May 31, 2019
New funds ease pressure on Māori broadcast agency
Te Māngai Pāho chief executive Larry Parr says an increase in the Māori broadcast funding agency's pūtea is a chance to be innovative as it waits for the outcome of the Māori Media Shift review.
The agency got $14 million as part of a significant investment in the Wellbeing Budget to support te reo Māori and acknowledge the UNESCO International Year of Indigenous Languages.
Mr Parr is relieved the Government did not wait for the review to finish.
It's the first significant increase the agency has received in more than a decade, and a lot of it is tagged for online content and a rangatahi focus.
"We will be able to allocate a little more to television content because the $4 million we are spending this year in new media is coming from the television funding, so there is a little bit of an increase in our spend in television, but by and large it will be targeting innovative new content for multi-platform distribution," Mr Parr says.
With some of the pressure lifted from its administration budget, Te Māngai Pāho's board has also decided to dip into its reserves for a $1.5 million increase in content funding for iwi radio.
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