Second Maori channel welcome addition

A second Maori channel will open next year. Delivery will be in te reo, writes Phil Campbell, Editor, Rotorua Review.

Te reo infuses the solo channel; it has been so successful that several programmes should-could feature seamlessly on mainstream TV.

The classic Bro Town is one example of Maori license, as it were, to be themselves and laugh at themselves - all in good taste, even if it is not essentially Maori. For example, one of the inspirations is the po-faced Oscar Keightley, a droll character who tends rather more to stooge humour.

The new channel will show initially between 7.30pm and 10.30 pm, and those with a mere smattering of the language can add to their burgeoning knowledge of a language that became official 20 years ago - light years too late.

The needs of fluent Maori speakers - more than 100,000 of them by one count - will be reached, total immersion for them.

Those of us who hold our tongues listening to even words of songs we don't know - been to church lately? - but who feel a little insecure when Maori is spoken around us, have no reason not to be imbued by attempting to add a few more words, phrases and sayings to our vocabulary. Documentaries will be "reversioned" - to use a term, from the press release last week - into te reo.

In a nettlesome world of ratings, Maori Television is not expected to be compulsive viewing.

But it is a service - not to the Maori race, but to all races and creeds.

Rather than tokenism, as some commentators, the insular and the unlettered may sneer, this can be seen as a free language university. Maori is also giving something back - unthinkable two centuries ago as land was confiscated for European cash carries.

Maori Language Week - ought not we look at Maori Language weeks over a year? - has been enshrined and embraced by all media. Yep, Europeans might seem awkward printing Maori words and phrases without emphasis, and indeed Maori themselves might chortle at our tongue chumped attempts, but it is a start.

Is it timely, in Maori Language Week? It is late, but better now than never.