TV networks at war

Years of simmering tensions between rival broadcasters Television New Zealand and TV3 exploded into open warfare this week, writes JAMES GARDINER


The channels, which go head-to-head each night at 6pm, have been mercilessly mocking their rivals at every opportunity this week.

Yet both claim the stories they run - or don't run - and the prominence given to them are judged purely on news values.

Well they would, wouldn't they.

ROUND 1

TV3 fired the first broadside on Monday. Its lead story was about the decision of Parliament's Speaker not to refer a complaint about Winston Peters' "free meal" scampi inquiry story to the Privileges Committee.

The story, of course, was broken by TVNZ's Holmes show, and TV3 appeared to be relishing the fact that this showed there was no evidence to back the story up - something Mr Peters would certainly agree with.

ROUND 2

TV3 was again on the offensive on Tuesday with another lead item about TVNZ's embarrassment at the 10-year lease it had on a $45,000-a-year corporate box at Wellington's Cake Tin. The box was empty during last weekend's sevens rugby tournament.

A legacy of big-spending former TVNZ chairman Ross Armstrong, who used it to entertain powerful politicians and business leaders until his ignominious demise from favour in 2002, the lease has been on the market for more than a year.

But TVNZ shoots straight back. The High Court has rejected TV3's appeal against the Broadcasting Standards Authority's ruling of bias and unfairness in the network's handling of Prime Minister Helen Clark in the "Corngate" story before the last election.

Oddly, that appeal story, which TV3 had reported prominently when it marched proudly off to court to challenge the ruling, did not appear until the very end of TV3's bulletin, when a short statement was read out.

Perhaps not so oddly. TVNZ had not run anything about its unwanted corporate box and placed the Speaker's rejection of the "Scampigate" complaint much further down its bulletin. .

ROUND 3

On Thursday it started to get ugly. The Herald had broken a story about how TV3 presenter John Campbell, who conducted the infamous Corngate interview with Helen Clark, made an irregular phone call to the judiciary questioning whether Justice Ron Young was the right judge to hear the appeal in light of his legal partnership in the 1980s with the late Hamilton East Labour MP, Bill Dillon.

This greatly interested Paul Holmes who, wearing his other hat as Newstalk ZB's breakfast radio host, announced that this put TV3 in a very bad light.

"This is the dumbest bit of obstruction of justice in the world, if true," he told listeners. "It's dirty ... about as dumb as you can get."

Naturally, TVNZ news bosses were as excited as Holmes at the Herald's story and wanted their own version for the evening news.

They would have been mindful that TVNZ top brass were appearing before Parliament's commerce select committee for a two-hour grilling on every flaw and failing that MPs perceived with the channel.

Such a media throng was present, including TV3 cameras and two reporters, that it was standing room only as TVNZ chief executive Ian Fraser jousted with Mr Peters, National's Murray McCully, Act's Rodney Hide and even copped a few barbs from Greenie Sue Kedgley.

Unfortunately for TVNZ, which wasn't interested in running a story about the select committee (despite having almost its entire political team present), the Campbell story lacked a vital ingredient: pictures. No one wanted to go on camera and the parties to the case were not talking, especially TV3.

That did not stop Holmes, though. His fallback position was a spiel in which he posed questions then gave the answers.

This monologue repeated some of what the Herald reported, claimed Justice Young had no Labour Party connections and reported an unnamed TV3 executive as saying Campbell was "getting it up the chutney" during the High Court hearing.

THE VERDICT

So where does all this leave viewers? Are they watching news or a squabble in the sandpit.

Paul Norris, head of Canterbury University Broadcasting School, has misgivings.

He said it might be just coincidence that the channels became the focus of stories this week.

"A news editor who allows the news values of the bulletin to be tainted by any sort of view of the opposition has really got it all wrong.

"I don't know whether that's happening but it would certainly be a wrong principle to highlight stories just because they are damaging to the opposition."