Hint of more cash for Maori TV station

The Prime Minister has hinted that the Maori television channel will get more money than originally planned.

Helen Clark said ministers had discussed the Maori Television Service yesterday and it would again be considered at next week's Cabinet meeting. An announcement, which would include an update on its transmission platform, was imminent.

"We will discuss it again on Monday but I'm now quite hopeful of an announcement not being too far away," Helen Clark said at her post-Cabinet press conference.

She hinted that the channel would get more money than initially allowed for in budgeting.

"I think it's appreciated that when the assumptions and modelling for the funding of the station were done, some of that was based on information that was quite dated."

The budget to get the Maori channel established was $4 million in 2001-02, rising to $6 million for each of the following three years.

Its total funding, including programming, was budgeted to be $55 million a year in 2004/05.

The channel was to have started broadcasting by the middle of last year but has been plagued by a series of delays. Its transmission platform has been one of the issues.

A Maori Television Service spokesman said recently that no start date had been decided, but "people seem to be working towards starting about June 2003".

Helen Clark said yesterday that once final decisions were made, the channel should be able to "get off to a pretty good start" given the stock of good programmes already made.

"I think it's going to be in a strong position to do well."

Last month, sources said that Government ministers did not back the channel's chairman, Derek Fox, in his desire for it to transmit on CanWest's TV4.

Instead, the channel was expected to broadcast on UHF frequencies, although it was understood that moves were made to address Mr Fox's concerns over the strength of the signal.

- NZPA

Herald feature: Maori TV