Broadcasting deregulation — the debate is muffled

Press, 12 October 1988, Page 17

Broadcasting deregulation — the debate is muffled

Ruth lanles on television

The old players in the New Zealand broadcasting game are about to hit the dust. Deregulation of broadcasting is upon us. Next week submissions close for the first stages of the first of two new broadcasting acts. The first act dismantles TVNZ. On December 1 a new S.O.E. will rise in its place, created for open competition with whatever channels want to take it on in the ratings war.

Debate on these changes in our broadcasting system has been muffled, all but smothered in the current avalanche of government busy-work that we’re supposed to be writing submissions about. With the Picot, Hawke and Mason reporting, somehow the serious matters of our entertainment can’t stand centre stage, or even rank alongside the urgent concerns of education, justice, and health. Television has been the favourite plaything of several New Zealand governments. Now, at last, it seems safe from any further political tinkering. It’s being told to go and play in the new freemarket playground and not ask the Government for more pocket-money. Many in the industry relish the possibility of these new freedoms, both entrepreneurial and

creative, in place of the dead hand of bureaucracy. But who, among those who work for a small and vulnerable cul-ture-industry in a nation of three million, can afford to say otherwise publicly? Jobs are on the line. It was appropriate that Mr Prebble announced his changes at a lunch with advertising agency executives in Auckland in August, because it is generally supposed that it’s the advertisers that have most to gain from the changes. But it doesn’t appear to be as simple as that.

For one thing media buying will become rather

more complicated if three or more channels compete for the present viewers of two. It is a tiny market.

Yesterday I had it put into perspective by the director of a television company in New York, who commented that her local audience was six million. In the bad old days complementary programming gave media buyers unprecedented reach. A canny choice of slots of television advertising might have cost a bomb, but it brought immediate market penetration. Informing New Zealand about anything was a piece of cake. It was just that slots of prime time were in too short supply. The theory was that more stations would mop up unsatisfied advertisers. But it may not work that way. More general entertainment channels mean less audience for each. Advertisers will want to pay less for less (unless it is extremely well targeted). Income per channel will drop, at least for a while. Local programmes will have to perform in the ratings to justify production costs. And, meanwhile, direct broadcasting by satellite will be dumping in overseas material. For all these reasons, I’d be ropeable if I were involved in TV3. Not only

has the great prize of prestock market-crash days evaporated now that TV channels can set up shop without warrant, but TV3 is left shackled with provincial seryises and the agreement to produce no less than 41 per cent New Zealand material in four years from now. None of the other players, including the new 5.0. E., will have to play it that way. They may find the temptation to cut expensive local production to be overwhelming. This lack of a general local quota seems to be the strangest decision of all. I can think of no other English-speaking country that doesn’t protect local production somehow. The Australian industry whinged at its quotas until it found that local stuff rated well at home and exported profitably. Without quota-incentive, “Neighbours” and “Flying Doctors” would not be made. Some would be delighted if they didn’t exist, but programmes like these bring Australia back to Australians and train a television industry for other things as well. I hope that TV3 keeps to its brave statements about local content. I’d love to see local soap exported to Australia, England and America and healthy, local, televisionproduction industry trained in the process.