The problem with TVNZ

Many of the problems TVNZ currently has can be attributed to the fact it is state owned. Take the current court case with Susan Wood.

If TVNZ was a privately owned company, no-one would be that interested in how much their presenters and reporters are paid. Sure a bit of prurient interest but you wouldn’t be having the Prime Minister instructing the board through the media that they have to reduce salaries.

But we have had this. And so a politically appointed Board has to cut salaries or face being sacked themselves. So they refuse to agree to salaries above a certain level, regardless of the commercial or legal rationale for it.

Now the Government has also passed a law saying you can not put people on fixed term contracts without a very good reason, and can’t just use fixed terms contracts as a way to screw employees over and lower their pay rates unilaterally.

So where does that leave TVNZ? They either have to (arguably) break the very law passed by the Government and unilaterally reduce pay rates, or they have to obey the law and end up getting sacked by the very same Government.

Despite the charter, which confuses rather than changes things, TVNZ is a commercial organisation. Political governance sits badly with that. If they turned TV One into a non commercial public service broadcaster and sold off TV2, they would have far less problems.