Australian firm

trade wields

Islands Television

Australian firm still sees openings

The Pacific Islands televi sion “ball” may be back up in the air in the wake of the change of govern ment in Papua New Guinea, and rumors of a rethink in Fiji.

At least one Australian com pany has prepared a new sub mission for Fiji and, while cau tious about their public state ments, obviously would not have gone to the expense and trouble if they did not think they had a fair chance of being heard.

Pesistent rumors have been coming from Suva (admittedly one of the gossip capitals of the world), that Ratu Mara was considering changing his mind over the deal he had done with the Packer Channel Nine televi sion organisation in Australia.

PIM spoke with Mr James Mark Anthony, manager of NBN-3, the Newcastle televi sion station run by the powerful Parry organisation which is very heavily involved in regional Australian television and which won approval from the Somare government to establish broad cast television in PNG. “At this stage no-one has called for submissions yet. As we under stand it the Fiji government has nominated that the Packer or ganisation has got the licence, but we don’t know. It could be that this will change.

“We have got a submission together, which is based on our successful submission to Papua New Guinea. We have it ready to go. But until we receive an invitation from the government we will just have to wait, and see what happens.”

Mr Anthony said “that as he understood what had hap-

Australia’s satellite link into the Pacific is through the mushroom “eyes” of these big Aussat earth station dishes at Belrose, New South Wales.

pened, the Channel Nine team had arrived in Fiji, put forward a proposition which Prime Minis ter Mara thought was good.

Perhaps now it is a case of the prime minister looking to see if there is a better submission. We would like to be in Fiji, but it is up to the government there to call for submissions. If they do, we will be there.”

Mr Anthony said he felt their submission would be “quite attractive.” He said his com pany had devoted three years to developing its proposals for PNG. “If anyone is qualified to put together a television service for the islands, we have to be.

“NBN Television is probably the most successful regional television station in Australia. It has high local content in its programming. It has high com munity profile. Those are the aspects we think need to be in the Pacific proposals.

“In multi-cultural countries like Fiji there ought to be, we think, a high input from the local population, rather than just a feed from a satellite.”

Mr Anthony said his com pany had not yet “even looked” at the idea of using

Aussat or some other satellite for their Pacific services. “I think we would be looking at getting a high percentage of local prog rams, in conjunction with the video program services which the Fiji government already has in place.”

Mr Anthony said the video unit, based in Suva, using equipment provided by West German grant money, was pro ducing “very good work in deed. ”

“There should be a broad cast outlet for them,” he said.

They should not be swamped by American material dropped in from a satellite.

Mr Anthony said he felt it was “still very early days” in the run-up to launching broadcast television in Fiji, as also might be the case in Papua New Guinea.

“Three of us went to Fiji and did a feasibility study. We think there is good potential for tele vision there. We are pleased with what we see as the pros pects open for us to bring it into being, without seriously jeopardising the local culture,

Continued on page 33

Where it all ends - in the wonder of a childs mind - and the adult who grows up with it.

Continued from page 29

which we see as very, very important. ”

Mr Anthony referred to the plethora of almost entirely U.S. derived programming in Amer ican Samoa which, he said, was

“a little bit of a disaster. ’’“That’s why we have put a lot of research into the area of the impact of television on third world countries. One must think about it very carefully. We think we have done our home work. ”