Commercialism ‘biggest threat’ to television

Press, 30 January 1986, Page 7

Commercialism ‘biggest threat’ to television

The commercialism of television in New Zealand has already exceeded sensible limits, says the retiring chief executive of the Broadcasting Corporation, Mr lan Cross.

He said he viewed with dismay the Government’s decision that a third channel should be commercially competitive with the other two.

Speaking in Christchurch yesterday during a farewell visit to broadcasting staff in the city, Mr Cross said: "Commercialisation of TV in this country has reached, and exceeded, sensible limits.

“It cannot afford any more commercial competition because -it has a

deleterious effect on programming.” Referring to the many cities in the United States where dozens of channels were available to viewers, he said there was an apparent choice, but not a real choice.

“All you get is more of the same. In fact, it’s not even that — it’s the same spread over a greater number of channels.” This was a danger facing television programming in New Zealand, he said.

Mr Cross said that he would have liked to have left television with a strong non-commercial progmmme element. “Sfere has got to be a

firm decision that New Zealand television, however the service is constructed in the future, should have three to five days and nights each week wholly without commercials.

“It should be separate days spread over the two or three channels,” said Mr Cross.

Public broadcasting was again facing changes when the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Broadcasting report was released later this year, he said.

“I hope that everything, in essence, will remain the same and that .New Zealand will contim.W to rely on a strong b?bad-

casting organisation. The public’s expectations of programme contents had increased greatly with satellite coverage from round the world. “It’s a demand that has nothing to do with the profitability of meeting it and only a strong public service can cope with it,” he said.

“The biggest threat is the increasing commercialisation of that public service.”

Mr Cross is also adamant that the South Island must remain vigilant with regard to television.

There was conflict between broadcasters, who thought that television

should be national and international, and “the other point of view, of which I am a proponent, that TV needs strong regional roots.”

“Christchurch and Dunedin are the cornerstones of activity and value in regional TV, and they should remain unimpaired and be served locally,” said Mr Cross. “There are pressures against this, which I have resisted.

“Among them are genuine pressures of costs, but I have argued fervently that the regional programmes should never be sacrif&ed to make these “If broadcasting in New

Zealand loses its sense of the grass roots, it will lose public support,” said Mr Cross.

The retiring chief executive has frequently had to cope with pressures, from without and within.

Not the least of these had been the political pressures that have followed each wave of Government and Ministerial changes. “Hardly a day, and certainly never a week, goes by without having to cope with political hang-ups and difficulties, which are quite pervasive to the upper echelons in broadcasting,” he said. /V “My hope argu-

ment to the Royal Commission will be that any future changes In the administration structure of broadcasting would be to reduce political involvement in the conduct of broadcasting.

“With the best will in the world, politicians are still rank amateurs as far as broadcasting is concerned,” said Mr Cross. “They are not able to reconcile their party political reactions with the real needs of the role they find themselves in. Although they try to avoid it, their decisions inevitably are affected.” “I hope to see the day when broadcasting Is removed completely from

the arena of party politics.”

Mr Cross has had a number of successes, not the least of which was the feat of breathing life into the ailing “Listener” in the early 19705.

It was that achievement that led to his being cata-. pulted to the post of chairman of the Broadcasting Corporation. . He confesses to a wry, inward smile whenever he remembers that appointment. “Given my background in journalism and my unconventional . methods of administration,. I -was an unlikely choice.— buLI Relieve it worked out right.”