KEY POINTS:
Maori Television bosses are considering a second channel with one option to put Maori language content on to Freeview.
Sources say details are still being worked out.
But two channels would allow it to develop general interest programming with a Maori perspective into a commercial niche.
Maybe they
could be named TV Tahi and TV Rua.
Whatever any new channel is called, it would threaten TVNZ and its hold on taxpayer funding for Maori programming.
It would also raise questions about why TVNZ has failed over several years to meet a key part of its obligations as a public broadcaster.
TVNZ neglect for Maori programming - placing it in a Saturday morning ghetto when nobody is watching - is in line with its disinterest in all minority audiences. They do not bring in the ad dollars.
It is little wonder some Maori broadcasters at Maori TV have a deep seated ill-feeling against the broadcaster and the idea of a new channel is so appealing.
But it took a decade of legal wrangles to force the Government's hand to fund the first Maori TV channel. It would face political hurdles to get a second.
Maori Television marketing director Sonya Haggie declined requests for the Business Herald to speak to Maori TV chief executive Jim Mather.
But she confirmed a second channel is being talked about.
Smart strategy
Can Maori TV find a commercial niche for ambitious ventures like the new current affairs show, Native Affairs?
Audiences remain tiny and Maori TV is largely irrelevant to advertisers with Government departments the biggest advertisers.
Maori TV has been adept at delivering professional television shows made on a shoestring budget and, under Mather, it has been playing a smart strategic game.
Admirers of the second channel idea say it is typical of the tactical thinking under Mather. A former Army officer, he led the channel from years of personal grievance and internal wrangles between the Maori language and the TV-based expertise.
Mather wants to zig where the other channels zag. That has meant non-commercial fare like Anzac Day taking on TVNZ where it has promised and failed to deliver and ambitious projects like Native Affairs.
TVNZ has not been too worried - there are no ad dollars or taxpayer funding at issue.
But a second Maori channel would undermine its access to taxpayer cash and potentially to a niche audience.
Maybe the the hand of friendship is about to be offered to the other public TV channel.
Parr for the course
One of the key advocates for a second channel is Maori TV programming boss Larry Parr.
Parr as a former director of television production company Kahukura Productions that went belly-up in 2002 owing $500,000.
Among its creditors were Peter Jackson, whose film-processing arm handled some of its movies.
Creditors of Kahukura received less than 20 cents for each dollar they were owed, papers filed with the Companies Office show.
Player's game up
Armada Publishing has finally retired sports magazine Player, it is understood.
Back in February, this column reported the owner was shutting up shop until July 1 for a makeover and had hired ad agency Colenso BBDO to look at options.
Player had been facing new competition from the Sky Sports Magazines jointly owned by Sky TV and Fairfax Magazines.
Nobody will be surprised that Player has not risen from the dead. Advertisers and subscribers would have had to recommit to the title that was already in trouble.
It is a rapid decline for a magazine that got caught up in upheavals for its previous owner, Max magazines, and which was Qantas Magazine of the Year just four years ago.
Dancing with Beeb
TVNZ commissioning boss Andrew Shaw says production for Dancing with the Stars has not been affected by a deal of BBC Worldwide with Australian production company Firsthand.
The Beeb signed in February giving Firsthand first right of refusal to make shows using BBC formats in Australia and New Zealand. Dancing with the Stars has been made in-house by TVNZ and bolstered its Avalon studios in Lower Hutt. Shaw said TVNZ's agreement was outside the BBC deal with Firsthand and the deal had no significance to New Zealand producers.
No decision has been made yet on a fourth series of Dancing with the Stars - but it looks inevitable given the way the show has revived the TV One brand.
Meanwhile, TVNZ has gotten over its self-destructive dismissive view of BBC programming that led to it missing key shows like Ricky Gervais' Extras and Dr Who.
Shaw picked them up for Prime TV when he was programmer there. Now he is back, he has picked up Dr Who spin-off Torchwood and Beeb shows look set to regain their profile on TVNZ.
Newspaper culture
Anybody who has spent time in Britain will tell you the country has a strong newspaper culture.
It is built on several foundations, not least that TV advertising is heavily regulated and hugely expensive, so newspapers retain a solid source of revenue. Then there are the tribal and class issues that permeate British culture.
But British adman Tim Delaney - bought here to promote newspapers - says there are other factors to newspaper success in Blighty. "I worked with the Guardian at their ad agency and they focused on readers. They did new products based not on what they decreed a reader and their style to be. They knew what a Guardian reader wanted.
"It's almost the essence of marketing and then you have the segmenting with people on the right and on the left. You can segment anywhere, you do it here with soft drinks or in the US, sneakers."
Delaney, who at 34 founded leading British agency Leagas, is chairman of the National Newspaper Awards in Britain. An advocate for print advertising, he says the written word will always have the ability to connect, surprise, engage and persuade.
