'Kiwis were "thirsty for programmes that tell our stories, and explore our issues."'

Then they should be prepared to pay for them, rather than relying on other disinterested taxpayers to provide the ready.

Shouldn't they?

...What this article highlights is a chance for Australia to offer a practical and responsible input to NZ public broadcasting, as a reciprocal addition to existing migration arrangements across the Tasman.

...Where the SBS and the ABC funding combined is $3.5B over three years, (a funding which recognises the SBS permit to broadcast five minutes of commercial advertising per hour), as a comparison on funding against its NZ counterpart of $210M over the same period, the inevitable outcome of closure of the NZ network is not surprising.

...There exists a golden moment for SBS to establish a repeater of Australian broadcasting in NZ. This contribution from Australia could incorporate the Maori channel (allowing some NZ input from the savings), to offset the extraction of non-applicable programing from the relay.

What would be ideal would be for ABC and SBS to be available in New Zealand and TVNZ to be available in Australia. That way, New Zealanders would see that the ABC isn't all it's cracked up to be, while Australians who bash the two public broadcasters (like Murdoch journos) would soon see how bad the alternative is. TVNZ makes the Australian commercial networks look like the ABC, while TV3 is even worse.

The New Zealand On Air system is the worst of both worlds, with tax dollars being used to fund locally produced programming which wouldn't get a cent of it across the Ditch, like reality TV shows. At least New Zealand scrapped the licence fee in 2000, which was a cheek considering how much advertising there was.

Historically, the problem is that New Zealand didn't have enough choice in broadcasting - it only had one TV channel until 1975, and two (both state-owned) until 1989, although it introduced colour before Australia did, in 1973, and pay-TV in 1990. While the ABC has remained the same organisation (Commission or Corporation) the equivalent in New Zealand has been chopped and changed around loads of times. The NZBC only lasted thirteen years.

Like most of New Zealand's reforms, it's been a case of throwing the baby out with the bathwater, and Australia has got the balance right.
Listening to Kiwi free marketeers is like listening to a man who goes around boasting about how fast he can run without a ball and chain round his ankles.

Irrespective of what kind of broadcasting New Zealand has, it's still too dour and provincial for me, and given the choice, I'd prefer Australia. If you want greenery you've got Tasmania. Using a Virtual Private Network (VPN) you can access the ABC's iView outside Australia, and if you're that desperate, you can use on to access TVNZ On Demand outside New Zealand.

Interesting article, I thought that Kiwis would have more sense.

Without public broadcasters there's little possibility of informed discussion, commercial broadcasters essentially promote the corporate interests of their owners, which suits neo-liberal governments very well indeed.

As to wasting taxpayers money-the price of nearly every purchase a consumer makes has the cost of advertising included, so I'm paying for the commercial, made-for-morons garbage, that I never watch or listen to. I don't hear many right wing commentators complaining about the waste and mismanagement of the millions of taxpayers' funds spent on the production of totally useless elite athletes.

The real agenda is not fiscal but political. Without public broadcasters the MSM would be completely dominated by corporate billionaire oligarchs pushing their self-serving propaganda line with no regard for the public interest.

'It is quite immoral to force everyone to fund a TV station that only a minority is interested in.'

In that case, it's immoral to run state and council libraries, which only a minority use. Ditto state and national theatre, ballet and opera companies, which few (mostly well off) people use. It's even more immoral, on that basis, to fund foreign aid, which virtually NO Australians get to use.

My taxes fund institutions like the National Institute of Sport and the Australian War Memorial Museum, whose values I do not support. They also fund wars that I don't believe Australia should be involved in. However, I accept that all these taxpayer funded enterprises fulfil a general national purpose that cannot be maintained by free market forces. A national broadcaster also fills that role.

As for the left-wing bias argument, that's well and truly had its day. The Howard era brought to its knees what little centre-left sentiment still existed at the ABC after 20 years of right-wing neo-liberalism had contaminated the mainstream narrative. The ABC board is now heavily stacked with right-leaning decision-makers, and journalists and presenters who don't comply with the new right-wing zeitgeist either do not get hired or don't last long.

What's really killing the ABC is a combination of the expensive and unnecessary 24-hour news channel, and the slow death by a thousand cuts that has been occurring for well over a decade. This in turn forces it to import more and more cheap, mind-numbingly dull British lifestyle and chat shows, which are as relevant to modern Australia as reruns of The Love Boat.

Killarney: "As for the left-wing bias argument, that's well and truly had its day. The Howard era brought to its knees what little centre-left sentiment still existed at the ABC after 20 years of right-wing neo-liberalism had contaminated the mainstream narrative. The ABC board is now heavily stacked with right-leaning decision-makers, and journalists and presenters who don't comply with the new right-wing zeitgeist either do not get hired or don't last long."

Killarney, where have you been these past 5 or so years? Living in Killarney, Ireland?

The ABC board has very little, if any, influence over editorial policy or current affairs treatment. Left-leaning groupthink has well and truly taken over.

Whereas one would expect the ABC to be impartial regarding the climate change debate, it goes out of its way to broadcast warmist propaganda, but censors out any opposing views. This is despite the fact that there is no empirical scientific evidence to substantiate the hypothesis that man-made carbon dioxide emissions cause dangerous global warming. In his capacity as ABC Chairman, Maurice Newman was so frustrated that he felt it necessary to go public to request balance in ABC reporting on the climate change issue. Sadly, his request was ignored.