Dunedin Public Meeting - Thursday 23 September 2004

TVNZ kept its promise to continue to consult regularly with its public and held its second public meeting in Dunedin on Thursday 23 September 2004.

Again, an estimated 150 people attended the 'TalkTelevision' forum. A range of topics was raised with some variation on the concerns that were expressed at the first meeting in July.

TVNZ will review questions from the first 3 TalkTelevision events and consider the major issues that are coming through from the public. We will then look at what we can do to address them.

The following is a summary of some of the questions asked and the answers given.

Q. The diction of announcers seems to have worsened over recent times. Words such as "gunna" and "cultcha", the mis-pronunciation of words such as "kilometres"... what has happened to the use of our language? If we let our speech qualities go down to match 'the street', what are our children learning?

A. In the past, Announcers' Training Schools' intention was to 'denature' announcers from their original environment and we do run our own courses for staff on diction and pronunciation. However, over time, people on television speak more and more like the people 'in the street'. As a result of that, the connection is greater. It doesn't mean we don't have any standards but will look at this more closely.

Q. I recognise that you're independent of politicians but are you independent of advertisers? The amount of in-depth news seems to have decreased. Take John Campbell on radio on Saturday mornings there is a huge amount of depth and controversy generated that programme. When I want the news, I turn on National Radio, not the television .

A. In radio you can talk at enormous length for enormous lengths of time. On television (in a news bulletin) you don't have that luxury. What you do have is television images, which you can't beat, for example, the sinking of the 'Wahine'. And those images stay with you for a very long time.

Q. The News and the Holmes programmes have recently been a lot more sensationalised and emotive. For example, Coral Burroughs murder, it would have been a prime opportunity to tell women how they could get away from situations like that. Instead they interviewed her six-year-old best friend; or Iraqi bombings, when they interview the wife of serviceman. Friends and relatives are interviewed - rather than educating people on issues.

A. Forums for that kind of issue discussion have been lacking in the last decade or more. Kim Hill, for example, is there for that kind of thing. We're trying to bring more in depth forums into the mix, where we can have people discussing issues.

Q. I'm fairly seriously hearing-impaired. My problem at the moment is that we can't hear certain types of voices as well as we hear other types of voices. For example, we can't hear female and children's voices so well. Some female voices are stressful and difficult to listen to.

A. This is good to know and we'll take it under consideration. Can our female broadcasters do anything to help you?

Q. Many of the programmes, particularly British, come over so that they are quite unintelligible. British programmes, and plays in particular. I'd like to know why some programmes are not audible.

A. Some UK programmes actually come with the accent of the place. A lot of British television programmes these days are made with local dialects rather than received, standard, English. It can be like listening to a foreign language. You have to spend time tuning your ear to the accent.

Q. A significant amount of programmes have music in the background while people are trying to talk . Take that music out and just have talking.

A. It is a production trend and your point is valid.

Q. I don't watch TV because it treats me like an idiot. It assumes I would like a cheap makeover on my house - which I don't. It assumes I only want the headline news - which I don't. When are you going to stop treating me like an idiot?

A. It's important to understand that programming is made up of a balance of different programmes. Some of the programmes you are talking about are the most-watched, highest-performing programmes in NZ. In terms of other programming - take documentaries: we would purchase the very best documentaries around the world, and run them on two strands throughout the year. We need to try and balance out the TV2 schedule more and we need to work hard to derive a balanced mix of entertainment, news and drama... but we shouldn't walk away from entertainment programming.

Q. Tagata Pasifika - can't it be earlier? I've got two young kids watching it, staying up late to watch because it is their only opportunity to see themselves on air. And can we see some South Island people in there? Some interesting things are going on here at the University and around the South Island. What about the success cases in this part of the country rather than confining Pacific Island stories to South Auckland?

A. We do re-screen Tagata Pasifika at 8am on Sunday morning. We will talk to the producers about how they can come down and do stories on the Pacific Island communities in the South Island, it's important to be representative of the nation as a whole.

Q. I'd like to thank you for holding the meeting. I don't have a complaint as such - I have an off button on my TV. I'd like to highlight two points - I appreciate the increase of programmes that have Teletext subtitles. Secondly, I'd like to thank the person responsible for keeping BBC World on air.

These meetings are a brilliant idea. Your website is stunningly good. Your response to the Charter has been constructive and entirely wholesome. And recently there has been improvement in coverage on documentaries. However, you look and sound like Aucklanders constantly - not North Islanders, simply Aucklanders.

A. I'd like to comment on the point that you made about TVNZ looking, sounding, feeling like TV Auckland. It's a very common sentiment. A lot of people feel that way. It was one of the issues I felt we needed to try to get ourselves around, as part of Charter delivery. One of our jobs is to provide a perspective on "we must reflect the regions to the nation as a whole". Most of us would concede we have a way to go there. Moving around the country, we hear that very clearly. Give us a bit of latitude on that we're not going to build the public broadcaster that we want to be overnight. To give you a pledge, it's something we'll work on.

Having said that, in Dunedin for instance, John [McDermott] and Megan [Martin] do one or two news stories/day. There are a tremendous number of South Islanders in the production industry making programmes for us. Children's productions have been decentralised in production. They are now produced out of Dunedin, Christchurch, Wellington and Auckland. It's only a start, but it is a start.

Q. Why don't we see Michael Steadman's Natural History NZ programmes? Also, the use of some of your people - when you've got someone like Simon Dallow, extremely intelligent and articulate - he isn't being used to the extent he could be used..?

A. Firstly, Simon is on TV ONE in 'Agenda' - and it's rerun. He's doing a very good job but until this year, he had never done any kind of interviewing. There is a craft to interviewing people. This is his year to get some experience under his belt.

Secondly, Michael's team in the Natural History Unit make excellent shows. They used to be part of the [TVNZ] family. We have screened documentaries produced by the NHU. What is important is considering the appeal in prime time - relevance to audience and how broad the appeal might be. NZ flora and fauna might be considered appropriate, but Michael's team make programmes on natural history subjects around the world. I'd like to think our relationship with the NHU is in very good shape - this is something we can work on for the future.

Q. Never take off "Eating Media Lunch". Late night news has got to be sorted out - it's not Auckland Metro - it's NZ news late at night.

Re. 'Tagata Pasifika', 'Queer Nation', 'Inside Out': make a plug and put these programmes on times that NZ'ers would watch them. Take a risk. With flagship shows such as 'Sunday' and 'Holmes', I don't feel I can watch and get current affairs from them - they focus on the softer edge, when there are lots of issues that could be given the bigger better treatment. Put on more thorough social and political issues.

A. Fair comment.

Q. Re. arts on TV - I was disappointed with TVNZ response to the Charter - I was hoping for more prominent arts viewing times. I'm pleased to see the documentaries on arts you've been showing on the last two Saturdays.

A. We are looking at screening arts programmes in more accessible timeslots. Much of the content is AO and can't be screened before 8.30pm. The NZ Festival strand will be run through next year more musical concerts - a whole range of things, fantastic products that are broadly accessible. And we do have plans for a more in-depth show to complement 'Front Seat'. We're trying to source material that can run in earlier time slots.

Q. You should have apologised to all of us in this room, because you have more advertising than just about any channel in the world on TV ONE and TV2!

A. We didn't begin today by apologising for the advertising because the fact of the matter is that in this country, we have a public Charter which gets a tiny portion of the funding that any other country in the world would expect as their right. We're doing our best within the framework that we've been handed. If we're going to have a different public broadcasting model in NZ, demand it of the politicians, say that you're prepared to pay more tax so that we can have it.

Q. Sport - what's happening? The Cricket has gone to Sky until 2009! Is TVNZ going to get some sport?

A. Any free-to-air broadcaster struggles with the fact that Pay TV has very deep pockets. And Cricket needs their money to fund their sports. We've made it public that we'd love to get back into rugby, for the reasons you've described. We're in a unique position where we can help build national sporting heroes. As long as those sports stay exclusively on Sky TV, we wont be able to build those heroes for the next generation.

We're in an extremely competitive bidding environment but we are working very hard to try to make sure that an outcome of the negotiation period coming up is that TVNZ is again a player. Remember too that NZ is one of the few places that doesn't have anti-siphoning legislation. Everywhere else, Governments draw up lists of iconic events that need to be made available to free to air stations; NZ has nothing like this.