A better foreign owner for TV3 in an uncertain future

It was an open secret that MediaWorks was negotiating to sell its television arm to Discovery. Now that sale has been confirmed. Yes, it’s substituting one foreign owner for another but TV3 will be better off as a result of the sale.

The US-based Discovery group has an established record not only in subscription TV but also in linear broadcast. It is the owner of free-to-air channels across Europe including Norway, Sweden, Italy, Poland, Germany and the UK. Its digital portfolio includes Discovery Channel, HGTV, Food Network, TLC, Investigation Discovery, Travel Channel, Turbo/Velocity, Animal Planet, Science Channel, Oprah Winfrey Network in the United States, Discovery Kids in Latin America, and Eurosport, which carries the Olympic Games across Europe. Last year it signed a partnership deal with the BBC.

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Where has all the policy gone?

Within the term of the next government our news media will, for good or ill, fundamentally change. Yet where are the major parties’ policies to anticipate, influence and ameliorate the effects of that change?

Only the Green Party has posted a media policy statement for the October election. It contains useful proposals such as the Public Interest Journalism Fund (which also featured in its 2017 manifesto) and a tax on digital advertising to claw back money from Google and Facebook, but it is predicated on the status quo.

Labour, National, New Zealand First and ACT have yet to announce their media policies – if they have any – and voting starts only 33 days from now. Interest.co.nz has been tracking party policies and its section on media policy is peppered with the phrase “Not yet available on their website”.

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The merits of honest work

A friend this week sent me a link to a TED talk by a very wise man. Michael Sandel is Professor of Government at Harvard University, where he teaches political philosophy. His TED talk focused on the increasing failure to recognise the worth of honest work. Here is a link to the talk:

https://www.ted.com/talks/michael_sandel_the_tyranny_of_merit?utm_content=2020-8-25&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=social&utm_source=facebook.com&fbclid=IwAR1KdQTo6_jfAQTPHgoppNvesMegUudQD6ur728SsGmO1H-HLc2EmMIsJoI

It brought to mind a graduation address I gave at the Auckland University of Technology 15 years ago. It is on a similar theme, although not expressed with Sandel’s eloquence. Nonetheless, I thought I would dust it off and share it with you.

Here it is: 

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