New Zealand TV

I think all of us on here would like to see a well funded and resourced public broadcaster that has great local content that caters to all and well endowed news division but in reality the time has passed for that to happen. I think TVNZ 6 & 7 was the last breath of something in that vain

The appetite for a public broadcaster has passed in the general public with the advent of social media and the idea of citizen journalism where people can get their news and entertainment anywhere/anytime they want. They don’t need to turn on the television to get it. TVNZ has moved too much to the commercial space and it works they are doing as well as they can be in this media environment. Doesn’t mean that there aren’t headwinds on the way.

I mean if I had my way we would go back to the 2000’s, look at implementing a charter that they had and invest in more local current affairs programmes but that isn’t going happen.

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In that case, the government should sell it. I would rather TVNZ be in the private sector than have it continue to serve up MasterChef, I’m over MasterChef.

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Unfortunately, TVNZ relies on commercial advertisement to support its funding - its not like the ABC or BBC.

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Surely it can use its revenue to commision public service content. That is what happened in the 1970’s and 80’s.

We need more ambition for broadcasting in this country. We arent getting it with wall to wall reality TV. I want more Ken Burns, and less MKR. And TVNZ need to be compelled to deliver it.

A lot of that money goes back into its news services.

Which will be improved and strengthened when the merger goes through. TVNZ need to be given a public service mandate whether it likes it or not. Im over the profit driven commercial model.

Here’s is my other idea, TVNZ need to move away from Commercial advertising and they would sell off TV2 to overseas investor especially American entertainment company so TVNZ would focus only on TVNZ 1 to go ad free public service broadcasting when RNZ-TVNZ 1 merges.

I’d be OK with that. Unfortunately, “Chippy” or the reality pimps at TVNZ see that idea as a non starter.

We get that, but we are talking about finally having a commercial free broadcaster. If the ABC and BBC work in other countries, why can’t NZ have the same?

You have a much smaller population that cant sustain a commercial free broadcaster??

We give NZ on Air over a 100 million dollars every year for broadcasting. We can afford it. If it comes down to giving all that money over to a new public media entity, then we she should do it.

Doesn’t ‘NZ on Air’ help support other local programming on other broadcasters though?

It’s a pity NZ tv ratings are not public so we can see why tvnz play more reality shows over documentaries

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Yep - that is certainly my intel. No one seems to know what the remit would be, what the benefits are and how it would in theory work, what services would be retained.
The most obvious merge point would be the newsrooms, but again - it’s different filing for radio (even for Checkpoint etc) than it is for TV. As Mediaworks discovered when they were under one roof and same with NZME.

One man’s trash is another man’s…(you know and excuse the pun)
Those are shows that people want to watch. The BBC has broadcast Masterchef and has commissioned a new season of Survivor. They also pioneered the Celebrity Dancing show phenom. So they aren’t exactly immune from the reality shows you point out.

It’s also not like TVNZ doesn’t do any documentaries and there are plenty on TVNZ+, exposing them to new audiences.

Thankyou for the feedback.

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Look, as has been suggested, we’d all love a public broadcaster like that of the BBC and the ABC - but I don’t think a merger would succeed in this and suddenly make ANZPM the beacon of public broadcasting worldwide.

This is a merger that would have made some sense 20 or so years ago as the world went into the digital publishing age and digital TV came into NZ, now it just feels like an outdated solution to a problem that isn’t really there.

NZOA do a fine job at funding NZ screen ideas and more funding for them would always be welcome.

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Bang on.

Plenty have studied it, but most don’t have a State broadcaster that’s totally commercial either. What’s needed is a model for the future, not a recreation of the BBC, ABC, CBC &c. A funding Agency, I think, would be the best way to create that, and leave the rest of the puzzle up to the private sector. Kiwi’s want NZ content, I’m sure now and in the future, they won’t care where they get it from.

In my opine, recent doco’s in NZ are severly wanting - take the Comedy one that aired a couple of years ago no Prime - they ignored pretty much everything they couldn’t find TV vision of before the 1970’s, it was pathetic. The first ep of the Te Reo place name series that aired on +HR=E last year had NO detail on the more recent application of Aotearoa and no mention of Ngai Tahu’s opposition to it*. I doubt if TVNZ had commissioned either they wouldn’t have been much better, that seems to be the standard for this day and age.

As for reality programming, there’s obviously some audience for it… more it seems for doco’s and grown-up shows. That’s broadcasting, it caters for a wider audience than those who you share your living room with.

*FYI: According to a Ngai Tahu spokesperson, Aotearoa me Te Waipounamu better reflects the entire nation, but it’s a bit of a mouthful, eh? Here’s an article about that, if you’re interested.

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Wait so are you saying NZ doesn’t have a government funded commercial free, tv network?

Sure we did, for about a Month in 1960.

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NZOA are pretty S**t at funding decent TV programming. All of the programming they commission depends on the decision of commerical broadcasting.

And TVNZ is publicly owned. Surely there is some sort of expectation that it should be providing some sort of public service content.

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Let alone The Voice. And Bake Off. And The Apprentice. And The original series of Celebrity Big Brother.

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