Little wonder then that the spot vacated by the canning of Campbell Live, initially filled by road cops, is now occupied by a local version of a franchise show in which people, who presumably qualified as participants by demonstrating an an inability to cook, cook for each other. Humiliation of the incompetent has become a primary entertainment value. In shows whose titles contain the words "Got Talent", it is important to feature and laugh at people who have none.
Prophets foretold all this: in Brave New World, more than 80 years ago, Aldous Huxley imagined a future in which critical thought was discouraged and culture consisted of films whose primary purpose was arousing emotion.
Less allegorical and more pointed was Amusing Ourselves to Death by educationist Neil Postman, published in 1985, before most of the people television programmers and advertisers now seek to woo were born. Its title alone is an apt description of what television has come to. The Bruce Springsteen song 57 Channels (And Nothin' On) seven years later underlined the point.
The end of the too-serious Campbell Live in favour of what is sure to be a lighter-format current affairs show might be seen as proving the case, but it has been proven repeatedly over a generation, as prime-time television has been taken over by boilerplate imported shows - as well as that "reality" stuff.
The well-publicised financial woes of TV3's owners may seem to lend plausibility to the complaint that Campbell Live didn't rate so it had to go. The network might also argue that, as a private concern in a market-driven economy, it is exempt from a public duty to deliver programmes that serve the public good.
But against that must be balanced the idea that the broadcasting spectrum, rather than being simply a commodity to be bought and sold, is a public resource that exists in a cultural as well as an economic realm. There are limits to spectrum space and making use of what there is to bring a wide range of programming is the least we are owed.
A generation of New Zealanders has grown up with no idea of what public-service broadcasting is. But a state-owned, commercial-free television channel, freed from the need to pander to advertisers or obsess about ratings is something that comparable countries - Australia and the UK; Scandinavia - take for granted. Viewers in the first two of those markets have several such choices.
How might it be paid for? One idea, advanced by the Coalition for Better Broadcasting, is a 1 per cent levy on the revenue of commercial broadcasters (including video- and audio-on-demand subscription services) and internet service providers - a modest charge for the privilege of operating in that cultural realm.
It is no accident that 30 years of market-driven reforms have brought us to this pass. But when it comes to the dissemination of information, the economic orthodoxy - that the market will perfectly decide what survives and what dies - doesn't cut it. I might think my taxes should not be spent on early childhood education and rape crisis centres because there is no likelihood that I will need the services of either. But these are things we regard as essential to a civilised society. So is a television channel that serves the interests of democracy and does not just seek to amuse us all to death.
• Peter Calder is a member of the Coalition for Better Broadcasting
