KEY POINTS:
Would the Labour Party nationalise rugby? The question arises because that is effectively what it is being asked to do by broadcast television companies. In submissions to a Government review of broadcasting regulations, TVNZ and MediaWorks, owner of TV3, are complaining about the dominance of Sky Television in the New Zealand market now. Among the solutions proposed is a rule forbidding rugby selling all its top attractions in a bundle to one company, and another that would insist that events classed as nationally important should be available free to air.
The possibility cannot be dismissed that a Labour Government probably going out of office might be persuaded to make popular sports telecasts a public property. Australia has some such rule, and there are rugby followers in this country who still resent having to subscribe to Sky to see a game they regard as their own.
But the fact is sports are not public property; they are independent organisations that have every right to sell their events to the highest bidder, or to make them available for free-to-air broadcast if they judge that exposure to be in the better interests of their game.
Rugby, for one, prefers to sell to the highest bidder, arguing that it needs as much money as its top attractions can earn if it is to maintain the game in an international professional environment. Television arrangements are entirely the Rugby Union's business. Regulations that would restrict its right to sell to the highest bidder and reduce its income would be a confiscation of its property.
TVNZ has cunningly cast its appeal in social policy terms. Calling Sky's subscription a "sports tax", it notes that the weekly $14.77 compares with "average household spending of $13 a week on education, $22 on health and almost $33 on clothing and footwear". Considering the relative returns of pleasure and satisfaction, Sky Sport might not mind the comparison.
It could point out that dedicated channels are giving subscribers much more sport than they could hope to receive free to air, and might add that a real sports tax has just come to light in the discovery that TVNZ intended to use charter money to finance its Olympic Games coverage until Broadcasting Minister Trevor Mallard got wind of it. MediaWorks complains that TVNZ is also using charter and NZ on Air funds for commercial current affairs and entertainments.
Not so many years ago TVNZ ruled the screens in this country with its twin channels and a seeming monopoly on events of public interest. Now that it is being beaten at auction by Rupert Murdoch's Sky network, it is bleating unfairness. Even with the benefit of this Government's charter funds and the gift of the "Freeview" digital platform, it feels it cannot compete.
Sky has its decoder in front of 47 per cent of New Zealand viewers and its own free channel, Prime. It holds no fear of TVNZ's digital service, pointing out that all but a couple of the state corporation's channels are available through Sky.
Both Sky and TV3 have had to struggle at times against the might of the state broadcaster. They did not call for tougher regulation and a compulsory carve-up of TVNZ's business. They took their losses, regrouped and competed.
At one time TVNZ was Sky's largest shareholder. After it sold in 1999, the subscriber channel strengthened and TVNZ's troubles began. Since then the state broadcaster's commercial performance has been as dismal as its content. A change of Government will probably end its charter confusion and force it to stand on its own competitive two feet. That is what it needs.
