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Shows like The Simpsons and Coronation Street are under threat from heavy-handed powers in new health legislation, say television executives who expect to lose $36 million a year in advertising income.
Television New Zealand chief executive Rick Ellis and his competitor Brent Impey of MediaWorks sat side by side yesterday to slam proposed powers in the Public Health Bill, which could be used to control food and its advertising to reduce obesity.
Addressing MPs hearing submissions on the bill, Mr Impey said MediaWorks, which owns TV3 and C4, would lose income of $16 million a year if it was banned from television advertising of foods and drinks deemed unhealthy.
Mr Ellis said TVNZ would lose $20 million a year and this would eat into the state broadcaster's ability to finance local content, on which it annually spent more than $100 million of commercially-earned revenue.
But more than locally-made programmes would be at risk if the bill passes intact, with its power for the Health Ministry to write industry codes on matters like food composition and advertising - codes which could later become mandatory if Cabinet agrees they are needed to reduce risks of "non-communicable" diseases like type 2 diabetes, heart disease, many cancers, mental illness and alcoholism.
" ... While an extreme example," TVNZ says in its submission, "if passed unchanged, the bill theoretically could mean programmes like Coronation Street, which often portrays characters making less than ideal health and lifestyle choices, could be banned."
MediaWorks added bro'Town, The Simpsons and Outrageous Fortune "for a start".
"They could see Denny Crane eating a McDonald's burger on Boston Legal and decide it's inappropriate," said Mr Impey.
The broadcasters, like the food and beverage industries, argue that the powers in the bill to write codes and make regulations to reduce communicable-disease risk factors are unwarranted and at odds with their self-regulation, especially when the Government has fostered self-regulation and it is working well.
But many public health specialists and campaigners have told the committee self regulation has failed and the new powers either are a vital backstop or need to be used now because the obesity problem is due to an "obesogenic environment", not individual's choices. Emeritus Professor Robert Beaglehole, the former director of chronic disease prevention at the World Health Organisation in Switzerland, told the hearing the TV stations' objections were based on self interest and their submissions were biased.
"[Self-regulation] is demonstrably not working because our children in particular are at great risk of obesity. We agree that self-regulation works for the industry. We want it to work for children and, if it doesn't, for regulation to be brought into play."
The TV chiefs cited as an example of self-regulation the new guidelines, to take effect in July, designed to bring television advertising of food to children "more in line with principles of healthy eating".
Mr Ellis said children aged 5-14 were currently potentially exposed to only 67 seconds a day of advertising of inappropriate foods, based on their average viewing time of 44 minutes from 3pm to 8.30pm.
Mr Impey said research had shown TV advertising had little influence on children's food choices.
