TIME TO SWITCH
Most weeks when I look at Listener readers’ feedback on the products offered by our broadcasting system, I’m struck by an overriding sense of puzzlement about how this unsatisfactory state of affairs came about. There are overlapping reasons, but they all stem from political decisions.
It wasn’t just the fault of globalisation itself, or even of international companies that took advantage of the opportunities this created, it was due to new satellite-distribution technology, which unfortunately coincided with the rise of governments committed to a smaller role for the state, such as the one led by Margaret Thatcher in Britain and Ronald Reagan in the United States.
In New Zealand, Richard Prebble, then sailing under the flag of social democracy but later the leader of our most right-wing party,
