Govt seems intent on killing Freeview

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Linuxluver

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#96570 31-Jan-2012 11:36

The Minister for Sky / Mediaworks, Steven Joyce, seems to be doing all he can to reduce the amount of quality free to air content and force us to go to Sky.

We are going to lose TVNZ7 in June and Stratos has recently died for lack of support. I very much enjoyed watching Al Jazeera and other 'alternative' news programmes on Stratos.

The National Party's dislike for Freeview is no secret.

But I'll be sending the Tv to the tip before I sign up for Sky. It's 44% owned by Rupert Murdoch and I have no interest in giving that old crook any of my money. He's killed more people than Osama Bin laden with his war-mongering, lying media. The present government clearly doesn't care much about the ethics or morality of its corporate mates.

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#575260 31-Jan-2012 12:13

Perhaps he is hoping for a position on Rupert's board once he is done with this political junket.

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#575281 31-Jan-2012 12:55

Linuxluver: The Minister for Sky / Mediaworks, Steven Joyce, seems to be doing all he can to reduce the amount of quality free to air content and force us to go to Sky.

We are going to lose TVNZ7 in June and Stratos has recently died for lack of support. I very much enjoyed watching Al Jazeera and other 'alternative' news programmes on Stratos.

The National Party's dislike for Freeview is no secret.

But I'll be sending the Tv to the tip before I sign up for Sky. It's 44% owned by Rupert Murdoch and I have no interest in giving that old crook any of my money. He's killed more people than Osama Bin laden with his war-mongering, lying media. The present government clearly doesn't care much about the ethics or morality of its corporate mates.

You're confusing "Freeview" with "Free to air broadcasters". They are not the same thing.

Freeview is merely a broadcast platform and I've yet to see anything that would suggest the National Party have any issues with it. The Freeview DVB-T expansion proceeded without issue and ASO has been announced as expected.

Politital support or lack of it for broadcasters is another issue entirely. Many have argued that National are quite happy in bed with Media Works due to their recent payment deal for licencing fees. As for their views of TVNZ - they've made it very clear in the past about their views for a fully funded public broadcaster.

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#575282 31-Jan-2012 13:00

Linuxluver: The Minister for Sky / Mediaworks, Steven Joyce, seems to be doing all he can to reduce the amount of quality free to air content and force us to go to Sky.

We are going to lose TVNZ7 in June and Stratos has recently died for lack of support. I very much enjoyed watching Al Jazeera and other 'alternative' news programmes on Stratos.

The National Party's dislike for Freeview is no secret.

But I'll be sending the Tv to the tip before I sign up for Sky. It's 44% owned by Rupert Murdoch and I have no interest in giving that old crook any of my money. He's killed more people than Osama Bin laden with his war-mongering, lying media. The present government clearly doesn't care much about the ethics or morality of its corporate mates.

I would strongly suggest you are barking up the wrong tree. Stations are almost always cancelled due to a lack of advertising revenue or viewers of the content. You are the only person I know of watching Al Jazeera, and I would suggest they are simply compressing the popular content into a smaller number of channels.

It costs a fair amount of money to have a channel operating.

alienwithin

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#575453 31-Jan-2012 17:25

personally i dont blame the govt for the closing of tvnz7. Let's be honest about this situation. TVNZ got around $80 million in tax payer subsidy last year, and they earned I believe it was just under $300 million form advertising revenue.

tvnz claimed they needed more funding to keep tvnz alive, rubbish. What they really meant is that they were going to take the $15 million that they spent running tvnz7 and instead use it to fund their deal with sky tv, so please can you give us more money. tvnz7 closing was nothing to do with the government but was strictly a business decision by tvnz to use the money they could of funded it with to roll out their new paytv deal with sky.

sbiddle, the delaying of payment with interest incurred was picked up by many radio stations, not media works.

btw, for anyone interested, the costs that stratos had to pay for broadcasting were set forward by the labour government. yet everyone seems to think it was national.

btw, if loosing one channel, because tvnz7 will become an shopping channel means the government is trying to kill it off, then explain what two new channels being added to freeview this month mean?

NZCrusader

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#575492 31-Jan-2012 18:35

Linuxluver: The Minister for Sky / Mediaworks, Steven Joyce, seems to be doing all he can to reduce the amount of quality free to air content and force us to go to Sky.

We are going to lose TVNZ7 in June and Stratos has recently died for lack of support. I very much enjoyed watching Al Jazeera and other 'alternative' news programmes on Stratos.

The National Party's dislike for Freeview is no secret.

But I'll be sending the Tv to the tip before I sign up for Sky. It's 44% owned by Rupert Murdoch and I have no interest in giving that old crook any of my money. He's killed more people than Osama Bin laden with his war-mongering, lying media. The present government clearly doesn't care much about the ethics or morality of its corporate mates.

What are you smoking ?

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JimmyH

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#575499 31-Jan-2012 18:45

Odd then that last week they rolled out a $20 million package to help vulnerable low-income households get free Freeview installs then - not exactly "intent on killing off the platform" in my view.

The transmission costs for Stratos and the expiry date for the TVNZ funding were, to the best of my recollection, set under the last government. The support Stratos died from appears to be the support of viewers - not enough people were watching for the advertisers to pay sufficient to keep it on air.

Whether or not the government provides more money to fund TVNZ7 is a budget decision. Some people want TV funded, some people want schools funded, others want doctors, and many want lower taxes. Any government has to balance these, and not everyone gets what they want all the time. Otherwise we wind up like Greece. Given the big budget deficit, it's far more likely that they decided they simply had better things to spend limited money on than TVNZ7 than that there's somehow a dark shadowy corporatist conspiracy,

As for the diatribe about Murdoch you might find more fertile ground on a political website than a technology one?

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#575522 31-Jan-2012 19:24

JimmyH: The transmission costs for Stratos and the expiry date for the TVNZ funding were, to the best of my recollection, set under the last government. The support Stratos died from appears to be the support of viewers - not enough people were watching for the advertisers to pay sufficient to keep it on air.

Last that I remember was that Stratos had some 1 million viewers but that the costs were too high to keep it running. This seems like a fair statement considering that everyone is paying the government to print money for spectrum licenses (which cost nothing, for the government).

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Dunnersfella

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#575526 31-Jan-2012 19:47

codyc1515:
Last that I remember was that Stratos had some 1 million viewers but that the costs were too high to keep it running.

As in 5000 people flicking over to Stratos on 200 occasions?

codyc1515

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#575527 31-Jan-2012 19:48

Dunnersfella:
codyc1515:
Last that I remember was that Stratos had some 1 million viewers but that the costs were too high to keep it running.

As in 5000 people flicking over to Stratos on 200 occasions?

I think it is quite clear that the government does not want any kind of independent, alternative media available to the masses.

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#575534 31-Jan-2012 20:23

I think the question has been asked and answered. Let's close the thread and move on :)

alienwithin

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#575656 1-Feb-2012 08:45

I think it is quite clear that the government does not want any kind of independent, alternative media available to the masses.

guess you have never heard about maori tv, completely govt funded, and plays some of the best alternative content and alternative news stories in the country.

old3eyes

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#575659 1-Feb-2012 08:47

alienwithin:

I think it is quite clear that the government does not want any kind of independent, alternative media available to the masses.

guess you have never heard about maori tv, completely govt funded, and plays some of the best alternative content and alternative news stories in the country.

I suspect if it wasn't Gov funded it would soon fall over as well.

Regards,

Old3eyes

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#575671 1-Feb-2012 09:01

JimmyH: Odd then that last week they rolled out a $20 million package to help vulnerable low-income households get free Freeview installs then - not exactly "intent on killing off the platform" in my view.

The transmission costs for Stratos and the expiry date for the TVNZ funding were, to the best of my recollection, set under the last government. The support Stratos died from appears to be the support of viewers - not enough people were watching for the advertisers to pay sufficient to keep it on air.

Whether or not the government provides more money to fund TVNZ7 is a budget decision. Some people want TV funded, some people want schools funded, others want doctors, and many want lower taxes. Any government has to balance these, and not everyone gets what they want all the time. Otherwise we wind up like Greece. Given the big budget deficit, it's far more likely that they decided they simply had better things to spend limited money on than TVNZ7 than that there's somehow a dark shadowy corporatist conspiracy,

As for the diatribe about Murdoch you might find more fertile ground on a political website than a technology one?

+1 well said

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#575715 1-Feb-2012 09:54

I'm locking this discussion because of a personal attack.