TVNZ- totally lost the plot

Just what is going on at TVNZ. Tuesday morning the Dominion Post had an article beginning:-

Television New Zealand is to be stripped of the power to decide how it spends more than $15 million in charter funds after angering its government bosses by using the money to subsidise its Olympics coverage.

Yet it has been obvious for some time that this had been going on.

Just what does pass for governance at TVNZ?

Management seems to spend all it’s time bleating about the impact of competition from Sky, this is despite being given hefty additional funding to go digital, launch Freeview, which in effect is a government subsidised competitor to Sky.

More and more TVNZ seems to be suggesting that private property rights must be curtailed so it can improve it’s performance.

Why do TVNZ bosses not realise that it is their crap programming with a constant diet of low grade reality programmes and an obsession with sport is the real problem.

Elsewhere in the Dominion Post on Tuesday was this additional special pleading from TVNZ, in an article by Peter Parussini who is the Head of Corporate Affairs for TVNZ and the former General Manager of Communications for the NZRU, who after rehearsing TVNZ’s arguments cloaked in a veil of reasonableness, wrote:-

But we do believe – and viewers and market research backs it up – that New Zealanders would like to see iconic sports events that are important to who we are as kiwis available on free-to-air tv and, increasingly, on other platforms like the internet. This might be All Blacks, Silver Ferns and Black Caps tests and maybe Commonwealth and Olympic events involving New Zealanders.

One market research can be manipulated.

Two since when do sports events decide who New Zealanders are as a nation.

If NZ is defined by sport, then we are a pretty poor set of people.

The arrogance of that sort of argument, that in order for New Zealanders to know who we are as Kiwis we need to have free to air viewing of certain sports events.

Outrageous! Arrogant beyond belief.

TVNZ should be restructured and proper governance put in place.

There should be controls to ensure public money is spent appropriately.

That does not mean taking sports off Sky so that we then have to spend taxpayer money on TV rights for Rugby, thus propping up the game, rather than Sky spending it’s money not ours.

Indirectly TVNZ is calling for taxpayer subsidy for sport on TV, not taking account of the fact that if thay cannot pay as much as Sky, than yet more players will go overseas because the game will not have the same level of revenue from TV rights.

Eminently sensible TVNZ. Yeah Right!

TVNZ has lost the plot entirely and is living in another universe.