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John Key celebrates with a beer and the All Blacks in 2011 after their win over France, a country that banned alcohol advertising on television in 1991 (Image: Getty)
John Key celebrates with a beer and the All Blacks in 2011 after their win over France, a country that banned alcohol advertising on television in 1991 (Image: Getty)

The BulletinSeptember 28, 2022

If axing Lotto funding for sport is a possibility, why not alcohol sponsorship?

John Key celebrates with a beer and the All Blacks in 2011 after their win over France, a country that banned alcohol advertising on television in 1991 (Image: Getty)
John Key celebrates with a beer and the All Blacks in 2011 after their win over France, a country that banned alcohol advertising on television in 1991 (Image: Getty)

Labour MP Arena Williams will receive a petition today urging MPs to pass Chlöe Swarbrick’s Alcohol Harm Reduction bill. Swarbrick needs Labour support to make that a reality, writes Anna Rawhiti-Connell in The Bulletin.

 

Alcohol Harm Reduction bill supporters call on parliament today

Beer and rugby. So synonymous that we have a whole catalogue of former prime minister John Key enjoying a cold one in the changing rooms with the All Blacks. Chlöe Swarbrick wants to change that with her Alcohol Harm Reduction bill. A 6000-signature petition will be presented to parliament today, urging MPs to pass the bill. The bill calls for a phasing out of alcohol advertising and sponsorship for broadcast sports, and the abolition of appeals on councils’ local alcohol policies. The Herald’s Issac Davison (paywalled) has an excellent rundown on the bill and reports that its success will rely on support from Labour MPs. It’s a conscience vote. Labour MP Arena Williams will accept the petition today.

Te Whatu Ora chair supports the bill

It has the backing of a number of councils, public health, community groups and Te Whatu Ora (Health NZ) chair Rob Campbell. He defended his right to have a personal view on it, despite his official role and despite another public health official getting a “please explain” from health minister Andrew Little for his support of it. Sports minister Grant Robertson has said he will vote against the bill. He’s supportive of the proposal to strengthen local alcohol policies, but is concerned the law change could cut off funding for sports groups without a clear plan for how that funding would be replaced. Swarbrick has argued that the “cut off” would be phased and has offered some possible ways to plug the gap.

Swarbrick argues alcohol sponsorship not the lifeline you might think

Robertson’s concern about cutting off funding has echoes of comments from then-justice minister Amy Adams in 2014. That was in response to a report from a panel chaired by Sir Graham Lowe who made recommendations on banning alcohol sponsorship in sport then. Advocates for the bill might say that there has been ample time to consider how any funding gap would be filled. The last estimate of the value of alcohol sponsorship in sports was around $20m. Swarbrick presented evidence in August that alcohol sponsorship is not the lifeline for grassroots teams that we might think it is. The figures used only reflect the value of what the alcohol industry puts into sport rather than what they get out of sports sponsorship. A study last year found people were subjected to 754 alcohol advertisements during a single rugby game. It’s a fair amount of exposure to audiences young and old that could go by the wayside.

Lotto funding of sport up for review

Robertson’s comments make an interesting contrast to Jan Tinetti’s recent comments about the profits from another source of funding for sport, Lotto. Tinetti is the minister for internal affairs and in Guyon Espiner’s recent series about Lotto, Tinetti said she was considering cutting the link between gambling and charity. “I’m not saying that that’s a fait accompli, but that would be one option,” she told RNZ.  Last year, Sport NZ got 40% of its funding from Lotto profits, just over $26m in 2020/2021. It does look as if it’s possible to plan for filling one fairly large funding gap if it’s cut off, which might beg the questions as to why it can’t, or hasn’t been done, for another. France has had the loi Évin, a ban on alcohol advertising on television and in cinemas, since 1991. The Heineken Cup is known as the H Cup in France.

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Submissions on ANZPM bill closed last week (Image: (Tina Tiller)

The BulletinSeptember 27, 2022

Wheels squeaky and wobbly on public media reform

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Submissions on ANZPM bill closed last week (Image: (Tina Tiller)

Editorial independence and competition concerns dominate submissions from commercial and public media on public media bill but there hasn’t been a lot of reporting on what audiences might think, writes Anna Rawhiti-Connell in The Bulletin.

 

“The worst day yet for the merger”

You might have noticed that the Queen’s memorial service was broadcast yesterday on Newshub and RNZ, and not via the state broadcaster, TVNZ. Duncan Greive writes that in the current climate of discord about the proposed reform of public media and merger of RNZ and TVNZ to form Aotearoa New Zealand Public Media (ANZPM), that call had “more than a whiff of passive-aggression”. Late last week, submissions on the Aotearoa New Zealand Public Media bill were made public. Greive describes the tone of the submissions and their publication as setting the scene for “the worst day yet for the merger”.

“Need to go back to the Muldoon government to find a similar power”

As a complete tragic, I had a read through of some of the submissions over the weekend. BusinessDesk’s Daniel Dunkley summarises (paywalled) the ones from TVNZ and RNZ media well. Both raised concerns about editorial independence but diverged on the form the entity should take. TVNZ questioned why ministers would need further powers of direction over ANZPM as laid out in the bill, writing: “Our research suggests that in the New Zealand context, members of the select committee would need to go back to the Muldoon government to find a similar power.” Commercial media concerns are well summarised here and centre around the ability of ANZPM to outcompete commercial media on talent, content and advertising revenue. The Herald’s Damien Venuto (paywalled) situates the debate among some facts about the success of mergers.

The key stakeholder in all this is the audience

By way of a counterpoint, Better Public Media chair Myles Thomas labels the concerns raised by media in the submissions as scaremongering. He picks up the news that the government will redirect nearly $85m from NZ On Air to the new public media entity. He makes the point that without a platform willing to broadcast certain types of programming, that programming doesn’t get made. The move to shift commissioning funding to the entity, a ready-made platform, makes sense, he writes. Thomas concludes by saying “the key stakeholder in all this is the audience – not advertisers, not the industry, certainly not politicians and not journalists.”

Where is the audience?

In my days of column writing, I once riffed off a comment from Glen Scanlon, who is now working on the creation of ANZPM at RNZ, where he noted that the audience voice is so often missing from media commentary. From a random sample of submissions, here is what some of them think. Alastair would like less reality TV on TVNZ. Elaine is worried about Concert FM. Nicolla is a fan of Māori language content aimed at kids. There were also a lot of synchronised submissions on media independence, some of which vibe with what media see on their Facebook pages. Meanwhile, a recent US survey found 54% of 13 to 38-year-olds want to become social media influencers. Quelle horreur but that generation presents one of the biggest challenges to media today and weren’t super prominent in the submissions. They don’t just want to passively consume media, but create it. When talking about that audience, concerns about competition within existing New Zealand media may eventually pale by comparison.

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