8.30-9am 20.11.03
Paul Norris: Good morning everyone. Just a slight changed from the published programme, it's not Martin Matthews, it's me Paul Norris. I'm the head of the New Zealand Broadcasting School and I've been working with the Ministry of Culture and Heritage in putting this programme together. A very warm welcome to you all as we begin part two of this extraordinary conference. And I say extraordinary because it's most unusual I think to get so many distinguished persons from across all sectors of the broadcasting industry all together in one place. Distinguished persons from both the public and the private sectors which I think is significant because as Tim Gardham and Greg Dyke suggested last night arguably public broadcasting is at its best when it infuses the whole ecology of broadcasting. I think this is almost a most timely conference because to my knowledge there has never been such a ferment of debate about public broadcasting around the world with established public broadcasters challenged as never before by competitors, by governments and by that unknown quantity known as the digital future. And if you want to know more about the broadcasting scene elsewhere there's a modest report available commissioned by New Zealand on Air, the Future of Public Broadcasting, the experience in six countries, which I'm obliged to promote as I'm one of its authors. Public broadcasting can include commercials. Now I am confident that today will be a feast of ideas and debate. There is a kind of shape to the proceedings. After the Minister we start with an international perspective, then we hear from our national broadcasters and then those catering for specific minorities or localities. After lunch we see whether executive promotion has dulled Ian Fraser's interviewing skills and we hear from a number of innovators before we attempt to pull the threads of the day together. You will all have a chance to have a say as we've tried to leave plenty of time for questions and discussion. Everything is on the record. There will be a published transcript available on the website and in hard copy later. And I should say at this point that questions to the Minister and Bob Collins will be taken after the first panel of national broadcasters in the first question and answer floor discussion. It's now time to hear from our Minister of Broadcasting. A Minister who has a daunting workload outside his Broadcasting responsibilities but who I believe understands and cares about what broadcasting can do for society. It is the Minister who has really inspired this conference by his interest in going back to the first principles of public broadcasting.
Steve Maharey: I fully deserve that clap as well, Paul. Just for that report. Bob was just saying that he's amazed to see so many people at the conference at half past eight in the morning. This would not happen in Ireland he assures me. It would be lunch time before they got here. It's good to see you all and I thoroughly enjoyed last evening I hope you did too. I thought it was a great start to this conference to have those wonderful British accents can I say coming in off satellite and afterwards from Tim explaining what they thought public broadcasting meant, should be doing and so on in their, their environment. Can I add my welcome to everybody who is here today.
We're engaged in what I'm going to label a conversation about our future because broadcasting is one of the ways that we can talk our way through what we are, what we want to be as New Zealanders and that's what we're here to do today. We've invited some people who I'm going to speak quickly to so I can get off and let them talk from around the world to help. We've already motioned Greg Dyke, we've already mentioned Tim Gardham if you've been listening to the radio. And it was impressive to come to see people glued to their radio before listening to Radio New Zealand so that they could listen to Michael Jackson talk about broadcasting, Channel Four and so on as we were coming in this morning and of course Bob Collins who is beside me here on the stage. We're also going to hear from a lot of New Zealanders over the course of this day as well because one of the unique things as Paul pointed out is that we have here a unique gathering, well certainly unique I think since about the time of the Royal Commission whoever you are and people involved with that in the sense that we have Radio New Zealand, Television New Zealand, we have New FM, Maori television service, we have Iwi Radio, we have funders, regulators, we have private broadcasters, we have public broadcasters, we have community broadcasters, we have academics we have interested people. We just have everybody here it's one of those unique occasions when all of the stakeholders around broadcasting are here to discuss things and even colleagues from parliament were floating in and out and I - Martin Gallagher I think raced in before. I know Susan was here last night, there are a lot of people who are interested in see where we are going to be going with broadcasting and I guess that begins to answer one of the points Greg Dyke raised last night.
That is how important is broadcasting to us as New Zealanders. Your being here tells us that you know that it's important. You think it's important. You want to see more done with it. The question is to figure what we might do and how we might spread that notion to New Zealanders as they think about issues of broadcasting. How important are they going to make it and how will they ask for that importance to be expressed. So we'll have a constructive dialogue. We will have a debate over the next little while I have no little doubt. I have no doubt these ideas will be expressed in a forthright fashion during the debate today. But I hope we do is, is get those exciting and creative ideas about the new possibilities and new shape of broadcasting out onto the floor so we can talk about what we, we might achieve. Out of these kinds of ideas we can begin to distil our collective sense of where we want to go with broadcasting and let me stress it will be our sense, the fact that we've invited guests to come in from overseas to talk about how the BBC might work with that rather magnificent budget which we'd love to access, £2.6 billion sounds quite nice. We have to design a system which is ours, which meets where we are, what we can aspire to, the conditions that we work under and what we want to do it and it won't be the same as other people are putting in place. They might inspire debate, in the end we have to decide for ourselves what we want to do.
There's been a debate obviously already from the comments last night about the notion that we've been through a period of 15 years or so where we've tended to organise broadcasting around the principles of deregulation and commerciality. That's obviously part of our scene now. Our commercial broadcasting is part of our valued broadcasting system here and there are many people from that sector, but what we need to say to ourselves is perhaps we need a vision of a mixed economy of broadcasting. Public broadcasters, commercial broadcasters, community based broadcasters, that we need a policy framework which allows all of that to flourish, including what the government are saying is that if we're going to stay in broadcasting, if we're going to carry on funding New Zealand on Air, carry on having a regulating authority, go on having broadcasters who are supportive in one way or the other by the taxpayer then we need to think through the broadcasting scene from the point of view of having that at the centre of it. To say well why would the government want to do this. Why do New Zealanders want to have broadcasting with the public involvement in it continued. That's a question for us and that's why we talk about public broadcasting being brought to the centre of government's thinking again because of course it has to justify, think about what it's doing with the taxpayer's money so that people feel satisfied that this is money well spent. There's no question that as Tim pointed out last night the BBC's going to have to confront next year. They're going to be literally asked what are you on about, what's this charter for, what shape should it take, why do we pay you this money, why should we not allow more of this to be done by commercial broadcasters. Will we get better broadcasting.
These are questions we are not alone in asking, we just need to ask in our own unique way so we've been doing a bit of consultation. We've been talking with people throughout the sector a lot already, we've released a stocktake paper, we've asked people to come back to us and tell us well if that's where we've been over the last little while where do you think we should go to. We've said use the word ideal, what would you like it to look like. That doesn't mean we might be able to do it, we might not be able to afford it, those kinds of questions are ones which will clearly come in as our policies develop. But ask yourself what do you think it should look like. What's the ideal kind of broadcasting system and then we can work our way around that to say where do we go from there. There are other discussions on broadcasting going on we should acknowledge and be aware of. One is the Screen Production Council. Now that will obviously have implications for the way we fund on screen product around the country, film, television in particular will be at the focus of that and of course the discussion about Maori television which TPK is leading is also something we need to keep our eye on in terms of what we do. But all of those stands will neatly come back together at some point during this discussion because we need a coherent view of, of what is going on. Now all of this activity has a motivator and I mentioned it last night.
For me the motivator is that we are a young nation, we are a nation beginning of 21st century looks very different from the one that started the, the one at the beginning of the last century. We are very consciously, you can almost see the sort of wheels turning, beginning to think about who we are and what we want to be as a culture, as a nation, as a series of identities. That's something we are consciously doing. It doesn't matter whether you look at advertising or one of the magazines that you buy off the rack or television programmes. There's a real sense of exploration of what it means to be a New Zealand at the beginning of the 21st century. I think as Bill Oliver, one of our best historians pointed out, that probably started very consciously in the modern era around about the end of the 1970s and it's just grown and a lot of that has been driven by the re-emergence renaissance of Maori searching for their reassertion of their identity. It's an extraordinary exciting time to be around. So what we have here is a group of people increasingly diverse in nature with new migrant communities now making up a large part of our society saying to itself who are we, what are we, what do we want to be. It's a very dynamic unique innovative kind of approach to building identity and there's an enormous amount of energy around for it, particularly amongst young New Zealanders you find. And this is one of the things that really switches on the button for young New Zealanders who are talking about fashion and music and film and television and so on because they can see that although these are exciting things to be involved in as a young New Zealander but it's very much part of what they are doing as young New Zealanders. Figuring out how to do these things in distinctively New Zealand way.
So that there's a sort of nation building exercise going on here and we're finding tools to express ourselves and broadcasting is clearly one of the ways that we, we do that. We use that space and we use in particular public broadcasting in a way which will help us to create that public nationwide space to be able to explore these kinds of issues. We can sit in front of the computer and watch the fantastic BBC, and that tells us we're connected to the rest of the world but I guess what we're also saying is we want to do it for ourselves. We want to think this through. Greg Dyke raised that very important point last night that globalisation in practice probably means Americanisation and for most New Zealanders it is not what they want. It doesn't mean that they're hostile to Americans. What it means is that they're looking at that and saying well that's their culture, but very conscious about the fact that we want our space, our room, our ideas to be part of what we do on a day by day basis. So we're consciously working our way through that and what we want I guess as a government is not to dictate what that will be, we don't want to sell it programmes are, or what ideas are thought of course. What we want to do is say New Zealanders seem to want this platform so let's explore what shape it should take. What shape should public service broadcasting take to allow that to continue.
So we've begun to, to think about public service broadcasting and saying well how does it make a contribution to all of us. How do we spend taxpayer's money wisely. We don't think we can do all this through purely commercial means. That doesn't mean you get bad broadcasting out of commercial television and radio and so on, that's not the point at all. It's just saying it's different. Is it a good idea to have this kind of mixture of broadcasting here so that we can achieve different aims. Public service broadcasting has traditionally had aims like being universally available, being universal in its appeal, providing for minorities who might have missed out because they don't provide an advertising style audience. Serving the broad public good, doing some education, ensuring independence and autonomy. Competing for good programming rather than for ratings. And being a very liberal open environment to encourage creativity from people. What it doesn't mean and I stress, and actually I don't think it ever has meant really when you think about it, is worthy dully programming. Really the whole past of broadcasting of a public service nature has been to be relevant, that's what made it I guess work in the past, when it succeeded. It's because it really connected with the audiences it was trying to serve and that's the goal still. Whatever these words are about the nature of public service television it's relevance to the nation it resides in is clearly what you're trying to do with public service broadcasting, so what we would argue is that those principles go alongside trying to provide a good secure place for people to explore, to try out ideas, to be daring, to try things that are different so that we can do the nation building exercise I talked about before.
I spent a delightful morning a little while ago listening to a couple of your directors talk to me about how they wanted to see New Zealand television and the kind of, you know it was almost infectious creativity for what they saw as the kinds of programmes that would really excite New Zealanders was exactly I guess what the government wants to hear. We don't care what they make because we shouldn't it's up to them to do that but if we can create the space that allows that kind of young director to come through and be on screen and excite New Zealanders then I guess the taxpayer's money is being spent well. So this is not a nostalgic view of broadcasting, it's a forward looking view about what's relevant to New Zealanders, now public broadcasting can ensure that they are able to explore their global environment as well as their national environment. That we are interested in quality and in the ability to excite and engage and to enrich the lives of New Zealanders. We regard them as citizens as well as consumers and therefore we want to expand their horizons and the question as I said before is how important is that to us as a nation and what shape should it take. We've changed a lot already. We've had a change in terms of the restructuring of TVNZ and the new THL currently still called BCL but soon to be THL, the Broadcasting company. The Maori television service. The Pacific radio network, the extra funding for Radio New Zealand, migration to FM, the work on digital television, the allocation of FM frequencies. We've got interesting things going on around education, the low powered FM broadcast services. The voluntary codes relating to music and to television, the growth innovation framework around screen production, the increase in money for television, the increase in funding for Radio New Zealand. All of these kinds of things have been part of what we've been trying to do over the last little while and of course now it's about thinking our way forward from here. What are the issues that we want to take and I know one of the most exciting but probably one of the most frustrating questions is just to say well what are we talking about, was one of the questions that interested me last night when Greg Dyke said one of the questions they will be asked next year is what is public service broadcasting. What's it for. Very basic first principles kind of question and a multi digital, multi channel multi digital kind of environment, you do have to say. So why are we doing this. Why don't we just have all these channels that allow you to surf around in construct your viewing for yourself from a variety of channels. What do you need all this stuff for. So one of the questions we'll explore undoubtedly today and wont finish as Tim pointed out last night and probably wouldn't want to finish, want to carry on arguing and talking about this over years, but what is it that we're talking about. What steps need to be taken to put in place that notion of public service broadcasting. What do we expect from broadcasting. How are those expectations to be met and measured. What should they be doing in the future and how should all other broadcasters and people who are interested react to what goes on around this vision of public service broadcasting. We've, in our stocktake paper, identified a range of questions that we thought should be answered and they fall broadly into so major kind of camps. Obviously we talked last night about the one that clearly is pressing on the door now that we've edged up to and backed off in New Zealand and of course digital television. The revolution in the way that we deliver this broadcasting system of ours. We've said as a government that there is going to be shift to a digital environment as the question was posed last night, does your government want this? Answer, yes. What we've said to ourselves is we want New Zealanders to have the advantages of this. We need to plan for it, we need to make sure that we have a clear idea of what we're doing but there's no question of we're going there because we have to and what we've said is let's get ourselves an industry group together. They should be asked the question of how do you establish a business case for this and then let's get on with moving to that digital environment. We've said we need to look at the structure that we've got. We've got a very complicated series of structures in New Zealand, accountabilities if you have look at the map of this and the stocktake you do need to be a really, to figure your way through who's accountable for what and so on. It is a very complicated system that we have built here. We just say to ourselves is that structure right, are all the bits and pieces together in a way which does the job it should do. We have to ask questions about funding and we know that's not as we said last night the answer. What we do with that money is as important as the money that we get but we have to debate what sort of money are New Zealanders prepared to put into this kind of activity. We need to ask questions about the systems that we use in this country and the roles that are played by people who are part and parcel of our broadcasting system. All of those questions are in that stocktake paper for your to reflect on and I have no doubt will reflect on them here. The paper Paul mentioned before would be a good stimulus as well because it allows us to compare what we've got with five other systems around, around the world in relation to public service broadcasting. So drawing my thoughts together, we are beginning to think our way through these issues in a more concrete form now that we've got a role on with particular debate. We've want to ensure that we end up with a regatory framework with a delivery system that will last us well into the future. No one can tell the future, that's the nature of change but I guess what we're trying to do is say do we have the right structure to take on the kinds of challenges that we see in front of us. We are at this conference thereby engaged in that conversation about our future and how we might want to help shape that through what we do with broadcasting and I hope what you will do today is engage with each other in the spirit of saying how do we think forward rather than let's relitigate battles that we might have had over the past. Let's talk about how it might go. Let's take it that what we've got here is a licence to think about things that we want to see happen in New Zealand regardless of what shape that might take. Listen to each other carefully and see what we can do to move forward to really improve on what we've got. You're the people we want to listen to today and I'm really looking forward to filling up my notebook with ideas that you come up with during the day. Can I just think the Ministry of Culture and Heritage, Television New Zealand, New Zealand on Air, Te Manga Paho, the Maori television service, Radio New Zealand and New Zealand Broadcasting school for organising and hosting this conference. Thank you for doing this. Now can I turn my attention to someone that I have to say Bob I hope you become a friend because I like you, it must be because my name is Irish I think, probably that's the connection back through to Bob. But can I just say I've been delighted in leading our Bob Collins, the scope of our programme and the beginning of the thought provoking comments we had last night tells me that you are going to make a big impact while you are here, Bob. He has recently been the Director General of the Irish National broadcaster, radio and I'll let him fill it in later on, or RTE. He has been with RTE since 1975, become Director General in 1997, retiring last month. He served as the chairman of the European Broadcasting Union Television Committee and the Celtic Film and Television Association. He's been closely associated with the development of Irish language television. We are very fortunate indeed Bob to have you here because your experience is as extensive as it sounds there. I've already enjoyed listening to what you've got to say and I'm looking forward to hearing a more formal presentation now. Welcome.
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