Radio with Pictures

David Beatson blogs at Pundit:

I welcome the proposal that John Barnett from South Pacific Pictures has pitched to the board of Radio New Zealand for “radio with pictures”. …

Barnett told us he had been given a positive reception by the RNZ board and outlined some of the arsenal of new media technology that he proposed using to add the necessary visual enrichment required by the television audience.

He saw scope for including original productions currently provided to TVNZ 7 by independent producers – and was confident that he could deliver 18 hours of programming a day on a public broadcasting channel at a cost that is considerably less than the $13 million a year TVNZ was paid to produce TVNZ 6 and 7. My own analysis of the concept indicates that he is right.

That is not an unreasonable sum.

I have blogged previously several times that the Government should sell TVNZ, which is a fully commercial broadcaster, and put the proceeds from the sale into a trust to fund a full public service broadcaster, such as Radio New Zealand with pictures.