[6] The Ministry considers the majority of titles to be of high heritage and cultural value[7][8] and the Minister of Broadcasting Craig Foss stated it was a "unique record of life in New Zealand".
In a briefing in early 2013 to the Minister of Broadcasting Craig Foss, the Ministry for Culture and Heritage noted that it would not be possible to preserve all of the titles in the TVNZ Archive due to the limited life-span of the current equipment, which was already obsolete.
[15] In May 2017 Chair Jane Kominik noted to the Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage Maggie Barry that within 4–8 years it was predicted that the Betacam and DigiBeta formats would cease to be accessible.
"[16] Rebecca Elvy, Chief Executive of Ngā Taonga told RNZ news that the technology to digitise the Betacam tapes would vanish by 2025, and that the non-digitised content would be lost forever.
[8] A Memorandum of Understanding between the Minister for Arts Culture and Heritage Chris Finlayson and the Chair of Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision Jane Kominik was signed on 1 August 2014.
[20] Two documents were used to inform the initial Budget Bid for operating expenses by the Ministry for Culture and Heritage: a financial due diligence report from PriceWaterhouseCoopers and a "proposal from the New Zealand Film Archive".
[23] In May 2017 Chair of Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision Jane Kominik wrote to the Minister for Arts Culture and Heritage Maggie Barry noting that the archive was about to begin discussions with the Ministry for Culture and Heritage over two areas "for which Nga Taonga has never been funded":[12] access to audiovisual collections beyond current levels and the digitisation of TVNZ Betacam and DigiBeta tape formats beyond business as usual levels.
In November 2017 Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision noted to the Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage that activity-based costings were not conducted at the time of the TVNZ Archive transfer in 2014.
[1][26] The event included three official speeches from Chair of Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision Jane Kominik, Board member Derek Fox and the Minister of Broadcasting Craig Foss.
He gave Ngā Taonga the explicit responsibility of digitising the items of highest heritage value in the collection, ensuring New Zealanders could get online access, free of charge.
[1][26] The figure of 20,000 was also used in a Government press release,[18] reported in the media[27] and talked about in an interview with Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision's first Chief Executive Frank Stark on Radio New Zealand's Mediawatch programme.
[33] The Ministry responded two months later saying that it had not received any reports from Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision specifically in relation to the digitisation of the TVNZ Archive since its establishment in August 2014.
[34] It also pointed to Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision's Annual Report 2015/16 which noted that digital titles were added consistently throughout the year and the target was narrowly missed.
[34][35] In January 2017, an internal memorandum to Ministry for Culture and Heritage Chief Executive Paul James noted that Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision "has a long way to go" to achieve the target of 20,000 digitised titles.
[37] When questioned over the digitisation project in November 2017 by RNZ news, Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision's Rebecca Elvy said that when she became Chief Executive in 2015 and learned of the 20,000 target, she made it clear to the Ministry for Culture and Heritage that it was unrealistic.
[40] When questioned about the 20,000 titles statement he made in 2014, former Minister Craig Foss told RNZ he could not recall the target and added it must have been set by the Ministry for Culture and Heritage.
[44] In June 2018 after a "comprehensive audit of the collection"[45] Ngā Taonga announced that metadata from over 400,000 items in the TVNZ Archive database would be searchable by the public in an online catalogue by August 2018.
[44] Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision noted in its 2013/14 Annual Report that development work had commenced on a greatly expanded online delivery platform for the large quantities of material resulting from digitisation projects - and specifically from the "commitment to public access arising from the TVNZ transfer.
[4][44] In May 2014 a Ministry for Culture and Heritage briefing noted that the Crown would be reliant on the charitable trust to deliver its objectives in terms of digitising and increasing public accessibility to archive material.
[47] Rebecca Elvy, Chief Executive of Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision, told RNZ news in November 2017 that "It's fair to say that no one involved in the original agreement fully understood what it would take to make such a large and complex collection publicly assessable in digital form."
[17] In a statement to RNZ news, the Ministry for Culture and Heritage said it was confident the Trust was "taking the steps required to manage the TVNZ Archive and to make it available to the public.
"[17] However it wasn't until after RNZ began reporting on the project that Ngā Taonga started working on getting the TVNZ Archive database online as well as beginning to make a priority list for preservation.
[43] The Minister of Broadcasting, Communications and Digital Media Clare Curran confirmed in March 2018 that she was aware of the complete lack of correspondence between TVNZ and the archive on the issue.
[49] On 25 November 2017 RNZ news reported that Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision had "deliberately abandoned key television digitisation targets saying it doesn't have the money to meet them".
[37] Even though the Ministry for Culture and Heritage was obliged to monitor Ngā Taonga's service and financial performance it had stopped receiving or seeking information about the MoU targets six-months earlier, in November 2017.
This is because they were founded on unrealistic expectations that Ngā Taonga was in possession of the necessary funding, resourcing, equipment, digital storage and infrastructure at the point of transfer and onwards, when this was not the case.
[5] That same month, Chair of Nga Taonga Simon Murdoch signed an extension of the 2014 Memorandum of Understanding with the Associate Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage Grant Robertson for the period 1 July 2018 – 30 June 2019.
One of the major differences with the earlier MoU was the reduction of digitisation and access targets: now only 1,500 titles would need to be preserved and made available online "provided that rights are clear".
As the content is commercially sensitive and subject to licensing arrangements through Getty Images, Ngā Taonga needs to seek permission from TVNZ before placing any of the items online.
[55] Subsequently, a Memorandum of Understanding was signed in 2017 between the Digital Media Trust and Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision to work together to "maximise online public access to New Zealand's audiovisual content and heritage".