Lee MelissaBROADCASTING (NEW ZEALAND ON AIR AND TE MĀNGAI PĀHO REPORTING REQUIREMENTS) AMENDMENT BILLFirst ReadingMELISSA LEE (National): I move That the Broadcasting (New Zealand On Air and Te Māngai Pāho Reporting Requirements) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Economic Development Science and Innovation Committee to consider the bill. Before I begin I would like to take a moment to acknowledge some people those people who have actually assisted me in the drafting of this bill: current and former National advisers Finn Stichbury and James Meager as well as my personal adviser Matthew Ian Stephens. They alongside the Table Office team led by Matthew Louwrens were a great assistance in the development of this member's bill's concept and design. The Broadcasting (New Zealand On Air and Te Māngai Pāho Reporting Requirements) Amendment Bill would require New Zealand On Air and Te Māngai Pāho as the main two funding agencies of public broadcasting content in Aotearoa to provide data publicly as to the performance and viewership of the programming they fund every quarter. Many smaller productions with limited budgets do not have the funds to gain this data themselves through third parties such as the Nielsen people meters and what have you and often they do not have the authority or the status to demand for this data to be given to them by the agencies themselves if they have collected this data. I should know; I used to be one of those little minnows in the television industry. I believe it is important—[Interruption] It is true. I was one of those little minnows who actually wanted the viewership data from New Zealand On Air but New Zealand On Air would not provide it because they never actually even collected the data because we were Sunday morning minority ethnic programming so they never even counted how many people actually watched that programme. So it was always an issue for me and many other productions who were small who weren't the big players in the industry who wanted to know so that we could do it better. Anyway I believe it is important and it is in the national interest that all New Zealanders should be able to know what the Government is funding and at what cost and what viewership the programmes in fact have and draw in terms of the attention. At the present time only some data is disclosed publicly. The data that is currently available has usually been disclosed in a six-monthly ministerial report and the official annual report that they are currently required to disclose. However they do not disclose all current information such as most of their viewership or tracking data figures citing commercial sensitivity. The rest is consigned to the realm of Official Information Act (OIA) requests which naturally can be misleading or have significant data withheld—again citing commercial sensitivity or another part of section 9 of the OIA—making such an attempt to gain the data inherently a red herring. My member's bill will involve the publication where relevant of the television ratings radio ratings and online views among many other reporting tools alongside the breakdown of costs associated with the funding and it would require this information quarterly. This bill would ensure that television shows visual online media and non - music-based radio programming would be reported on and tracked to safeguard public funds for appropriate content that New Zealanders care about while also encouraging better funding analysis by the agencies before projects are confirmed and/or renewed. In doing so I would expect that we would see for ourselves what the state of public broadcasting is truly like in our country. We will be able to see what actual trends are surrounding programming that is unlikely to be supported outside of the State through Crown agencies New Zealand On Air and Te Māngai Pāho contributing a boost or the full production costs. Some may feel and have concern that this bill actually threatens the programming of a non-commercial nature; that you know it only relies on high viewership. But having said that it's just a ridiculous argument because how does one compare 6 o'clock or watershed programming versus Sunday morning ethnic programming for example? The viewership numbers will be very very different. So it is not purely about numbers. One of the things when I was producing the programmes was that sometimes the time slots were wrong. If New Zealand On Air believed in the programme and went as far as to fund a programme for the ethnic communities why was it slotted at 8.30 on a Sunday morning when there weren't too many people up in the morning to watch the programming? One of the things that we used to argue as producers was that perhaps there should be some responsibility put to the broadcasters so that these programmes that are funded by Te Māngai Pāho or funded by New Zealand On Air should be put on better time slots so that they will be accessible by more people. Broadcasters' decisions on when the programme is scheduled in terms of time slot has a big impact on the viewership numbers. It is important that New Zealanders get value for their tax dollars and a key point of this bill would give an incentive to New Zealand's taxpayers to run broadcasting funders to think carefully about the initial funding and/or future funding of content in a way that encourages better alignment with the market trends meaningful content creation better Kiwi storytelling better coverage of regional news quality journalism and better reflection of the diversity that makes up New Zealand as a nation. To try and actually say Oh we have an Asian person appearing on Shortland Street." is really not the broadcaster's answer to ethnic diversity. "We have a shopkeeper appearing on Shortland Street."—that really doesn't actually answer the question we have. It's stereotyping and there should be more programming that actually caters to diverse audiences. Tracking them—often these funders New Zealand On Air they do a great job. Te Māngai Pāho they do a great job. Having said that they should really track them—not just fund them; track their performances. Often it's not just about viewership numbers but how they can improve audience numbers because they really believe in the programme—that is the reason why they funded it in the first place. The bill also acknowledges the innovation of the digital sector with new multimedia platforms now also being funded through New Zealand On Air and Te Māngai Pāho. There are more platforms being funded. Viewership no longer just means tracking broadcasting on the small screen or the traditional television screens. YouTube Facebook Google Video—there are so many other platforms and our funders are funding them. But the viewership numbers or the performance is actually not being measured and this is what I would like to actually happen. This is actually about transparency. This is about information. This is about tracking the performance and the success; and if it's actually reaching 1000 viewership only it could be considered a success because that was always about that small minority audience in the television sector. So it is actually about whether this funded programme performs and achieves its goal as it was intended. At the moment I do not believe that New Zealand On Air nor Te Māngai Pāho actually do this and what I would like is transparency. In conclusion this bill is about New Zealand being secure in the decision made by Crown agencies that the public and the Ministers have no day-to-day control over it. It creates public oversight. The bill is about transparency as I said it is about openness and it is about New Zealanders having the confidence in themselves and our broadcasters to make good public broadcasting decisions for New Zealand audiences. I hope to have the support of this House. There was some support and there were some who actually said that they weren't going to support but hopefully having actually listened to what I've just said and the reason why I actually put this in the ballot for members' bills I would urge the members to reconsider if they weren't going to support to potentially support this. I hope to have the support of this House to take the bill to committee and hear the voices of stakeholders citizens and broadcasters as we continue this important discussion about the future of the Government's role in the broadcasting sector. I commend this bill to the House."