Issue 76 - editorial

The more things change
the more they stay the same

Tena ano tatou

Something happened this week which took me back 40 years.

The CEO of Television New Zealand, Rick Ellis, was appearing before the Maori Affairs Select Committee at Parliament, briefing them on the Maori programmes broadcast by TVNZ, and signalling the desire for more money from the Maori broadcasting funding agency Te Mangai Paho.

It’s known that Ellis has been smarting over the positive publicity Maori Television received after its Anzac Day broadcast last year, so early in his briefing he was talking up the audience TVNZ attracted with its ‘catch up’ broadcast this Anzac Day.

In general he was talking down the MTS audience share and talking up TVNZ’s. He chose to overlook the fact that TVNZ has had a 45-year head start, and enjoys hundreds of millions in revenue each year, all from a platform in which we taxpayers have invested several billion dollars.

When pressed about why TVNZ didn’t have Maori programming in prime time he gave the age-old answer about potential loss of revenue if that occurred.

The wheels really began falling off the briefing when Ellis began reading out a list of programmes he believes fulfils TVNZ’s charter obligations to Maori. The list included Shortland Street, Police Ten Seven, Locked Down, Coroner’s Inquest, Game of Two Halves, Dream Home, Ten Years Younger, Intrepid Journeys, Location Location, Animal House and he concluded by smugly saying ‘I could go on’. Apparently TVNZ believes that having the odd Maori in those shows fulfils their charter obligations.

I realised then, that Rick Ellis and his senior management have learnt nothing from the last 40 years, because that’s what the NZBC’s management used to say when I first started as a broadcaster in 1967. The view then was that like everyone else, Maori liked the diet of imported American and British programmes and the limited ‘all white’ homegrown ones.

They were still singing that song 25 years ago when a group of us took the Government to court over the poor record of Maori programming on both radio and television; that case went all the way to the Privy Council in London, and finally, slowly, resulted in the establishment of iwi radio stations and recently, Maori Television.

It was a dumb thing to say, but important for us to realise that that is the viewpoint of the CEO of the most powerful media outlet in the country and his senior executives.

With its hundreds of millions of dollars each year, TVNZ apparently only makes Maori programmes with Government money. When asked how much overall TVNZ spends on Maori programmes, Rick Ellis was unable to answer.

It would appear that while we Maori might also buy the advertised products and fund TVNZ with our taxes, programmes in our language are only made if they’re funded directly by Government and they will never ever appear in prime time.

Adding insult to injury, while Rick Ellis was willing to strut his stuff at the select committee, he chickened out of a discussion on Maori TV about his views an hour before the show, despite initially agreeing to take part.

Maybe the best thing about owning a magazine like Mana is that we get to choose what’s published without people like Rick Ellis hovering over us. Mana is read by 130-140 000 people, so those of you reading this will now be better informed about Rick Ellis and TVNZ.

Maintaining this independent voice is not cheap however and we would certainly welcome more support. We’d also like to hear more of your views on the magazine and what we publish, so drop us a line before you go to sleep tonight.