Prime site for Maori TV

By LOUISA CLEAVE

The new Maori television channel will operate out of prime premises on the Auckland waterfront.

The Maori Television Service is close to signing a lease on office space, believed to be 1486sq m, in Market Place at Viaduct Harbour.

The lease is thought to be more than $500,000 a year.

Board chairman Derek Fox said negotiations were close to being completed.

The premises would be equipped with the latest in television studio technology for in-house production, including a news service, he said.

The channel would achieve its own identity only by running as a standalone service.

Two people who tipped the Herald off to the Viaduct Harbour negotiations questioned the channel spending taxpayers' money on prime real estate.

Mr Fox said it this was "an example of racism [the channel] would always be up against".

"I guess they expect us to be operating from a corrugated shed out of the back of the Urewera Forest."