The chairman of TVNZ, Ross Armstrong, has been in office for a year. LOUISA CLEAVE reports on what he has achieved.
The onus will be on the grown-up channel to fulfil the charter obligations, although Armstrong signals that TV2 will also play a role, in part by offering a better news service than its sporadic and unsatisfying news breaks.
"We've got quite a difficult task of not necessarily cutting income, but being aware that if we start doing a number of different things income will be affected," he says.
"All we can do is ensure we start to make some changes that are significant."
Armstrong's presence at TVNZ was felt most immediately by a small percentage of its staff - the presenters.
Said one highly placed insider: "When he first came in it was a bit like a bull at a gate.
"He slagged the presenter salaries, he slagged the quality of programming, he slagged the state of the news - saying the 6 pm news was dribble - and I don't think that is acceptable, mature leadership."
Armstrong is admired by some of his TVNZ charges - from the presenters he consistently criticised before slashing their incomes, to the 58 per cent of staff who jumped to join the superannuation scheme he instigated.
He is considered a hands-on chairman and "a smart man, an intelligent man."
But since walking into the organisation, where management has pursued a programming schedule aimed at maximising profits, and the self-styled stars have been mollycoddled to the point where their faces have graced high-rise buildings in central Auckland (an advertising practice Armstrong has done away with), his loyalty to the company has been questioned by some people.
The reason is his perceived eagerness to discuss plans for TVNZ with the media before informing those staff who will ultimately play a part in realising his board's dreams, be it for a better late news bulletin or programming that will keep viewers glued to their couches on a Saturday night.
"There don't seem to be the conversations happening between Ross and the presenters that he is having with the print press," says the insider.
"He has never once called the presenters - which you would think is fundamental leadership - together and said, 'We are cutting the salaries by x-per cent. This is why, this is a board decision'."
An industry source who works alongside TVNZ also questioned Armstrong's modus operandi.
"Ross Armstrong has diminished the profile of the head of news and current affairs, which I think is a great embarrassment to Paul Cutler [TVNZ's head of news and current affairs].
"In the old days, the person who was head of news and current affairs was a very powerful person in that organisation.
"They made all of the decisions, they consulted with the board and high level management.
"It seems now with Ross Armstrong announcing TV shows to newspapers that the role of head of news and current affairs has become a management job. You haven't heard of Cutler through the Hawkesby affair, through all these changes."
Indeed, alongside the presenters, Cutler was one of the first to feel Armstrong breathing down his neck in the early months of his tenure.
In early March of last year, he roundly criticised Cutler over TV One's coverage of the so-called cancer cure, lyprinol.
"I would just say publicly that I am not going to tolerate such an abnegation of the standards I expect, and my board expects, from a state broadcaster," Armstrong told the Herald.
Says the industry source: "Armstrong has taken a new approach in terms of stepping on toes all over the place, and that's really the only impact [he has had]."
Armstrong says it has always been his style to tell the public what is happening at state-owned businesses like TVNZ and New Zealand Post.
"If the chairman can't give those sorts of signals and that sort of leadership, then I think the chairman is doing a lesser job than he or she should do. I'm aware that people are not always comforted [by that approach]."
TVNZ was an efficient company pre-Armstrong and it has continued to operate business as usual, minus some orchestrated moves such as the NZ Festival slot and Late Edition.
Armstrong views his cut in presenters' paypackets - an issue that struck a chord in ordinary New Zealand when the John Hawkesby settlement was reached early last year and his salary revealed at $750,000 - as one victory of his first year.
"I think we've accomplished a lot. We've managed to not only rein in but reduce by a figure a little over 20 per cent on a number of presenters," he says.
"This seems to have been accepted. I'm not saying I'm the most popular soul in the eyes of presenters, I didn't get sent a Christmas card from them ... "
Armstrong says the presenters should not feel aggrieved or, as some have said privately, feel that they are being held responsible for the Hawkesby fiasco.
He says their salaries were an example of "value added" in a company being prepared for sale by the previous Government.
Did he go far enough with the cuts?
Are more on the way, bringing salaries in the $250,000 to $500,000 region for news readers at TV One in line with their TV3 rivals' $140,000?
"I'm not signalling that," he says. "But I am signalling there is a level of sensitivity where the family of Television New Zealand - and presenters are part of that family - can accept certain reductions, and as long as the reductions are fair, they can hopefully put their shoulders behind it and build the company. Yes, it was a judgment call by the remuneration committee that here's a level that sends a very clear signal out, but there's also a level where I think you could slash and burn in the respect you start to make serious demands on the whole fabric of the business."
Labour MP David Cunliffe, a member of Parliament's commerce committee, likens making changes at TVNZ to turning the tiller on the Titanic. "You lean hard on the tiller, it's a big boat and it takes a while to come around."
When it is pointed out to him what happened to the ill-fated liner, he says maybe it's not such a great analogy, especially considering the critical report card handed back to TVNZ by the committee this month.
Its annual financial review of TVNZ raised a number of concerns, including those of governance procedures at the company, in particular procedures followed by the TVNZ audit committee. And despite the opportunity to disclose details to the committee confidentially, TVNZ management failed to tell members about its imminent plans of a digital television deal with TelstraSaturn.
Four days later, TVNZ and TelstraSaturn signed a memorandum of understanding.
Cunliffe says it was "unfortunate" that Armstrong and senior TVNZ executives did not brief the committee .
"But many of the criticisms in the report arose from information in the last annual report, or supplied by TVNZ last November.
He is confident that Armstrong has a clear understanding of where the Government wants to take TVNZ.
Still, the overall tone of the committee's report is that it felt more should have been done in a year. Why has more not been achieved?
"It's a large, complex organisation and requires both commitment and action at all levels to make changes," says Cunliffe.
TVNZ's next financial review will be conducted about November.
"That will be an opportunity for us to look at the performance in the 200-2001 financial year, and we'll be looking very closely at exactly how much progress has been made and reported by that time," he says.
"The organisation certainly couldn't use the argument, 'Be patient, stuff's in train, it just hasn't reached you yet' again."
Armstrong is not apologising.
"If we've erred on the side of caution in terms of going for change, I think that's desirable. If you do things too violently or too vigorously there is a fair chance you start to lose a considerable share of your audience.
"You can turn people off in a real way."
Armstrong and TVNZ - one year on
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