Searching for quality television in New Zealand

Abstract

After a decade or more of commercial imperatives dominating state-owned television in New Zealand, government policy is attempting to shift it back to public service or ‘civic’ objectives. As a result, debates about ‘quality’ have re-emerged, both in the public discourse and in the Charter which Television New Zealand will be expected to observe. This could be regarded as an echo of similar debates which occurred in British television in the early 1990s but, in the case of New Zealand, debates about ‘quality’ have tended to be under-articulated and impoverished, with the default meaning implying middle brow and conventional taste formations. Prevailing notions of ‘quality’ in television, as currently used in New Zealand debates, are decoded and challenged in this article.