Ririnui Mita: Broadcasting Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Ririnui Mita: Broadcasting Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:641;Page:11665] 
Hon MITA RIRINUI (Minister of State) 
 on behalf of the 
 Minister of Broadcasting 
: I move  
That the Broadcasting Amendment Bill be now read a first time. 
 At the appropriate time I intend to move that the bill be considered by the Commerce Committee. 
The object of this bill is to bring New Zealand’s broadcasting funding agencies in line with the digital age. Internationally broadcasting is moving to digital transmission to the point where analogue transmission will be obsolete within a number of years. New Zealand too is moving with increasing speed to an era of digital-only broadcasts. At the same time broadcasting-like content is appearing on a variety of media and devices. Broadcasters and content creators are making use of these media or platforms to retain and expand their audiences and to serve them better. It is vital that our broadcasting infrastructure and ways of supporting local content remain relevant and effective in the new era. Our broadcasting funding agencies need to be able to respond to the opportunities and challenges of the digital world. They need to provide support and services to meet the changing needs and expectations of producers broadcasters and the New Zealand public. The bill will enable them to do so. 
The Broadcasting Amendment Bill will allow the broadcasting funding agencies New Zealand On Air and Te Mangai Paho to fund the types of content archiving and transmission that are likely to be integral to digital radio and television platforms—platforms such as the Internet mobile phones and other mobile services—the common feature of which is that transmission occurs at the demand of the individual viewer or listener in contrast to traditional broadcasting. It is currently outside the scope of the Broadcasting Act 1989 for these agencies to fund content made or adapted specifically for such platforms. Nor are the agencies able to support the new platforms for the digital transmissions themselves or the archiving of content created specifically for digital platforms other than conventional television or radio. 
The Broadcasting Act’s definition of “broadcasting” simply does not extend to the increasing array of interactive and on-demand forms of distribution made possible by digital technology. Broadcasting is evolving steadily towards an era in which the audience will as a matter of course expect to access content through a choice of platforms and at times of their choosing. A range of broadcasters from national institutions like Television New Zealand (TVNZ) and Radio New Zealand to local access radio stations are increasingly using these platforms to reach their audiences in new ways. The exact pace and final outcome of this change in broadcasting are difficult to predict but experience to date indicates that the pace will be fast and the changes comprehensive. Our broadcasting agencies need to be equipped to respond to these developments. This bill therefore amends Part 4 of the Broadcasting Act relating to the functions of New Zealand On Air and Te Mangai Paho—or the Broadcasting Commission and Te Reo Whakapuaki Irirangi to give their formal statutory names. It also adds certain terms in section 2(1) of the Act. A further important change made by the bill is to allow Te Mangai Paho to fund the archiving of Maori language and culture programmes in general. It has been anomalous that to date New Zealand On Air has had such a function in relation to general broadcast content while Te Mangai Paho has not. 
The Government’s public broadcasting policies collectively expressed in the broadcasting programme of action aim to maintain and strengthen the availability of public broadcasting content in the digital era. Public broadcasting content is broadly speaking content that a commercial market would not produce of its own accord and that serves the broadcasting needs of every section of the audience rather than only those of the most interest to advertisers. A rich variety of local content is of course a fundamental objective of any public broadcasting policy and it is crucial to its success. The key means of funding local content in New Zealand is the maintenance of distribution agencies allocating funding to producers and broadcasters on a largely contestable basis. 
The Government’s programme of action has provided for the re-examination of the functions of New Zealand On Air in order to identify where changes may be necessary to clarify its role and to permit it to support a more diverse range of content taking into account the new kinds of content made possible by the recent developments in broadcasting and communications technology. In collaboration with my colleague the Minister of Maori Affairs this review has also embraced Te Mangai Paho the Maori broadcasting agency. The shift to a multi-platform world is a challenge for public broadcasting policy but it is also an excellent opportunity to provide the public with greater choice and richer content. Our re-examination of the two agencies’ functions goes hand in hand with our other policies to promote free-to-air digital broadcasting through the establishment of the FreeView platform and funding of the new non-commercial digital channels on TVNZ. The Government’s measures to improve New Zealand’s broadband capacity which will be vital to the development of Internet protocol television are another complementary area of policy. 
The Broadcasting Amendment Bill makes the changes necessary for our funding agency to be able to keep pace with these developments in broadcasting. It introduces a new definition of “content” and of “transmit on demand” in order to encompass types of content or producers of content intended for digital platforms that fall outside the Act’s current definitions of “broadcasting” and “programmes”. These existing definitions which also apply elsewhere in the Act will be retained but for the purposes of the two funding agencies they will be supplemented by the new terms. The bulk of the bill is concerned with permitting the two agencies to fund the desired forms of digital content transmission and archiving. It also extends to these new areas the Act’s existing provisions relating to the promotion of New Zealand content and the requirement for the agencies to consult various interests when making funding decisions. In addition it carries over the Act’s existing protection against ministerial interference in such decisions. 
The Broadcasting Amendment Bill is not intended to prompt radical change in the funding agencies’ operations or to expose them to a sudden increase in demand. The new functions are presented as supplementing and enhancing the delivery of their existing objectives which the bill deems to be primary. The aim is to allow the agencies themselves at their discretion to assess the way that broadcasting and other media are developing over the next few years and to adjust their own funding policies in a gradual and considered way. The bill has been developed in consultation with them. I commend this bill to the House.