Radio New Zealand - Te Reo Irirangi o Aotearoa

TVNZ's public broadcasting role up for discussion

Updated at 6:58 pm on 13 March 2010

The Minister of Broadcasting says the cabinet is looking at making Television New Zealand's channel 7, and possibly channel 6, public service broadcasting entities.

That would release the other TVNZ channels to be totally commercial.

Jonathan Coleman says TVNZ has suffered for many years from a mixed mandate which has caused confusion for the broadcaster and its viewers.

He says with the repeal of TVNZ's charter it is time to bring some clarity to the situation.

Dr Coleman says discussions are taking place about where viewers can find the public broadcasting content within TVNZ.

He says they are also examining the viability of merging news gathering between TVNZ and Radio New Zealand.

Dr Coleman says they are clarifying whether there are some synergies, perhaps in newsgathering, between the state owned and funded broadcasters.

He says there is not a huge amount of finance to go around and the issue is how to get a better public broadcasting result from the money spent.

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