Katherine Rich National Broadcasting Spokesperson
28 March 2001
Quota talk shows Hobbs still out of touch
Marian Hobbs' musings today about local content quotas show that a month off the job hasn't made Marian Hobbs any more
streetwise about broadcasting, National's Broadcasting spokesperson Katherine Rich said today.
"Only 5 seconds back in the job and she's already re-spooking the industry with plans for more government intervention
and bureaucracy. She is again threatening to introduce bureaucratic content quotas for radio and television.
Marian Hobbs shows a blatant disregard for the commercial environment that most broadcasters are working within. Take
the television market: all the television companies I have spoken to are finding the business environment tough going
due to a flat advertising market and hikes in overseas programme costs. The additional burden of quotas at this time
will be the last straw for some companies which are already struggling to survive.
"We know that TVNZ's long term finances look bleak and are likely to get bleaker with the Charter lurking in the wings.
Many of TVNZ's clients have already been spooked from taking on long term contracts and the introduction of quotas will
make their confidence in television dissipate further.
"The Minister stubbornly refuses to see that the broadcasting environment has changed since Labour first hatched this
interventionist idea a decade ago. She continues to perpetuate a myth that New Zealand is a local content free zone,
when the opposite is true.
"TVNZ's last two Statements of Corporate Intent say that TV One must screen more than 50% local content in prime time.
This level is exceeded most nights. Commercial radio across the board plays 10.5% local content and some formats play up
to 30% kiwi music. NZ on Air told me at a Select Committee last week that their objective to get the average kiwi music
airplay up to 15-20% within two years is achievable. All of this, without quotas.
"Marian Hobbs should have used her time in exile to watch some TV or listen to radio so she'd be better in touch with
the portfolio. Perhaps then she would see that there are other priorities which, after her 15 months of dawdling, are
more pressing," Katherine Rich said.
Ends