TVNZ bid fails

Press, 18 March 1987, Page 19

TVNZ bid fails

NPA-AAP Suva A proposed New Zea-land-based regional television service for the South Pacific looks like being shelved. Reliable sources said island nations meeting here welcomed the idea in theory but balked at the cost and said they had more important priorities. The proposal was detailed at the Suva headquarters of the South Pacific Bureau for Economic Co-operation (S.P.E.C.) today by the New Zealand TV executives Allan Martin and Bill Foster. S.P.E.C.’s telecommunications body, headed by an Australian, Jim Wilkinson, had been asked to make a recommendation on the scheme to the South Pacific Forum

meeting in Apia in May. A press statement said the “SPECTAL” meeting had reached decisions on its advice to the forum, but gave no details. Under the New Zealand plan, outlined by the Prime Minister, David Lange, at the last forum meeting in Suva, island countries would exchange and receive programmes on a regional satellite network. Sources close to the conference tonight said cost, content, control and compatibility were four factors against the scheme, at least temporarily. They pointed out that less than 50 per cent of the people of the vast region had access to electricity, and a television service would have a low priority even if aid funds

were available. Recurrent costs would be another major problem, the sources said. New Zealand suggested advertising help foot the bills — but this brought up the question of control. Fiji, which has granted Australia’s Channel Nine exclusive commercial rights for 12 years starting this year, would not be able to take part in a commercial set-up unless the advertisements were omitted. In any case, the sources said, Fiji and other nations already receiving television services might not find the regional output compatible. One source said the New Zealand proposal, while admirable in concept, simply posed too many financial and practical problems.