Aotearoa Broadcasting Systems and other third tv channel contenders

Tu Tangata, Issue 29, 1 April 1986, Page 6

Aotearoa Broadcasting Systems and other third tv channel contenders

Mana maori media

Aotearoa Broadcasting Systems Incorporated, one of the third television channel applicants, is going on a membership drive to gather more supporters and funds.

With over two thousand members currently, the drive is on for individual membership costing thirty dollars. All Maori people are eligible because they are members of hapu and iwi. Pakeha are eligible if they belong to any organisation that has among its aims the promotion of Maori culture or race relations, or if they are members of a hapu or iwi through marriage or adoption.

ABS chief executive, Derek Fox says the hearing of applicants before the Broadcasting Tribunal is estimated to cost around ten million dollars, with two applicants telling him they’ve budgeted on two million dollars apiece just for the hearing costs. He says with that sort of muscle, it’s obvious how serious ABS has to be. It’s estimated that it’ll cost around a hundred million dollars to set up a television network in New Zealand.

Backed by the New Zealand Maori Council, the Bishopric of Aotearoa, the Kohanga Reo Trust, the NZ Students Association and the Maori Women’s Welfare League, plus financial members, Aotearoa Broadcasting Systems has already made headway in the competitive television world. The Broadcasting Corporation of New Zealand has agreed to supply transmission services for the ABS

signal at no cost to ABS. Instead it will cost Broadcasting around forty million for the first four years.

Broadcasting has also agreed to top up the overall advertising revenue of TVNZ and ABS to a figure of fifteen per cent of the total. Derek says this means even without any advertising on ABS, a guranteed sum of at least twenty two million dollars a year based on todays figures will come in.

He says Television New Zealand acknowledges that ABS is the least threat financially and the only contender that has complementary programmes. This backing means ABS has guaranteed funding of eight million dollars.

But what is the difference between the various contenders?

Derek Fox says Aotearoa Broadcasting Systems is the only one not planning to serve up more of the same programmes, that is, high on overseas content and low on local content. He says the channel will have a substantial Maori emphasis within a New Zealand context. Sixty five per cent of the programming will be in english language and thirty five per cent in maori. That’s why it’s wrong he says to label ABS ‘maori television’, anymore than saying the present television setup is ‘pakeha television’.

He’s sceptical of the other channel applicants like ITV and Energy Source TV who are promising some ethnic programmes. He says ITV’s four hours per week of multicultural access programmes largely feature after ten thirty at night. And Energy Source is look-

ing at slotting fifteen minutes a week on Sunday evenings. He says another contender, Televid Three has gone for the mainstreaming line with Maori content being included where appropriate.

He says with proposals like that, the Maori people should look closely. Already he says Television New Zealand, which is legally obligated under its warrant and as an arm of the government, to cater for the needs of the Maori people, has reneged on these obligations. What he sees are more promises and the plea to ‘trust us’.

Derek says ABS would extend the range of television viewing within this country because it is committed not to buying the A team, the B team and C team, but rather using regional broadcast facilities from the marae and community centres around Aotearoa.

Over five hundred high quality jobs will also be created, some involving new technology from producers through to journalists.

This is an area that draws fire from Derek Fox, because he believes the government is more interested in stop-gap PEP type jobs rather than meaningful careers that will lift a people as well as individuals. And he says Maori politics are already making divisions among the applicants with various tribal affiliations siding with different contenders. As well prominent Maori people have accepted honarary positions on applicants’ boards.

While he says that’s good that Maori needs are appearing on the agenda, the control stays firmly in the hands of pakeha shareholders who are only in the third channel race to make money. An example he gives of the profit motive is that a typical overseas programme like Hill St Blues costs TVNZ two and a half thousand dollars an episode. The first commercial break alone is worth four thousand dollars. That’s profit. Compared with this is local drama that can cost around three quarters of a million an hour to make.

He sees the independence of ABS as being crucial to reflecting a bi-cultural view of New Zealand. The Maori perspective will be encompassed through extensive use of the maori langauge and also in programmes covering tangihanga, kohanga reo and rangatahi through to talkback on different marae.

Comedy, music and waiata tawhito plus korero a rohe (regional reports) will also find its way to the screen.

Consumer affairs under the title of hokohoko, and ahuwhenua, a farming programme along with te tai, a fishing report are all included in the ABS content.

ABS’s chief executive says ABS with its already proven record in Maori news-gathering under Karere Publications Limited, will continue this critical assessment of how Maori people are shaping up.

Derek Fox says some hard questions have to be asked of the Maori people, by the Maori people. Questions also have to be directed to our own ministers regarding progress in Maori economics and what Maori institutions best met our needs. He says the honeymoon is now over for the Labour Government and Maori people must ask what has happened to the recommendations of the Hui Taumata. They also must look at the setting up of tribal runanga causing divisions with the existing NZ Maori Council.

Also he says in the wider New Zealand context, the recent voyage of Hawaikinui to this country was almost unnoticed by the public because of lack of knowledge of its significance by the media. In contrast the voyage from Hawaii was well reported partly because it was well-funded and could afford a press team. But the differences between the two voyages were vast. Hawaikinui was two totara logs felled in Aotearoa, transported to Tahiti, lashed to breadfruit trees, held together with coconut husk ropes and sails made from pandanus leaves. Five men sailed her to her landfall using traditional means such as ocean currents and stars as navigational aids. In contrast the Houkulea was a fibre-

glass catarmaran crewed by different teams and backed up by a multi-million dollar group. That’s the real story which only ABS could handle says Derek. Another one is the view that we have just witnessed the last of the great royal tours. In future he believes the Queen of England or the King will visit but only as an English rangatira, and not as a New Zealand one.

But he says none of those stories will be told if Aotearoa Broadcasting Systems doesn’t get past the hearings. He says with the guaranteed funding of the Broadcasting Corporation of eighty million dollars, ABS is short of around twenty four million dollars and it is currently negotiating with bankers. Derek believes the Minister of Maori Affairs on behalf of the government could take out a government guarantee

of fifteen million dollars and so secure the twenty four million dollar loan for ABS. It would mean that if ABS went broke, the government would pay up to fifteen million dollars to whoever advanced the loan.

Meanwhile the future of broadcasting in New Zealand is being decided in bits and pieces says Derek. The Royal Commission into Broadcasting which was called to look into all related fields of telecommunications finishes long before the Broadcasting Tribunal decides who gets the third channel warrant. Derek says the Royal Commission’s view is that the third channel business is being heard elsewhere whereas they maybe should be deciding if a third channel is needed.

He says the Broadcasting Tribunal third channel hearings will be lucky if they wind up by the end of the year and then up to six months should be allowed for a decision to be made. Counting appeals from unlucky applicants, he says it will be April ’BB at the earliest before the successful third channel goes to air.

Because of this fragmented approach to planning the future of broadcasting in New Zealand, Derek says he has advocated an approach to the Royal Commission that includes a Maori programme production unit within the television structure. He says if ABS fails to win a warrant, there has to be recognition of the legitimate Maori input and shareholding in the broadcasting service of this country.

He sees in the operation of Television One, Two and a commercially operated Three, a production or commissioning house with guaranteed access to screening time on those channels. This production unit would be modelled in a similar way to ABS so that legitimate Maori presence would be acknowledged. Derek confesses to being totally sold on ABS. It now remains to be seen if maoridom takes up this challenge.