Cost Of Broadcasting Compliance

Well, blow me down, but I did not think that Paul Goldsmith had the courage or the inclination to do something as bold as actually scrapping the BSA. I thought it was all talk. When he kept on dropping it as a possibility, but turns out I was wrong. He's announced the BSA is gone. The laws will be drawn up in the next few months and they'll be passed after the next election. Why this surprises me is because this is culture war adjacent stuff. This is exactly the kind of stuff the Nats have tried to avoid of late. Anything that makes you feel just a bit icky, people aren't going to like it. They've tried to get away from it because there is really quite a high risk here of blowback. If the Nats are accused of trying to protect their mates in the more fringe parts. Parts of the media, like the platform, for example, that's not necessarily a good look for the Nats. And then on the other hand, there's very little upside, other than making a few irritated by the BSA broadcasters like me happy. The BSA is funded by the media, so there's not really even taxpayer savings that they can crow about. But it still is the right thing to do, because the BSA imposes quite significant costs on broadcasters. Sky, for example. It is rumoured paid half a million dollars to the BSA last year. That's money that media cannot afford to just fork out at the moment when media are doing it as tough as they are and for very little good because the BSA doesn't actually police what we say. You do. We are more worried about you than we are about the BSA if I'm being completely honest. We know that if we use expletives, like if I was to use expletives on air while the kids are in the car, you're going to turn off the radio. You don't want to hear that. If we are untrustworthy, if you find out that the stuff that we tell you is wrong, you are going to stop listening. And that, frankly, is more of a deterrent than a bunch of people in Wellington getting worked up about something and then slapping a $5,000 fine on us. The BSA has no one to blame but itself and its silly overreach in trying to police the internet for what has happened to it today. Had it stayed in its lane, it might have survived by simply not drawing attention to itself. But it went for a power grab, read the platform, and it has ended up ending itself.