Well at least it’s out in the open now. The National Government would get rid of Radio NZ if it could.
Speaking in the general debate yesterday, Gerry Brownlee accused the Labour Opposition of “wanting to spend more on dopey things like Radio NZ”
Guilty as charged. Labour doesn’t believe that Radio NZ is dopey. And neither do most of New Zealand. It’s had its funding frozen for the last three years and is doing its best to provide quality services to NZ.
It wasn’t an off the cuff remark, Brownlee glanced at his notes before he said it. I suspect it will come back to bite him.
See the video clip at around 2min 40 sec
Gerry Brownlee – you cannot be serious!
John Key won’t appear on The National Programme if he can avoid it.
Scumbag.
Yes, God forbid we actually ask politicians probing,articulate and intelligent questions rather than joke with them and parrot platitudes.
How dare that dopey Radio New Zealand do that!!!!
Gerry would prefer to deal with the sycophantic journalists of TVNZ and TV3, not those from RNZ that ask him questions he has trouble answering without making himself look like a fool.
Mouth engaged before brain.
So Clare in all fairness, if Labour wants to increase funding to Radio NZ how will you pay for it? Where will you reduce funding from or what taxes will you increase?
Whats next on the chopping block? Community Radio,
RNZ is excluded from commercial ratings technically because it is a ‘public’ station but I often wondered if the listener numbers in all sorts of demographics and times of the day would embarrass the hell out of Newstalk, Edge, Classic etc.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/about/audience_research
@True Wheel “I often wondered if the listener numbers in all sorts of demographics and times of the day would embarrass the hell out of Newstalk, Edge, Classic etc.”
No. No they wouldn’t.
We’ve all noticed National cabinet ministers’ unwillingness to front up on Radio NZ.
And the way they have “Nationalised” its governance.
Now it seems they plan to extend their vendetta, as a matter of ideology. A pox on them.
RNZ is more essential to our national wellbeing than they are.
This household knows which one we’d rather have, and which we’d get rid of.
@ Lou Peters: I put a link in my comment for a reason. The quote below is from RNZ’s www site, the previous link breaks the figures down by programme etc.
“Radio New Zealand National is the country’s most popular station for live radio listening according to latest Nielsen Media All New Zealand Radio Survey results.
National’s audience of 507,000 people aged 15+ makes it number one equal with one other radio station for audience size, but when the station’s share is considered, Radio New Zealand National is out in front with 11% of the New Zealand market.
Looking at both audience size and station share, the Nielsen Media results show that National is the most popular station in the country.
Roland Browning, does it again.
He’s either got very little feet, or he practices opening his mouth very wide.
Judging by his waisteline, I’d suggest the latter.
I frequently download RNZ podcasts even though I live overseas. I grew up in a household where it was always flicked on when working in the shed/making lunch on the weekend/milling about etc. It is really the only radio game in town (though I’ll admit to streaming the odd bit of bFM and listening to PlanetFM radio replays recently
Also note the irony in Gerry targeting KiwiRail since their latest PR whispering campaign is that the asset sales are to pay for its maintenance.
Obviously they forgot that they already told us that they’re using that money to build more hospitals, fund more doctors, nurses and elective surgery.
Public debate must have fuel from free and open media with a wide range of sources, information and opinions.
Advertisers determine media policy by patronage.
Public broadcasting must be from more that one source and without political or commercial hindrance.
This is not happening in NZ as we are shown a manicured selection of views.
Reducing the public broadcasting scope in any way plays into the hands of money power to dictate what the public is shown.
There is very real danger in the direction Nact is taking us.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvUwC5JTAJY