MEDIA BLOG: Myles Thomas – Marae Investigates No More

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TVNZ yesterday announced the closure of their Māori and Pacific programmes department. That means they’ve chosen to stop making Fresh, Tagata Pasifika, Waka Huia and Marae Investigates to let independent producers get their hands on these lucrative contracts.

This is the end of an era. For 28 years the Māori and Pacific programmes department has been survived – often needing to fight its corner against TVNZ management. More so recently as ten years of Māori Television has caused many to question the duplication of programmes and resources. Those voices don’t see the benefits of having many voices reporting current affairs, the value of competition to raise standards and the need for rural audiences to access such content on a mainstream channel. Even if it screens at an insulting timeslot on a Sunday morning.

So why has TVNZ done this? They say it’s part of a move away from in-house production. But that’s an odd choice given that these programmes were big money earners for TVNZ – fully funded by NZ on Air and Te Māngai Pāho, TVNZ charged their production facilities at top rate to the Māori and Pacific department and paid nothing for the content that filled their advert-free Sunday morning timeslot. It was a win-win for our nakedly commercial state broadcaster.

Perhaps the real reason is to continue readying TVNZ for sale. In the last few years the government has steadily stripped away the last veils of public service broadcasting – the Charter, TVNZ 6, TVNZ 7, the TVNZ archive and now the Māori and Pacific department.

TVNZ profits keep rising, often at the expense of internal budgets. Apparently Good Morning had saved a wodge of precious budget for a Queenstown special later this year – only for it to be stripped away by management. Probably it went towards TVNZ’s recent profit of $25m but Good Morning is a lesser programme as a result. Yet again the viewers were short-changed by government policy.

What’s truly concerning is that the Maori and Pacific Island programmes are no longer secure. Like the TVNZ 7 shows that politicians promised would miraculously continue, these programmes now stay at the whim of commercial vicissitudes. It’s not overly cynical to say that this is the beginning of the end for Māori and Pacific programmes on our national broadcaster.

 

TDB Recommends NewzEngine.com

 

Myles Thomas – CEO of Coalition for Better Broadcasting 

7 COMMENTS

  1. The demise of our New Zealand voice/culture on our supposedly ‘ public broadcaster’, TVNZ, has been sad to watch. Things are not ‘moving forward’ as this lying government insists, New Zealand, as a whole, is going backwards…fast.

    • That’s what this government wants. I figure that they’re trying to take us back about five centuries with the rise of a new aristocracy and serfdom.

  2. The Master at the top has spoken, the orders have been received, the message is evidence of a strong ideology being implemented, to which all have to swear total allegiance. It is more of the declaration of a “total war” against state owned enterprises and services.

    The command centre sent the order: Outsource, outsource, and obey!

    It is about privatisation, some form of cost cutting and nothing else. Also some of the staff employed for Marae and other affected programs may not have fit the political direction and agenda.

    The election win has made Key and his command centre bolder than ever, the media may talk about Key wanting to govern for “all New Zealanders”, but that is just smooth talking the public, to allay any fears.

    The smiling assassin has spoken, “Kim Jong Key” rules firmly, and you will soon see and feel more of his rigid arms operating in the back-ground. Huddle up and keep warm, a cold, freezing blizzard will blow for the next three years.

  3. New Zealanders as a whole, have been brought up watching parents, and then themselves ‘watching the news ( at six o’clock) and ‘reading the newspaper’ ( of which there is now only one.) These are habits that are going to have to change, if there is to be any clarity in the information we receive as a county. The account of the political interference on Maori television, is telling, as it was a last bastion of free speech on television. New Zealand deserves so much better than this.

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