Broadcasting split warning

Press, 19 August 1985, Page 12

Broadcasting split warning

PA Auckland A suggested split of the Broadcasting Corporation’s studio and transmitting services into different organisations would increase management and union difficulties said the corporation’s director of engineering, Mr Peter Mainwaring. He was speaking at a sitting of the Royal Com-

mission on Broadcasting and Related Telecommunications.

Mr Mainwaring said corporation transmission technicians resented the possibility of becoming part of the Post Office, or any other organisation which would separate them from the rest of the technical workers in the corporation. “I do not believe that

technical staff handling broadcast signals in an organisation separate from the Broadcasting Corporation will display or enjoy the same esprit de corps and ease of technical liaison as they presently do in the single corporate body of the Broadcasting Corporation,” Mr Mainwaring said. The present monopoly of the Post Office should not

be increased to embrace broadcast transmission engineering, he said. “For many years the corporation has continued to make use of the Post Office circuits for carriage of programme signals but it has become increasingly obvious in recent years that the corporation could provide much of this service more cheaply through its own

microwave system,” Mr Mainwaring said. Cross-examined by Mr John Galvin, for the Post Office, Mr Mainwaring said overseas broadcasting bodies which had their own telecom system had been able to control their own fate.

This was the “No. 1 priority” of the corporation, with national interests coming second, Mr Mainwaring said.