The latest Save TVNZ7 challenge

Save TVNZ7 campaign lodges complaint with Ombudsman
The campaign to save the non-commercial TVNZ7 has not ended despite the channel's closure.

The Save TVNZ7 group lodged a complaint with the Ombudsman on Friday.

The free-to-air station ended transmission at midnight on June 30 and became a TV One Plus 1 channel, replying the same programmes but with an hour's delay.

The lobby group had signalled its intention to lodge a formal complaint after seeking advice from high-powered constitutional lawyer Mai Chen.

Save TVNZ7 spokesman Myles Thomas said the complaint hinged on TVNZ's failure to have regard for the public interest and to provide high quality content without the channel.

Hilariously it could be TVNZ's contempt for providing high quality public broadcasting content that finds them running foul of their own collusion to smother TVNZ7 with the Ombudsman.

There should be no mourning for public broadcasting because there are solutions. Turning Kiwi FM into RNZ2 to help fund Radio NZ is an idea I first argued for in a guest column in Metro this year.

David Beatson announced the possibility of a new nation wide public broadcaster on Freeview at the public funeral last week.

Save TVNZ7 is morphing into a Concerned Citizens for better broadcasting group who will also run the 'Bring back 7' campaign that will launch in the year of the 2014 election.

Peter Thompson's brilliant idea to create a 1% levy on Sky and the Telcos would create $60 million each year. That is enough to fund a public broadcasting TV station, with money left over for Radio NZ and regional TV stations.

These ideas need a change of Government and political will to see public broadcasting as an important contributor to public discussion. Without a change of Government, we will be cursed with being the only other developed country besides Mexico to not have a public broadcaster.

When you consider the silence by the mainstream media over Key's real reason for being in Australia and their quiet ignoring of asset sales, you see why we desperately need a public broadcaster, because without it, NZ's media will become as fair and balanced as Fox News.

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