Powerpoint: Holmes is worth it to TVNZ

Bt EWAN McDONALD

You could almost hear the lips purse and the breath intaken moments after the Herald thudded into letterboxes around the country one day last week.

You could feel the tension in the airwaves, thousands of dialling fingers poised above phones as their owners waited for talkback hosts to complete their morning fulminations so they could have a rant.

Louisa Cleave, our television editor, reported that TVNZ had increased the salaries of its top earners in the past year. The biggest pay packet at the state-owned broadcaster, according to its annual financial results for the year to June 30, is between $770,000 and $780,000 — up from the $740,000 to $760,000 reported earlier in the year.

That does seem at odds with statements from Dr Ross Armstrong when he became TVNZ chairman in February after the Hawkesby affair and the subsequent parliamentary committee which complained of a "culture of exorbitance."

Dr Armstrong said then that he would scrutinise salaries and set up a board-level remuneration committee to sign off contracts above $160,000; last week he said two employees had taken cuts and none of the on-air staff had received increases since he moved into the Victoria St.

Public anguish over TVNZ salaries stems from several factors. Many viewers are of an age when they can remember the NZBS, the NZBC, BCNZ, Aunt Daisy and public service broadcasting.

If they heard it today, they would have to confess that a lot of it was not very good. You couldn't compare the days-old film of Peter Snell winning his medals in grainy black-and-white with the weekend's Sydney Olympics opening ceremony. But that era has been burnished in the memory.

And because it grew out of public service broadcasting, part of cradle-to-the-grave government that brought twopenny stamps, fourpenny loaves of bread, State Advances loans and the Child Benefit, many New Zealanders still feel they own shares in TVNZ. Judy and Richard are their employees, just like the postie, the Railways busdriver and the P&T lineman.

Get over it. TVNZ is a company that is accountable to its board and shareholding minister. Turn to the Business Herald and see just how accountable it was: advertising revenue $295.8 million, up 6 per cent, in the second half of the year; overall revenue $473.4 million, up 10 per cent, for the year; after-tax profit $43.1 million, up 120 per cent. All this on top of the highest ratings for four years.

But this is not what incenses the viewers, of course. What incenses the viewers is that phrase in the second paragraph of the Herald report, the one that reads "believed to be Paul Holmes."

No one really knows whether it is Holmes' salary or not; nor do they have any right to. That's a matter between Holmes and the chairman who employs him (though, if it is, judging from his reported comments the chairman might have some explaining to do to the minister who employs him).

I'm not an unalloyed Holmes fan (nor am I an alloyed one, for that matter). I think that his TV and radio shows have blurred the boundaries between news or reporting and opinion or advocacy in broadcasting.

And by presenting his programmes as "current affairs" when they could veer into tabloid magazine territory, TVNZ was often able to evade the last vestiges of its responsiblity for in-depth, serious, probing journalism during an important period in this nation's development.

But no one can argue that Holmes is this country's premier broadcaster. His TV show is, according to a recent report, cleaning out Shortland Street, another TVNZ success. Nothing to do with TVNZ, of course, but his network radio show is the most-listened-to in the land. Viewers/listeners = ratings = advertisers = revenue.

That's why Paul Holmes can name his price and, given those figures from the business pages, TVNZ can — in fact, has to — pay it. Because he's worth it to them.