I think TVNZ has lost the plot.  It’s out of touch with what we viewers want to see.  Supposedly TVNZ chooses it’s programs based on watch surveys.  These surveys are based on opinions of a random sample of a small number of participants.  A  margin for error is included so the results should indicate the likely result if they interviewed everybody.

Well, I think the results are skewed and the margin of error is much wider.  Here’s why.  It’s all this bloody football and netball being shown in peak time television.  And when it’s not sport, then it’s some deranged male who has decided to kidnap and mutilate every female he meets or its some foreign terrorists determined to take out the US and the rest of us along with them.

Give us a break TVNZ.  We’re intelligent adults.  We want entertainment, documentaries, good old English sagas and historical adventure like The Onedin Line.   Not this mindless drivel you dish up night after night.

You want to know why we watch TV1?  Many of us have no choice.  I’ve lived in numerous homes in Auckland and Northland and unless we have Sky it’s virtually impossible to get a decent signal for any other channel except for TV3.  They’ve lost the plot too, because there’s no real competition to make them improve.

Stop relying on surveys and start taking some risks before you lose the audience you have now.  If some of your viewers want sport then give it to them on a separate channel.  Then see what that does to your rating results.  I bet you’ll find most of us don’t switch, because we can’t.

Here’s another reason I think TV audiences are dwindling.  We now get infomercials – The Suzanne Paul type of advert – in the evening.  The price of advertising at peak times must have really dropped for this to be happening.  Running more and cheaper ads isn’t the answer.  What you need is good programming with stuff we want to see.

The news – another hot topic.  What do we get, adverts advertising the news, then the same footage in the news, then the same footage repeated over and over again advertising a documentary about the same event and yes, the same footage repeated again in the documentary.  How many times do we need to see it? Once, maybe twice.  It’s not good advertising, it’s not good journalism and it’s not good TV.  It’s space filling and time wasting.

So how about fixing it, pleeeeeeese.