Palmerston North Public Meeting - Wednesday 22 June 2005

TVNZ took a panel of three to Palmerston North - Chief Executive Ian Fraser, Head of News and Current Affairs Bill Ralston and Head of Content Stephen Smith.   The MC was Paul Henry.

Listed below are some of the questions and answers from the meeting:

Q. My concern is regarding children and the role models that TVNZ seem to be presenting.  My example is What Now, I was really concerned with just the manner of dress.

A. It's a good point and something that we are really sensitive to.  The work that we do around the commissioning of our children's programmes takes into account a lot of our viewer feedback.  We are very open to feedback from interest groups that represent children and our own research as well.  At the end of the day, what were trying to do, is to provide a positive and safe place for children to watch television programmes.

Q. I think programmes like The Big Art Trip and Captains Log and the recent one that you've got on rail are very, very good in terms of promoting and getting us to see what we've got around New Zealand.

A. Certainly, theres an enormous appetite, when it comes to viewers, on seeing the regions reflected into the rest of the country.  You've seen it with Off the Rails, you've seen it with Captains Log and we see it increasingly.  I think it's a comfort and it gives an appetite for our own stories.  Those sorts of shows you can expect to see more of certainly.

Q. You've absolutely spoilt my Saturday mornings.  You see this is the heartland, you know, we support our whanau, we support our tamariki sport and everything like that.  Yet you've got the three best current affairs programmes on a Saturday morning, Agenda, Eye to Eye and then Marae.

A. We take on board the issues that you raise and it's a situation that we struggle with across the board.  There are many programmes also on a Sunday morning as well, for whom there are passionate, enthusiastic viewers of those programmes.  They also have difficulty, because of the normal demands on a weekend life, to be able to get in and access those programmes.  It's certainly an issue that we continue to struggle with.

Q. Do you have a policy about the percentage of advertising time during children's programmes that can be used by products that are detrimental to children?

A. All broadcasters have to comply with a series of advertising guidelines that were entered into with various interest groups associated with the rights for children.  We limit the level of advertising to children.  In our children's programmes that do carry commercials, there are actually less numbers of ads overall than exist in other parts of the schedule.  For pre-school programmes there are no commercials at all.  In terms of the placement of advertising, there are guidelines in terms of the numbers of ads of that nature that can go into any one commercial break.  They are guidelines that all broadcasters have to sign up to.

Q. I would like to see more diversity in the sport that you show, in particular women's sport.  We see very little women's sport on TV.

A. TVNZ plays two netball games from the National Bank Cup series each week during the preliminary rounds with the semi finals and the final played in peak time.  It is unimaginable that women's sport 10 years ago would have commanded that sort of weight in the TVNZ schedule.  I mean I'm not disagreeing with the general point you make and I think it's something that we have to be alert to, but I'd also like us to get a little credit for the fact that we have renewed our deal with Netball New Zealand.  We are now paying really serious money to bring the netball onto a television screen near you.

Q. Why must you make the sound of commercials go up?

A. A lot of the commercials that we broadcast are 30 second packages with extremely high values of production.  The sound ends up being compressed and enhanced in a way that we wouldn't do, and by and large couldn't afford to do, for most of the other programming that we play.  That changes the audio to make aspects such as the bass more prominent. 

Q. Thank you very much for really coming to the party with captioning.  Thank you for advertising it recently.  It's good to see it happening and that more programmes are getting better quality captioning and more programmes are having it.

A. We're the public broadcaster!  It's the expectation.

Q. I want to see far less blatant sex on the TV, the reduction in swearing, really foul swearing.  People here have expressed really liking Tux, Remarkable Vets, the Lion Man, they're all fantastic.  There are a lot of people out there who do not want violence.  We don't want sex and we're sick to death of bad language.

A. We have certainly increased the level of sensitivity with respect to how viewers might react to sex and violence which has resulted in more warnings going in front of programmes.  We can then at least give those people who may not want to be exposed to those images, or messages, or themes, the opportunity to not watch the programme before they get too far into it.

While there are programmes obviously that may contain content that some people find objectionable, there is the opportunity where people have a view that they may wish to complain to us via our website or by letter.  If you're not satisfied with our response, you have the opportunity to complain to the Broadcast Standards Authority as well.