Sport is critical to national identity. Yeah Right!

Deborah Coddington has a piece today in Herald on Sunday on TVNZ’s disgraceful attempt to nobble Sky TV.

As she writes:-

You have to worry about state-owned television when it pronounces that “sport is critical to the national identity”, as it did this week in a submission to the Ministry of Culture and Heritage.

If that is the case we had better sort ourselves out. There have to be other things that define the national identity, whatever it might be.

We should worry also about TVNZ producing silly submissions like this one. We need to worry even more if anyone in Wellington takes TVNZ seriously.

She goes on:-

I’d argue there’s no such thing as national identity, unless, heaven forbid, our tireless quest for such is a national identity in itself.

But I, for one, do not wish to be lumped into the same brand as, say, Chris Kahui and Macsyna King, and for sure there are saintly people, like Russell Brown, who don’t want to be identified with me.

And then:-

TVNZ claimed with a straight face that sports fans have to pay a “sports tax” by forking out $14 a week in Sky subscriptions to watch major sporting events on television.

When you scan the list of free-to-air sports events, however, fans are hardly suffering. Without Sky they can still watch the Rugby Sevens, some Fifa football, the World Netball Championships, the Olympics, numerous motorsport races, the ASB Classic tennis and the Heineken Open. And who has the monopoly on these events? TVNZ, of course, and no doubt it would love to get its hands on a few more, if not for that pesky Sky.

Then later:-

And since TVNZ is so concerned about New Zealanders being forced to pay a tax to see a sporting match, it has to be said if you drive around any poor suburb, where families struggle to meet the mortgage, rent or power bills, the house with no Sky satellite dish sticks out like rude things on dogs.

TVNZ is behaving like the spoilt kid in the playground who thought mummy and daddy had given him everything, only to find the snotty-nosed rough kid who spent his spare time earning money doing unglamorous jobs like delivering circulars can suddenly buy more friends than he can

She carries on in similar vein.

Unlike Coddington, Adam will not take solace in assuming that because Helen Clark does not like sport that this power seeking government will not accede to TVNZ. After all Sky has a property right and is a free market success. Not a suitable role model for NZ.

If it will get them back in the election TVNZ might find someone in Labour listens.