Future of screen organisations an ‘open question’
Tuesday, 18 June 2024
The future of NZ On Air and the Film Commission as separate, standalone organisations is on the Government’s radar.
National’s Paul Goldsmith, who holds the arts and media ministerial portfolios, on Tuesday morning confirmed public speculation that the Government was thinking about the idea of potentially merging the organisations. He was speaking during Parliament’s new scrutiny week, where ministers and senior public officials are grilled in sustained periods in estimates hearings.
Responding to a question from National’s Maureen Pugh, Goldsmith said he had no plans for fundamental structural change for the country’s arts sector, but a broad discussion was continuing regarding the future of NZ On Air and the Film Commission.
While they were separate organisations and had been for decades, Goldsmith said it was obvious to everybody that the distinction between film and television was becoming more blurred over time.
“That’s an open question. We haven’t made any government decisions around that but it’s certainly something we’re thinking about. I’m always conscious of the fact that structural change ‒ mergers and things ‒ can be extremely expensive, time consuming and distracting, so I think there needs to be a reasonably high threshold before you go into that,” Goldsmith said.
The Film Commission was founded in 1978. Its functions today include providing financial support to film-makers through various grants, administering screen rebates for larger films, and developing the skill and reputation of the country’s film sector both locally and globally.
NZ On Air, formed in 1989, distributes funding for local TV shows, journalism projects and podcasts. The latter also administers the new gaming rebate, and like the commission it supports screen industry development.
A third organisation, Te Māngai Pāho, provides funding for Māori-language programming across radio and television.
While the organisations’ historical division made sense, the proliferation of streaming and cross pollination of media and mediums has meant NZ On Air, the commission and Te Māngai Pāho now contribute towards shared goals. But any merger, as the former Labour government tried and failed to advance with broadcasters TVNZ and RNZ, would likely be involved and costly.
In other news from Tuesday’s select committee, Goldsmith said the Government was now starting formal discussions around an overarching national strategy to grow the country’s creative sectors.
The Government wanted to set itself ambitious targets around growing arts-related export, and increasing community engagement with the arts. Part of any strategy moving forward would be ensuring that New Zealand had a good regulatory environment, and that philanthropic, local government and commercial investment in the arts was leveraged, he said.
Goldsmith also spoke about his desire to have long-term sustainable careers in the arts, which he said started in schools.
Labour’s Rachel Boyack asked whether any strategy would have specific frameworks around accessibility and inclusivity built into it, particularly for indigenous, rural, migrant, disabled and Pacific communities, to which Goldsmith said that the whole point of the arts was their engaging all segments of society.
Over the next few months the Government hoped to develop a broad sense of direction for the strategy.
Labour’s Carmel Sepuloni, Goldsmith’s arts minister predecessor, meanwhile questioned whether a legislative change might need to occur to compel the NZ Lottery Grants Board, which provides funding for arts organisations Creative NZ, the Film Commission and Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision, to continue to provide profits to those organisations.
The grants board has agreed to maintain its funding for the organisations for the next three to four years but after then, funding is insecure. Goldsmith acknowledged legislative change was an option to address that.