Rich Katherine: Television New Zealand Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
Rich Katherine: Television New Zealand Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
[Volume:606;Page:3764] 
KATHERINE RICH (NZ National) 
: 
 Part 3 is a very important part because it deals with the issue of reporting and the issue of measurement. 
Reporting has elicited some very interesting information after the last 3 years when we have seen a steady decline in the financial capability of Television New Zealand. The reports of the last couple of years have shown a decline in the dividend. When this Government took over Television New Zealand it was returning a dividend of around $60 million per year and we have seen that deteriorate to the point that I believe it was just over $10 million in the last set of annual accounts. Deborah Coddington made a very important point before. She said that if that dividend had been handed back to Television New Zealand it could have bought a significant amount of programming. 
Labour in its 1999 pre-election policies stated quite explicitly that one of its policies was to ensure that TVNZ kept a significant part of its dividend. It has not managed to do that. In fact it has not even looked as if it is even going to consider doing it. What it has done I suppose is reduce that dividend but through other means—through losses and the financial deterioration of the company. 
Measurement of the charter is a very important part of the success of this bill. One of the things that concerned me as I sat on the Commerce Committee hearing a number of submissions was that nobody really has any idea about how this charter will be measured. I said to each and every submitter who came before the committee that he or she had some quite large expectations and I asked how the submitter thought any Government body would measure it. In fact I also asked the Minister of Broadcasting at the time as well. Nobody could come up with any ideas about how it would be measured. 
I think it shocked a number of the members of the select committee when it finally dawned on us that the measurement mechanism will be put in place by Television New Zealand itself. It will decide how it will implement this charter then it will decide how it will measure itself in relation to that charter. If Television New Zealand decides that to meet its charter obligations it will show three dramas and it delivers those three dramas it can tick that box and measure itself as having completed the charter. So much for public involvement! So much for the expectation of the viewers at home! So much for the expectation that we will actually see some marked improvement in the quality of the programming on television and will see different sorts of programmes screened! 
We all know that we will see very little difference whatsoever mainly because Television New Zealand simply does not have the money to do it. The $12 million which is GST inclusive will not buy much programming at all. I argue that we will see just a creative relabelling of a lot of shows that would probably have been shown on television in any case. 
As I said this whole part deals with the issue of measuring the charter. If we actually step back to the charter and have a look at a few of the clauses we find it is quite clear why measurement will be difficult. Apparently the charter will provide shared experiences. It will serve varied tastes and interests. It will provide a balance of programming. It will somehow encourage—and this is my personal favourite—“creative risk-taking and experiment”. That does not sound like a charter at all. It sounds very much like a form 6 the birds and the bees lecture. Quite clearly it will be very difficult to be able to measure this part of the charter. 
This part also states that the measurement will be done through qualitative and quantitative surveys. One can only hope that those surveys have more information in them than some of the reports we have recently seen coming out of Television New Zealand which has sat on a lot of information and will not show us exactly what its viewership is. One of the concerns I have about this charter is that we may see a deterioration in viewership. The previous Minister accepted the point that if we increase the amount of programming directed to minority interests there may be a certain trade-off when it comes to viewers. So getting back to the issue of reporting that is why this is a very important part.