TVNZ: Unrealised potential

The Herald reports this morning the National party "will open charter cash to all".

That amounts to about $15m becoming contestable by anyone. That is a paltry sum given what TVNZ is expected to provide.

TVNZ also receives $79m in direct funding and National says it will "demand clear accountability", which presumes no one is currently asking for clear accountability. That would be very odd. Even this sum of money is small considering what it can cost to make good TV content.

TVNZ is no BBC. Maybe that's the problem. The BBC, despite its faults and occasional mis-steps, is a model of what a public broadcaster can be: an independent engine for creating original thoughtful and informative content for the citizens who fund it. The BBC is hugely profitable whether required to be or not. Many is the media mogul who has lobbied the UK government to limit the BBC's success and, if possible, open it up for pillaging.

TVNZ should be so lucky.

TVNZ has a long way to go before it comes close matching the BBC. Having said that, I have never seen a commercial broadcaster even make the effort. There is no case private broadcasters would be any better sources of original thoughtful and informative content than TVNZ even as it is now. No one would watch TV3 if they didn't have the majority of the most popular programs from the US locked up. "Campbell Live" is the only NZ-based TV3 program I watch with any regularity and it too often becomes advertorial as it did last night about the Apple iPhone.

To either TVNZ of TV3: Where is the story about how NZ is responding to the escalating tensions between the US, Israel and Iran? There could be a major war starting in weeks and our broadcasters pass through only a tiny portion of the news on big topics while reporting on the rats in the roof of a house instead, as Campbell Live did last week. Pathetic.

I watch a lot less TV than I used to. It's mostly time wasting dross sensationalising soft porn, tear jerkers, freak shows, celeb "scandals" and a morbid fascination with crime and violence....and that's just the current affairs.

The Internet has superceded TV for most of my information requirements - including video content.

Having said that, TVNZ could be much better than it is today. The problem has always been they don't get enough money so they are always frightened of "wasting" it by taking chances.

That certainly won't change under National's (presumably more tight-fisted) proposed regime. Until it does, the potential for TVNZ as a state broadcaster will not be realised. Without a "risk" fund, the conservatism that has always limited creativity and originality will prevail....and we will get boring, formula TV on subjects other than those we really need to know about.