My main interest is broadcasting policy. My Master of Public Policy thesis, completed in 1999, was about the New Zealand Treasury's use, and mis-use, of economic theory during New Zealand's broadcasting policy reforms of 1989 (embodied in the Broadcasting Act 1989 and the Radiocommunications Act 1989).
The TVNZ Debacle: A Tragedy in Three Acts
On 31 October 2005, Ian Fraser, the CEO of TVNZ, resigned following a dispute over what he saw as unwarranted Board interference in negotiations over a newsreader's contract. The Finance and Expenditure Select Committee of the New Zealand parliament resolved to hold a "Parliamentary Inquiry into Television New Zealand".
I was invited to appear before the Committee on Wednesday 14 December 2005. This proved to be an interesting, if not particularly edifying, experience. The primary objective of the inquiry appeared to be for the members of the Committee to appear on television themselves.
Mr Fraser stole the show, with a spectacular demonstration of how a public
sector Chief Executive must never, under any circumstances, behave. I
confess to watching his performance with some satisfaction; it is not
often a policy analyst experiences instant gratification (refer to pages
11 and 12 of my submission, on "attention-seeking behaviour").
Economic Theory and Local Content Quotas for Television
This report was written for SPADA in December 2000. SPADA had produced a discussion paper titled "Television Programme Quotas - A Blueprint for New Zealand". A coalition made up of TV3, Sky, Prime TV and the TAB subsequently published a paper (commissioned by Chen and Palmer) that purported to refute SPADA's quota model by using economic theory.
This paper is a rebuttal of the Chen and Palmer paper and something of a lesson in applying economic theory to broadcasting. SPADA have kindly given permission to make it available on this site.