It is perhaps no coincidence that in the year it is celebrating a half century of broadcasting, Television New Zealand's news division is finally facing the reality of media life in the 21st century.
The changes it has announced in the provision of its news services are possibly the most extensive in two decades, and they ought to concern taxpayers who own the broadcaster.
But the likelihood is that they will cause barely a of ripple of interest, and the reason - apart from sentiment and nostalgia about what once was - is precisely the cause of the changes.
The television news service of 30-50 years ago operated in a non-commercial broadcasting environment where competition, as such, was provided only by radio and the print media.
Licence fees and taxpayer funding helped TVNZ in its earlier manifestations to provide regional, national and international news, features and documentaries, still fondly remembered by viewers attached to the BBC-founded ethos of public service broadcasting.
It could not last and it did not last, once political parties realised the power of television to deliver audiences - or to lose them.
Political interference in television was inevitable, however it might be disguised, and the arrival of competition from commercial channels and subscription satellite transmission removed TVNZ's monopoly.
To this was added the political requirement of a need to deliver to the State a substantial portion of profit each year.
New media in the form of digital technologies and a youthful audience attuned to using them has meant TVNZ must now consider meeting the demands of a market unimaginable 50 years ago if it is to survive as a commercial broadcaster.
The last point is an important one. No political party within reach of power is these days advocating a fully taxpayer-funded public broadcaster with the capabilities that TVNZ once had.
It is probable taxpayers would not stand for the cost, given the degree of pre-transmission opposition to the specialist Maori TV channel.
These days TVNZ, a Crown-owned company, earns more than 90% of its revenue from its commercial operations.
It must use this revenue to underwrite its public service role - limited as it is these days - while surviving in the contemporary media world and delivering a return to the State.
In large part, it faces exactly the same challenges as every other commercially-based entity in the business of news, including print media such as this newspaper.
The changes TVNZ envisages reflect this, with staff required to become multi-skilled, and news and current affairs reorganised so as to be able to deliver across a range of outlets such as the 6pm television bulletin, business programmes, the breakfast, midday and 4.30pm bulletins, programmes such as Close Up, Tonight, News Updates, Te Karere, sports programmes, News at 8, the hourly bulletins on TVNZ 7 , its website, as well as news for mobile-phone providers.
There will be numerous redundancies of skills and experience, and a considerable saving in costs.
The issue for those who watch television news is whether the changes will deliver an improvement in quality - a subjective judgement which can, after all, be made with the push of a remote's button.
It is doubtful many viewers who desire to be informed about their world and who take a serious interest in news are optimistic about the prospects. Television in this country today is an entertainment medium, not a place to go to be well-informed.
TVNZ has not been a quality national news provider or current affairs informant for decades. Its constant infantilising of the news, smothered in its perpetual self-regard, reflect its crucial need to claim a ratings triumph to sell its target audience to advertisers.
That is its chief purpose today, as it is for all commercial broadcasting. Froth sells to viewers, whom television executives calculate to have only a brief attention span. Proof of that was demonstrated convincingly in the way TVNZ decided to commemorate its half-century.
It is not all bad. Television can occasionally rise to the need for audiences to understand and comprehend the big event, and has a matchless capacity to electrify viewers with its live coverage of sensational news.
But its new model of public broadcasting, as signalled by its latest round of cost-cutting, marks an acceptance of low-cost quantity rather than high-cost quality; of selling fractions of "news" to audiences it hopes will be mesmerised by its very ephemerality, before absconding to competing attractions.
