RIP Public Telly

RIP Public Telly

By Paul Smith

Dear friends as we gather here to mourn the passing of a friend, let us lift in praise those things we saw abiding in him, the joys of his youth when we first Saw him, the sunshine of his summer soul, his sad slippage into the addiction of commerce where, as we all know, there was and is no season.

Today we can celebrate the little and the large - his charming Goodnight Kiwi, his first Telethon in which we gave so readily and sang, and sang, and sang a little song of gratitude beginning with ‘Thank you very much’….
Perhaps we’re best to leave it there with him.

We can overlook the dross he dressed up as finery in the form of The Club Show or while the world shook about him, the weepfests and human interest yarns he called News and Current affairs. We must remember that in our Country Calendar, he deserves no less than a Fair Go, for among other things he gave us an Insiders Guide to Happiness.

The world he grew up in within Shortland Street was not the world he later came to know. The new world was for paddling, where he was designed to explore deeper pools. On our behalf.

And for years he did, until that tragic autumn of his life. Then his political minders - the very ones who were also supposed to minister to us - addicted him to Big Money from which of course, they took a cut. And then they gave us smoke, where once there was fire; cheap illusions instead of our own mirrors.

It’s tempting to think that those of us outside this memorial service with its grey-haired attendants, will remember him. Too late. They’ve already forgotten. The raw character we knew as Public Broadcasting has long been dead and buried. Some say Praise Be. The rest of us know better, and like the disciples, await a resurrection.

Paul Smith is a journalist, author and founder of kiwiboomers.co.nz

ends

© Scoop Media