Solomons send

7 to Auckland

THE Solomon Islands is the latest Pacific nation to consider setting up its own television service. A de legation of seven Solomons’ politicians and broadcasters spent two days in Au

ckland recently, checking out the experi

ences of Television New Zealand domes tically and in its ventures into Niue and the Cook Islands. TVNZ looks like hav ing the inside running if the Solomons’ government does decide to go ahead with a national TV service. Solomon Is lands Broadcasting Commission chair man, Francis Bugotu, says he’ll be re commending his government hire a TVNZ consultant to look at technical and programme requirements.

Bugotu praises TVNZ for understand ing the caution Island nations feel when contemplating opening their airwaves to television. “They are willing to help us help ourselves and that must be our aim right now,” he said. For its part, TVNZ is optimistic it will get more contracts in the Pacific. TVNZ’s general manager for

operations and development, Jon Blom

field, says the company’s service to Niue and its “intensive consultations” with the

Cook Islands has created a “domino effect” in the region. Blomfield says TVNZ expects to sign a TV deal with the Cooks government by the time this goes to print. It’ll be an expanded ver sion of what TVNZ provides now to Niue. Blomfield also says TVNZ is still talking to Fiji about its plans and says several other Island nations are lining up

for negotiations.

The recently installed Solomons’ gov ernment hasn’t yet made it a policy deci sion to pursue a national television ser vice, something Bugotu says he’ll strong ly recommend as a result of the Auck land visit. Television has already hit the islands in a big way through video ren tals. “That’s one of the reasons why we want to get into live television broad casts, so that we can give an alternative that we can control,” Bugotu says. “It’s not easy to control video television.” An essential part of such control would be ensuring television programmes didn’t interfere with the culture of the Solo mon islanders. Bugotu says this means the Solomons’ broadcasting system will need restructuring so most of the prog rammes can be made locally rather than borrowed from abroad.

“Our primary aim is to get television to the people who are in the villages.

That’s the hardest place to get television into so it will be a long term process of development,” Bugotu says. Most of the Solomons’ 300,000 inhabitants live in iso lated villages on the six mountainous is lands which make up most of the island chain. Ironically, costs mean it will be the 20,000 residents in the capital, Honiara, who’ll probably get the first sight of any television service. Bugotu says the Solo mons’ government can afford start-up costs of $300,000 for Honiara. After that any new transmission stations would be phased in alongside the Solomon Islands

Broadcasting Corporation’s radio tele

communications network which is still

being installed.

The telecom network is a joint venture between the Solomons’ government and Cable and Wireless. The three regional stations (in Honiara, the western and the eastern ends of the chain) are to be joined by new stations on Malaita and Makira. Bugotu says any television ser vice won’t start for at least a year, until the new radio stations are on air. The Solomons’ government also has to sort out details like how much it’s willing to add to the national import bill to bring in television sets and how villagers in remote areas are going to buy and install them. □