I wasn’t originally going to say anything about it this year, especially because I pretty much said all I wanted to in a post on Easter Monday last year, especially my criticism of the wacky and very confusing trading ban rules (most shops are supposed to be closed on Good Friday and Easter Sunday, even though Easter isn’t a public holiday, and no TV ads can be broadcast on either of those days, or Christmas Day, not until after noon on Anzac Day and every Sunday. There’s since been an update to to something I said in that post last year, especially about the ad bans. I wrote:
The current broadcasting minister, a former TV show host of dubious ability as a minister, has blandly promised a re-write of the [Broadcasting] Act (written way before the Internet or streaming services were a thing), but given the chaos under our current three-ring circus coalition government, I doubt it’ll actually happen. I think that ending the ad bans ought to be done as quickly as possible: They make absolutely no sense, deny NZ broadcasters revenue that foreigners still get, and has nothing whatsoever to do with New Zealand workers and days off.The first update is that the Media Minister I wrote about was sacked only a few weeks after my post (apparently I’m very influential…). Then, in December of last year, her replacement as Media Minister announced that the government would introduce legislation to allow TV advertising on Sundays and public holidays, because the ad bans don’t apply to streaming services (like YouTube) or to radio, meaning broadcast TV is losing money that other media providers can still get. The Minister told RNZ in the linked article,"Traditional media outlets are operating in an extremely difficult environment and as the government, we must ensure regulatory settings are enabling the best chance of success." Indeed. He also said it “could generate approximately $6 million for the industry” which doesn’t sound like much to me. Even so, I think that’s absolutely the right thing to do—though the government hasn’t yet actually passed the bill.
I still think the trading bans should be removed from Good Friday and Easter, not the least because New Zealand is now majority “no religion”, but mostly because those holidays don’t have the same sort of traditions like family gatherings that Christmas Day does (the other all-day holiday with a trading ban, plus Anzac Day morning has a trading ban, too). So I’m fine with keeping the ban on trading Christmas Day, but the trading bans on Good Friday and Easter Sunday seem silly to me. At the very least, the TV advertising bans should be ended, and maybe they finally soon will be.
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