Kiwiblog

John Drinnan writes:

Radio New Zealand faces a big makeover next year with the Government expected to merge the public radio operation with non-commercial TVNZ 7.

The plan is to create a new public broadcasting institution. Labour is understood to be broadly behind the merger.

Such a move is being challenged by TVNZ, which wants to keep government funding within its otherwise commercial focus. But surprisingly the biggest sceptics are within RNZ management.

A merger would mean a revamp of RNZ which has been caught in the cross-fire with Government demands that it works within existing budgets.

It would require the transfer of some TVNZ staff, and possible pay rises for some at RNZ, sources say. The new body would provide both radio and TV, though it is understood the Government is not yet convinced TVNZ should not be allowed to continue to provide some TVNZ 7 content.

A combined radio and TV operation makes sense, removing public service from the increasingly commercial focus of TVNZ while injecting fresh energy into RNZ.

I have been advocating this for well over a year. It is good to see both the Government, and Labour, looking favourably on doing this.

We spend a fairly large amount of money on public broadcasting – RNZ, NZ on Air, Maori TV, TVNZ 7. If you combine it all together you have the ability to have a pretty good budget for a combined public broadcaster. I recognize Maori TV won’t merge in at this stage, but no reason they can’t become a semi-autonomous channel within say the NZ Broadcasting Service?

Once the public broadcaster is established, I’d look favourably at floating some or all of TVNZ. It is effectively a fully commercial company and is not a public broadcaster. Radio NZ is. TVNZ 7 is. TVNZ as a whole is not.

John Drinnan in the Herald looks at the Powershop advertising on Scoop and Public Address and Kiwiblog.

People may be amused to know that originally they wanted all three of us to be photoshopped as “Che Guevara“. I said that I didn’t think me dressing up as a left wing torturing and executing revolutionary leader would go down too well here, so they made me Uncle Sam instead

John Drinnan writes:

Movie and music industry bosses have pulled back from a hardline approach and are belatedly considering a plan for an independent mediator to oversee protracted complaints between them and telcos.

The idea is that a mediator will be a go-between in protracted internet piracy complaints where copyright holders claim an illegal download, but it is denied by ISP customers.

The mediator plan might ease the tense relationship between the hard-nosed Hollywood-led approach and telcos disgruntled about policing copyright holders’ property rights.

This would go a very long way towards meeting concerns. It would take a few months to set up, so the Government should delay the enactment of S92A until it is. Normally it would take more than a few months, but there is an existing dispute resolution service for alleged online intellectual property infringements, and that could serve as a template for resolving alleged copyright infringements.

John Drinnan in the Herald looks at the new Telecom:

Telecommunications industry watchdog Ernie Newman likes the new, higher profile. He was especially impressed by a newspaper advertisement apologising to customers for disruptions to the broadband service Yahoo!Xtra in downtown Auckland on Friday night. It featured a signed photograph of Reynolds.

Yes a good move.

Telecom advertising had been as pervasive as ever but it had kept a low corporate profile since the Telecommunications Act 2006 when an overwhelming majority of MPs came down on Telecom.

“They hit Telecom hard and it really did not want to stick its head up very much.

“It had to retrench a little and show some humility. Before 2006 they were totally focused on the message and its marketing implications and honesty and integrity got lost in that.

“Paul Reynolds is a very good frontman who seriously believes in what he was doing and he is a very good look for Telecom.”

In fact it is almost impossible to find someone who will say a bad word about Reynolds. A rare feat in and industry or company, let alone the CEO of Telecom.

John Drinnan in his media column look at the last four Broadcasting Ministers.

First he looks at TVNZ’s game playing:

Television New Zealand is trying to outbid TV3 for rights to Fox Television programming – begging awkward questions about the taxpayers-can-pay logic underpinning the Kiwi television business.

The state broadcaster has been crying poor. It can’t deliver profits, it has to cut back its news operations and starting this year it needs taxpayer subsidies for the Sunday current affairs programme.

Yet TVNZ – which already holds the rights to Warner Bros and Disney content – is willing to bid tens of millions of dollars to challenge TV3 for shows like Boston Legal, House and The Simpsons.

They would fill TVNZ programming vaults to overflowing and devastate TV3. Then – a delicious irony this – the Government releases TVNZ submissions that accuse Sky Television and its free channel, Prime, of being a domineering, acquisitive menace in the TV world.

Outraegous that TVNZ is trying to steal broadcasting rights off the sports codes who own them.

Then he looks at the Broadcasting Ministers:

Maurice Williamson: “Minister of Market Forces.”

Williamson was an admirer of entrepreneurs Craig Heatley and Terry Jarvis who started the pay-TV firm. Lack of regulation ensured that it was able to grow swiftly and unencumbered. To be fair, Williamson inherited a new system from Labour that was light on regulations Like Telecom, Sky was small, and during his era at least, no threat to anybody.

Marian Hobbs: “Minister of Muddles.”

The road to hell is paved with good intentions, and there were lots of potholes during Marian Hobbs era as Broadcasting Minister. It was a period marked by muddled ideas about social and cultural goals mixed with overseeing the Beehive’s paybacks to TVNZ for imagined wrongs.

… In her era Labour killed off TVNZ’s early, flawed aspirations for a digital strategy to challenge Sky – which some believe was a missed opportunity.

Steve Maharey: “Minister of Broadcasting Bureaucracy.”

Broadcasting was a minor portfolio for a busy minister; Maharey privately lamented the state of the portfolio he inherited from Hobbs. …

Maharey’s approach centred on giving TVNZ whatever cash it wanted with as little scrutiny as possible. An anti-Murdoch phobia held sway with the implementation of Freeview, a new platform for digital free-to-air television that would act as a counter to Sky.

Trevor Mallard: “Minister for Holding the Fort.”

Pragmatic Mallard is largely disinterested in his smallest portfolio, which he picked up when Maharey resigned from Parliament. Mallard was stunned by the “money for nothing” terms of state subsidies to TVNZ and approved by Maharey, and instituted changes.

I like the nicknames. So true.