Legal battle costly for Radio NZ

Radio New Zealand executives admitted yesterday they could not say when a legal battle with their former news boss - which has cost hundreds of thousands of dollars - would end.

The fight started in January last year when Radio NZ's head of news, Lynne Snowdon, went on sick leave on full pay after falling out with then chief executive Sharon Crosbie.

Ms Snowdon is reported to be earning between $100,000 and $110,000 a year. There have been several court rulings on different aspects of the case, including one that said Ms Snowdon could return to work.

But Radio NZ's current chief executive, Peter Cavanagh, yesterday told Parliament's finance and expenditure select committee that issues around Ms Snowdon's return to work were still in dispute and were before the Court of Appeal.

Mr Cavanagh said a hearing was expected in February next year, but he could not say when the saga would be concluded.

He said Radio NZ had increased its contingent liabilities - money set aside to cover the possible success of personal grievances and court actions against it - from $250,000 in 2002-2003 to $362,000 in the past year.

The money covered two personal grievances from staff - one of them Ms Snowdon's, two defamation actions against it and one commercial matter, he said.

Radio NZ also came under attack at the committee from National MP Murray McCully who accused it of secrecy for not releasing detailed ratings information in a format similar to that of commercial broadcasters.

Mr McCully asked why, when Radio NZ spent $145,000 a year on getting ratings information, it was not releasing it to taxpayers.

He said he believed Radio NZ's reluctance to release the information in a comparative format to commercial operators, was because the station was "bleeding listeners".

But Mr Cavanagh said the ratings information was not available in the form Mr McCully wished.

He said Radio NZ did not compile it in such a way because the number of people listening to each 15-minute block of National Radio on any given day was not relevant to a public broadcaster, who did not need the information for advertisers.

Far more important was the scope and extent of the overall audience and in that measure Radio NZ had been highly successful.

In the past year the number of people who listened to National Radio at least once during any given week had risen by 8 per cent to more than 600,000. Mr Cavanagh said he was not aware of any public broadcaster who compiled ratings in a commercial format.

New Zealand First leader Winston Peters attacked Radio NZ for not featuring his political party enough on its news programmes, despite NZ First "winning 11 per cent of the vote at the last election". He said this amounted to a "boycott and a shutout".

But Mr Cavanagh said Radio NZ's news was based on the issues of the day and if politicians generated good news they would feature.

Radio NZ chairman Brian Corban said the broadcaster was not about to apportion political news coverage on the basis of votes won.

- NZPA