1.00pm - By PAUL SMITH
The British government has been told not to copy the deregulation of New Zealand broadcasting in its ongoing review of the BBC's charter.
A closed-door meeting in London this week heard from experts who said the reforms of the 1980s had damaged public service broadcasting in New
Zealand.
Daniel Cook, a former TVNZ journalist who has studied the effect of the changes, told the meeting that the impact was "extremely bad", with a dramatic fall in serious news and current affairs.
The BBC's charter is currently up for review with a new one due in 2006. Pressure on the organisation to reform has grown after last year's Hutton inquiry found against the BBC in its handling of a radio news story about the Iraq war.
Television viewers in the UK pay an annual licence fee of £121 ($350) which is used to fund the BBC's TV, radio and online output. There is no advertising on BBC broadcasts in the UK.
Cook, who now works in London, told nzherald.co.nz: "The bold experiment in broadcasting [in New Zealand] is seen to have failed. It is of value to policy makers in the UK - it is a good example of what not to do."
He said there was surprise among the representatives of government and broadcasting at the negative impact the reforms had on TVNZ's output.
However, Paul Norris, head of the New Zealand Broadcasting School in Christchurch, told the meeting there were positives in the system of "contestable funding" – the provision of public money for which independent broadcasters and programme makers compete. This has been in place through the broadcast funding agency NZ On Air since 1988.
A UK government official who attended the meeting, organised by thinktank the Institute for Public Policy Research, said there were some "very important lessons" that Britain could learn from New Zealand's reforms.
He added: "Despite being 11,000 miles away, many of the issues are the same. However, there are caveats - in New Zealand, with 4 million people, the focus will be local. In the UK, with 60 million, less so."
