Ad-free TV One 'most popular' option for Broadcasting Minister, says lobby group

Wednesday, 6 November 2019

Removing advertising from TV One would be the most popular government broadcasting and media policy, according to a survey commissioned by Better Public Media.

A survey of 1000 adults conducted for the lobby group by Research New Zealand showed RNZ launching a television channel, or amalgamating TVNZ, RNZ and Maori Television, would also be popular, but less so than a commercial-free TV One, it said.

Better Public Media director Myles Thomas agreed it should be noted that the survey questions did not mention the cost of any of those policies, saying it had decided that would be too complicated.

'We were just interested in what people wanted,' he said.

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Broadcasting Minister Kris Faafoi is expected to unveil new policies to boost the media before Christmas, and Myles said Better Public Media believed it was about time someone asked the public what they thought.

Removing adverts from TV One seems popular, at least if respondents don't know the cost.

Faafoi faces a dilemma, with the Government under pressure from supporters to deliver on its pre-election commitment to significantly beef-up public media, but risking further harm to under-pressure private media businesses if it does that.

Television channel Three owner MediaWorks announced last month that it was soliciting bids for its loss-making television business, in the wake of the Government's decision to allow TVNZ to run at a loss and suspend paying dividends.

Meanwhile, shares in media company NZME closed at an all-time low of 38 cents on Wednesday, valuing the business at less than $75 million, while rival Stuff Ltd technically remains as asset held for sale on the books of Australian shareholder Nine.

MediaWorks has lobbied for TV One to become commercial-free and Faafoi is known to have previously asked officials to calculate the likely costs of doing that.

But there has been no evidence so far that such a change is on the cards.

NZME shares closed at a record low on Wednesday.

The Government has been accused of delaying setting out its approach to public media, but the task isn't getting easier for Broadcasting Minister Kris Faafoi.

Thomas said 60 per cent of respondents favoured making TV One commercial-free, while 11 per cent were opposed.

There was support for 'taxing' large technology companies such as Facebook and Google to help fund programming and the media, he said.

Myles said the lobby group believed the Government had delayed setting out its approach to public media for too long.

'Removing advertising from TV One is very favourable, even more so on weekends, and there is strong support to decommercialise the whole of TVNZ,' he said.