KEY POINTS:
Alt TV is asking its viewers to help pay a $5000 fine the Broadcasting Standards Authority imposed on it for screening explicit text messages.
The music channel yesterday complied with the authority's request to display a statement for five hours instead of its normal programming.
But the station
ran the statement all day and made its own comment, which it screened before noon and after 5pm.
"Because the BSA has ordered us off air for five hours and refused us the right to apologise in our own words, we have decided to pull our programming for the entire day so we can broadcast our side of the story," the channel said.
In its statement it urged viewers to make a $20 donation by calling a specified phone number.
"A fine like this is crippling for a little station. If you would like to help us, please make a $20 donation," it said.
The statement outlined events it said led to offensive text messages being screened on Waitangi Day, apologised for any offence caused, and said it had taken steps to prevent its happening again. It explained that an independent moderator hired to check messages had become intoxicated and let the offensive texts on screen.
"We here at Alt TV greatly regret this occurrence and believe it is in everyone's interest to prevent such a lapse from happening again. However, we believe that the BSA's decision to take us off air for five hours as well as fining us $5000 is severe.
"The ruling is neither preventative nor instructive and seeking to make an example of the little guy (as we might well be called) is counter-productive and purely punishing. Rather than working with us to find out why the event occurred and assisting us to prevent it from happening again, we were being made an example of.
"While larger corporations could easily absorb a fine of $5000, it is potentially crippling for a little station like Alt TV."
Alt TV president David Kennedy said last night that it was too early to tell how many donations the station had received.
He said the BSA's decision was too severe and Alt TV should have been told before it was released to the media.
He didn't think it was provocative for Alt to broadcast its own statement. "It's our TV station ... It's important to get our side of the story out rather than what they've just written."
Asked if it was fair for viewers to be asked to make a donation, Mr Kennedy said: "Why wouldn't it be? They're our viewers. There's no compulsion."
The BSA ruled last week that the Groove in the Park broadcast, live on the channel on Waitangi Day, breached the standards for good taste and decency and children's interests and encouraged denigration and discrimination on the basis of race.
The authority could not be reached last night.