Parliament TV to get a shake up.
A shake up of the way proceedings in Parliament are broadcast is underway.
The Government has put out to tender the contract to deliver Parliament TV.
Kordia has held the $3 million contract for six years and a spokeswoman for the Office of the Clerk would not say if they one of “several” companies who had been shortlisted to deliver the service.
A spokeswoman for the Office of the Clerk said they have asked companies to put forward idea on how to make better use of the Parliament TV channel.
As predicted on The Daily Blog on March 25th, Parliament TV is being eyed up as the new de facto public broadcaster. With Media3 getting the chop, Backbenchers, Q&A and The Nation are all next in line for getting cut as programming funding starts to amass for new possible shows on Parliament TV.
Could Parliament TV under a RNZ TV style programming selection do a better job at current affairs than the current offerings by TV3, TVNZ and Prime? I think you all know my answer to that.
I’ll post later today on the ideas I think the new CEO of RNZ Paul Thompson should be adopting.
Call me a ‘Johnny Theory’ but aren’t the only people who watch Parliament TV either physically situated in a one kilometer radius around Parliament (and are watching to see which part of their job is about to get harder) or the 5,000-odd people who follow politics the same way many others follow sport – interestedly, but having already made their minds up? That’s not a criticism, I am one of those people, but I don’t think Parliament TV has the following to replace anything.
Media3 is not “getting the chop”. We’ve reached the end of our 20 weeks’ NZ On Air funding for the year. Backbenches started later, so reaches the same point in August. Jono and Ben are on the same arrangement, fwiw.
Making better use of Parliament TV is a good idea, but I’m not clear on where the money to make programmes would come from. NZ On Air’s budget has been frozen for five years, so it would have to be new funding, and a fair bit of it.
Maybe if you relocate to the Gold Coast, you’ll get another 20 weeks. They’ll have to keep Back Benches – got to fund *something* that isn’t in Auckland.
I think what is happening is that the shows I listed won’t be funded beyond the end of this year and all that funding will be made available for Parliament TV to make programming under a RNZ TV banner
Replace overpaid news readers on TVNZ and TV3 news programs, and both stations and their operators would have more funds to invest in real news, investigative journalism and better reporting.
I am sick of the entitlement thinking and the over generous salaries some in the media get, while other jobs are cut, and while programs get insufficient funding.
Also a government bringing in a fairer tax system and tax truly high income earners a bit more may help re-balance the books.
Given the government’s record with public broadcasting, perhaps you are being too optimistic. We’ll wait and see.
Anyway, if an RNZ TV channel emerges, I’d think a good model for it would be:
– some parliamentary content, but not the whole proceedings of the House of Representative – this is a waste of spectrum given it is already available online and via radio
– continuation of some public service programmes currently on other channels on this channel (e.g. Media3, Backbenches, Q+A)
– establishment of a comprehensive content deal with the ABC – we already have one top notch public broadcaster in Australasia, so should leverage off that. Such a deal could include rights to simulcast ABC News 24 for several hours per day and rights to broadcast all ABC news and current affairs content. In return, RNZ could offer the ABC free access to all of its content.
– ability to access the full back catalogue of TVNZ7 programmes and other TVNZ public service content (the government could force TVNZ to provide this)
– ability to freely use all TVNZ News camera footage (the government could also force TVNZ to provide this. Without such an arrangement, it would be hard to see how RNZ could put together TV news programmes without substantial funding increases)
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