, add to them. Yet another change to the system of

administering broadcasting might have benefits; but the arguments of the Commission will not convince everyone that a further structural change is necessary. The Commission found that some people in management failed to use adequately their authority and responsibilities; that some are lacking in administrative skills; that some delegated their duties and abdicated responsibility; and that management in general was altogether too laissez-faire. Essentially these are faults in people, not in a system. When the Commission says that people fail to use their authority, it acknowledges that the authority is there; when people fail to face up to responsibilities, the system imposes those responsibilities. What the Commission has found, in these particulars at least, is that the structure of broadcasting administration has not been fully tested or lived up to. These faults do not require another sweeping change in format to remedy. The Commission identified shortcomings in the structure of broadcasting administration. The Commission found, for instance, that problems within the administration of Television New Zealand did not necessarily progress to the attention of the chairman and of the board. Failings such as this also can be rectified within the existing framework, if the will and authority are present. Nothing in the changes proposed would guarantee a clearer line of communication to the board; the improved communication would still require a suitable mechanism of the kind that could be introduced with equal ease into the present form of administration. The Commission’s other principal proposal — that the posts of chairman and chief executive be separate — could be met within the existing framework if necessary. In commercial enterprises such as those to which the Commission refers, however, the duality of role is not unknown. The organisation of broadcasting can not, and should not, be a static, frozen thing not capable of adjusting to changing times. It must change in response to changes in attitudes and circumstances in the community. Such changes should never be made at the whim of the Government of the day. The changes must be deliberate and temperate, and made only when the changes are clearly in the public good and in accord with the wishes of at least a substantial part of the population. The deliberations of two people chosen from the business and financial community — capable and well-intentioned though they may be — hardly provide sufficient reason to alter the organisation of broadcasting once again. Changing systems does not change people; it tends only to prove the adage that the more things change, the more they are the same.