Media: Town Hall Telly on drawing board

Len Brown's plan to broadcast meetings aims to make the council more inclusive and accessible. Photo / Sarah Ivey

Supercity Mayor Len Brown is considering broadcasts for Town Hall Telly.

Press secretary Glyn Jones - a former TVNZ news executive - said plans for broadcasts of Auckland Council meetings were in the formative stages.

The televising of meetings is part of Brown's election promise to deliver progress on 100 Programmes in 100 Days.

It's planned that the Town Hall Telly proposals - possibly including a trial - will be announced at a council meeting on December 16.

Parliament is televised on Freeview.

Jones said the new council represented 1.5 million people and the mayor was keen to promote inclusiveness and accessibility.

In public service terms, there is an argument for television coverage given the size of the city. But you'd have to be careful how much money you spent.

Providing pictures will be one thing. The other issue is how they would be broadcast - whether on television or the cheaper option of streaming online.

It wouldn't be viable to broadcast on the main channels and there's no spare capacity on Freeview.

Using digital channel TVNZ 7 - which has been the non-commercial information channel - might seem an obvious option.

But there might be an issue about Auckland using a national Freeview channel for content that may be of marginal interest, even in Auckland.

South of the Bombay Hills, many believe TV is too Auckland-centric. In any case, the really interesting stuff will be debated in secret.

SEVEN ASIDE

It would be nice to think this Government will consider innovative solutions for TVNZ 7 once funding runs out in 2012. But New Zealand politicians have an appalling history of disregard and meddling in broadcasting.

National's broadcasting policy appears to be built on a three-point plan:

* Keep regulators away from Sky TV.

* Maintain subsidies for commercial TV.

* Avoid getting dragged into public service broadcasting.

Broadcasting policy has no priority in New Zealand. Broadcasting Minister Jonathan Coleman has had a few nuanced ideas. But the powers closer to the throne appear to be Foreign Minister Murray McCully and Communications Minister Steven Joyce.

Both have a background in commercial broadcasting and have been critics of state broadcasting. There's a danger they will lead us to a TVNZ that is more voracious in competing with the private sector for the advertising market.

The big question is what will happen if the Government doesn't carry through with a programme that rescues cultural obligations from the growing commercial focus of TVNZ.

At a recent conference of production industry body Spada, Coleman reiterated there were no plans to privatise TVNZ.

That is understandable for a Government that is poll-driven. There's little left of state TV to love, but its sale could be an emotive issue. Its valuation is depleted - and there are no obvious buyers. The Government view is said to be: "It's too hard for too few returns."

Yet TVNZ is behaving as if it's being prepared for sale. The TVNZ Amendment Bill removes social and cultural obligations and during the recession the Government has accepted lower dividends.

TVNZ has spent money on new media arms and developed an aggressive approach to increasing advertising share - at the cost of an under-performing TV3.

As a business, it's more efficient. The danger is that the Government forgets the deficiencies of a wholly commercial model.

With TVNZ being such a hard-nosed commercial player, there really is no need to keep it in state ownership - apart from polls and dividends.

VOTE-LOSER

One of the options considered by the Cabinet recently was for TVNZ 7 to be merged with Radio New Zealand - a move that Coleman told Spada would lead to culture clash.

"A good idea - but not right now," was the response.

I'm told there was some genuine interest but that once again it was seen as playing with electoral fire because it could be perceived as a precursor to the privatisation of TVNZ.

The outcome, presumably, is that Radio New Zealand would limp on independently and 7 would remain an offshoot of TVNZ.

NO CLOUT

TVNZ news bosses are working on a new current affairs programme amid a growing rift between programming and marketing chiefs.

Last week, this column revealed TVNZ's programming boss was killing the first three months of the current affairs show Sunday next year.

It will be starting in May instead of February, making way for programmers to insert MasterChef in the 7.30pm timeslot on Sunday.

But the decision - made by programmers apparently without consulting news bosses - has exposed just how little clout news has inside the increasingly revenue and entertainment-focused company.

Head of news and current affairs Anthony Flannery - who sits on the top-tier committee of management - was shut out, say TVNZ sources.

They said he was pressing for the lost time to be made up with a new series, Sunday Investigates, that would run on Tuesday nights.

NO RESPECT

Commercial media folk and advertisers might understand the programmers' logic.

News and current affairs audiences can be fickle and MasterChef is a sure-fire hit. But the problem goes deeper than one or two shows and is down to changes in the way TVNZ sees itself and its role.

Flannery's taking over from Bill Ralston as head of news and current affairs coincided with the emasculation of a department that had held a lot of sway at TVNZ, and had stood up to commercial demands and expectations from programmers and marketers that might damage its credibility.

It appears that under chief executive Rick Ellis, the marketers have now taken control of state television.

The cutbacks to Sunday are not unusual. Media companies make those sorts of decisions all the time.

They argue and eventually agree to disagree.

The issue in this case is that the marketers and programmers canned one third of the premier current affairs show with no need to discuss the matter with news management.

The concern among people I spoke to was that Sunday's survival was not assured in May, and that programmers believed it was old-fashioned television. That was apparent with the exit of Sunday reporter Cameron Bennett.

In my opinion, the issue is that in state television, there's little respect in the upper echelons for news and current affairs as a part of core business.

HENRY-A-GO-GO

Congratulations to TVNZ for its coverage of Pike River, and especially to Peter Williams.

Williams is an old-school television presenter - cool, calm and endearingly straight. No silly frowns or mock emotion.

He was like that reading the news on Breakfast, trying bravely to maintain the credibility of the broadcast despite the nuttiness of Paul Henry.

I hear TVNZ has been getting a lots of good feedback.

Meantime, I hear MediaWorks is still mulling over how it can attract Henry - most likely for a joint radio and TV role.

A Mediaworks source said news had not been involved in any discussions with Henry but he may be used for some non-news programming.

You can be sure that Henry would cost a lot of money.

And that would put into perspective the latest round of cost-cutting, including a halving of the budget for 60 Minutes and the closure of the four-person Wellington office.