TV licence should cost ‘up to $25 more’

Press, 20 April 1979, Page 4

TV licence should cost ‘up to $25 more’

"Sport on One,” “Close to Home,” and “A Week of It” are some of the most popular programmes that will suffer unless television is given more money, says the Television Producers and Directors’ Association.

The best way to get more money, says the association, in an open letter to television viewers, is to increase television licence fees by as much as $25.

Increasing the licence fee is the only way that enough money will reach producers of programmes and stop any possible deterioration in the quantity and quality of local production, it says. Other options, such as leasing television time to private companies or increased advertising fees, are inefficient, the letter says. Although only $l5 of the

present $45 licence fee actu-| ally goes to television, the rest supports the YA and YC radio networks and the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, the other options will produce even less money for local programme production. The S2OM television needs next year might be raised by increased advertising time or fees but the consumer would end up paying up to $2OO more a year, because the increased. advertising costs would be passed on by the manufacturers. That increase makes an addition of $25 to licence fees look small, the association says.

Local programmes cannot be made on the cheap, says the association. Apart from the “star” system costs of production are much the same in New Zealand as they are overseas.

The alternative producers have when there is less mon-’ ey or it is eroded by inflation is to chop programmes altogether or cut more corners on the ones that remain. Comer-cutting has gone about as far as it can go, says the association. From now on, unless more money is raised, the service will run down and staff will do nothing but draw their salaries. Not only do New Zealanders want local programmes — half of the top 20 programmes are local ones — they are also important to development as a nation, says the association. “Television is one of the main influences in this country,” the letter says. “What will happen to our national identity if we see only overseas programmes on the medium?”