Think if we had sold TVNZ a decade ago

TVNZ has just announced an $85 million loss and a huge $39 million drop in revenue.

I’ve never seen why taxpayers own a commercial media company. There is a case to be made for owing public service broadcasters such as Radio NZ and Maori TV, but not a commercial broadcaster.

Think if ten years ago we had sold TVNZ. It was making a $35 million profit so could have sold for say $400 million. Now think if that $400 million has been invested in say some Netflix shares. They were around US$50 in 2014 or NZ $60. So they could have purchased 6.66 million shares in Netflix. Today those shares are US$692 on NZ$1,105. So we’d have $7.36 billion rather than an asset that is now probably worth close to zero on the open market.