Govt changes mind on TV savings

Press, 24 April 1979, Page 6

Govt changes mind on TV savings

PA Wellington The Government was moving away from the idea of giving up one of the television channels, said the Prime Minister (Mr Muldoon) yesterday. Instead it was concentrating on achieving cost savings in broadcasting, he said. Mr Muldoon was speaking at a news conference after the Cabinet again discussed the television question. He said a final decision would have to wait until the Minister of Broadcasting (Mr Templeton) returned from overseas in mid-May. Mr Templeton will leave this week to attend the Asian Development Bank meeting in Manila and other conferences. “What we are looking for now is more cost saving. We are moving away from a suggestion that we would drop a television channel,” said Mr Muldoon. Short-term savings in giving up a channel would not be great, he said. “In the short term we are looking for more cost-conscious-ness.”

The possibility of leasing television to private enterprise was ‘‘perhaps a longer term option.” No-one had come forward to lease television. said Mr Muldoon. Increased advertising was another option but, Mr Muldoon said, there was some opposition to this. Specific proposals for leasing the second television channel would have been forthcoming from private industry if the Government had made its intentions clear, said the president of the Independent Broadcasters’ Association (Mr N. P. Wesney) last evening.

Mr Wesnev was commenting on Mr Muldoon’s state-

ment that no-one had come < forward to lease television. < “The Government has i never made a clear statement on what its intentions were,” said Mr Wesney. It had been “flying kites” which private enterprise had treated cauti-i ously. As president of the asso-l

ciation he had had general discussions on leasing the second channel, but had not been able to talk about specific plans. “If Mr Muldoon is now dismissing the whole thing all he is doing is trying to I let himself off the hook,” he I said.