How we view television content continues to change rapidly. Jonathan Coleman explains the Government's approach to the new environment and how public broadcasting fits into the mix.
The television environment has changed drastically over recent years. There's more content choice than ever before, and at the same time there are greater options for how and when that content is watched.
Technology is evolving rapidly, and today's consumer can view a range of content via the internet on mobile phones, laptops and iPads. Traditional one-to-many television broadcasting remains a dominant medium, but is being supplemented by the selection of personalised content from multiple sources, watched at the viewer's convenience.
At some point in the future, assembling your own viewing schedule may become the norm, rather than the exception. Today's tech-savvy viewers are already doing this, downloading the audiovisual content they fancy, and watching it at a time suitable to them. Want to watch the latest episode of your favourite overseas programme? No problem if you know how.
As the public catch on, broadband speeds catch up, and such approaches become mainstream, we could be witnessing the slow death of one-to-many broadcasting. In such a future, will people still be happy to watch a fixed roster of programmes, delivered by a traditional television channel, at a set time, to a wide audience? With the rise of personalised video recorders you can see the direction things are going.
That is why Vote Broadcasting will predominantly fund television programmes, not broadcasters. The Government has a clear commitment to public broadcasting content that informs, educates and entertains but we are wanting to deliver that in a forward-looking manner that fits with how Kiwis of the future will watch their television content.
That fits with our support of the NZ On Air model, letting the best projects compete for funding and giving them a chance to make it to screen across a range of channels, and increasingly, a range of platforms. Last year, more than $81 million of contestable funding was made available through NZ On Air for locally made television.
The Platinum Fund, which was launched in 2009, took the old Television New Zealand (TVNZ) charter funding of $15 million and made it contestable. This funding has so far been prioritised to high-end drama, current affairs, documentaries and special event programming - material that is generally considered to be public broadcasting programming.
Programmes that received Platinum funding in 2010 included current affairs shows Q+A and The Nation; Billy, a docudrama on the life of Billy T. James; Wild Coasts, a documentary series on New Zealand's coastlines; Rage, a long-form drama centred on the events of the 1981 Springbok Tour and Descent From Disaster, a documentary series on major New Zealand historical events.
The Government's public broadcasting spending also extends to funding Radio New Zealand, community radio and television stations, Maori Television and the Freeview digital television service.
The National Pacific Radio Trust and audiovisual archives are also covered by this funding. Including the $71 million spent on Maori broadcasting through Vote Maori Affairs, the Government spent $231 million last year on all forms of broadcasting.
Of course, the fiscal challenges that New Zealand faces are well known. In this context we are faced with hard decisions across government.
In 2006, the previous government allocated TVNZ time-limited funding of $79 million to establish and run two digital channels for six years to encourage people to make the switch to the digital TV platform Freeview.
When, in 2006, Labour broadcasting minister Steve Maharey announced the funding for TVNZ 6 and 7, he stated that it was with the intention that the services become self-sustaining over time.
There was no realistic plan for how this would happen and so the National government is now left with resolving the issue.
There is no more money available for these channels, but given the technological future, we believe it makes sense to preserve funding for New Zealand content across a range of platforms, rather than redirecting it to maintain a public broadcasting channel.
The programmes shown on TVNZ 7 need not disappear from our screens. Rather than get a direct handout, as over the previous six years, they face a future where they will have to compete on their own merits against other projects to win NZ On Air support.
We've been clear that the TVNZ charter needs to go, and we're now just waiting for the second reading of the TVNZ Amendment Act as the next step in its repeal. We're just being honest, and not trying to pretend that TVNZ is something it plainly is not.
While TVNZ may show public broadcasting content, it is more than 90% commercially funded, and has been for years. What material impact did the charter have on TVNZ's viewing schedule? None that is discernible.
So there is a clear alignment through our approach to public broadcasting. Leave TVNZ alone to get on with its job as a successful television company, free from the political distraction of a meaningless charter, and spend public money on the best possible content, available when and where Kiwis want to watch it. It is a realistic policy that fits with the future of broadcasting technology worldwide.
• Dr Jonathan Coleman is the Minister of Broadcasting.
