For two weeks in a row the Sunday program has played only one local item out of the three they usually put to air. That equates to about 12 minutes of a commercial hour on TV.
I’ve been incensed about this for some time, given that Sunday received the lions share of funding from NZ On Air. I have just looked it up online and found this story in the NZ Herald.
$2.77 million dollars for one item a week. As John Drinnan points out that figure would “keep all of Radio New Zealand – including National Radio and Concert FM – on air 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for a month.”
And what’s more the item tonight from BBC Panorama first aired in the UK on 14 May 2007 – so it’s hardly breaking news.