Merger Charterchat – Part One

(Charterchat is a variation of Doublespeak — a language that deliberately obscures, disguises, distorts, or reverses the meaning of words — which is related to George Orwell’s Newspeak and Doublethink in his novel Nineteen Eighty-four, warning of the dangers of government control leading to totalitarianism.)

Part 1

This is one of those “What You Need to Know” stories. The first of the two things that you need to know about the fabled TVNZ-RNZ merger is that it is not a merger. The second is that its purpose is to have the tail wag the dog.

It is not a merger that would create a broadcaster like the BBC or the ABC, fully publicly funded to provide content for television, radio and the internet without need for revenue from advertising. The opportunity for New Zealand to have that sort of public broadcaster was removed by the Fourth Labour Government in 1989 when it adopted the Treasury’s plan to make the State’s television channels reliant on advertising revenue while its radio networks were to be funded by the public.

The proposed “merger” would not change that 31-year-old model. Its purpose, in fact, is to keep it running even though it’s obviously falling apart. Any content produced by the merged newsrooms is to go onto the internet where it won’t threaten the revenue that TVNZ makes from selling its prime time audience to advertisers, revenue which last year yielded a profit of $59 million.

RNZ, meanwhile, will have its funding set by NZ on Air, also established in 1989 to distribute public funding to television production companies to make local content. The fear at the time was that TVNZ, driven to maximise profit, would flood the screen with cheap imported rubbish. Fire up the telly at any time of the day and see just how well that worked out.

Essentially, the fabled New Public Media Entity, still on the drawing board after four years of intensive development by the Ministry of Culture and Heritage and an army of very expensive consultants, is a vehicle for taxpayers to pay for an online news website virtually identical to ones already provided by Stuff and NZME’s NZ Herald.

The internet has proved to be stony ground for conventional advertising which, along with bulk public funding, sustains conventional broadcasters. Experience proves that the pay-tv model of having a subscriber base is the most viable way of funding cotent on websites. But requiring individuals to pay for commercial-free radio and television would be contrary to the whole purpose of public broadcasting.

Jacinda Adern’s first broadcasting minister, Clare Curran, once said “in all democracies the media has a critical role in holding public and private institutions and in reporting on the government of the day.” Her successor, Kris Faafoi, maintains that line but, for the former television reporter, it’s become just another sound bite for his occasional appearances to announce yet another ministerial advisory board.

Like Noddy building his house in Toyland, the Ministry for Culture and Heritage which fronts for NZ on Air, starts with the roof. Now on its third attempt to erect a governance model, calling it an Establishment Board, the ministry adopts the classic bureaucratic approach of adding another layer to do the heavy lifting. Now, with virtually every news organisation on the payroll and clinging to the rigging, the ship is on the point of capsize.

Labour’s previous failed attempt to correct the mistakes made by its Rogernome predecessors in the 1980s was relatively straightforward by comparison. The plan that Helen Clark’s first broadcasting minister, Marian Hobbs, devised in 2000 of removing commercials from one of TVNZ’s two channels was vehemently opposed by the Treasury’s Crown Company Monitoring and Advisory Unit (CCMAU). Clark’s second broadcasting minister, Steve Maharey, oversaw the compromise model of a public service charter for TVNZ and a couple of commercial-lite channels, all of which were binned after National took over from Labour in 2008.

In power for the next nine years, National’s broadcasting ministers froze RNZ’s funding while its politically-appointed board hired a new chief executive who believed radio was a medium on its last legs. His vision of turning the radio into a multi-media platform was given legs when RNZ’s charter was rewitten under National’s third broadcasting minister, Amy Adams. The most significant change in the amended charter passed into law by Parliament in 2016 was a requirement for the broadcaster to “take advantage of the most effective means of delivery” of its content. This was code for allowing the radio to put video and text on its website.

In its submission to the next review of its charter last year, RNZ said it welcomed “the opportunity for New Zealanders to give their views on how well RNZ has responded” to the changes introduced in 2016.

“The changes were very specific and encouraged RNZ to make the transition from a traditional radio broadcaster to a modern multi-platform public service media organisation, producing, publishing and distributing a diverse and unique range of content and services that reflects and connects the communities of Aotearoa.”

RNZ’s submission was one of 60 received by the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Select Committee. An inadvertent admission in a Ministry for Culture and Heritage report to Faafoi that the scope of the committee’s inquiry had been “limited” remains unexplained despite requests made under the provisions of the Official Information Act. The committee’s report on the inquiry has not been published, presumably to avoid comparison with the charter being drafted by the new public media entity. The public will not have a chance to comment on that charter until its before a select committee — if it gets that far.

Labour’s furtive and secretive fumblings with its media policy not only make nonsense of its claims to transparency but also are in contrast to the more direct approach taken by the Swiss Federal Government. Its media subsidy scheme, similar to Labour’s and supported by the same arguments, was rejected by 55% of Swiss voters in a referendum on February 3. Among their reasons for opposing the measure was the fear that the money would fall into the wrong hands. More significant than the outcome of the Swiss referendum’s was the amount of information that was provided to voters to assist them in making their decision.

It would be interesting to see the result of a binding referendum that offered New Zealanders the chance to choose between the status quo and a commercial-free channel achieved by removing advertising from TV1 or TV2.

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