Great article, I'm an interested observer from Australia. I think Currie is probably guilty of gross ignorance of audience estimation methods, not a sinister plot, but -as Lew Stoddart pointed out- the 'evidence' is presumably mere window dressing to serve a pre-determined goal.

I have minor quibble on precision of language, which I'd not raise except that journalists are (rightly) criticised here for reporting numbers badly and I think it's important.

Statistics expert Rachel Cunliffe offers 600,000 as a more accurate estimate than the invalid 207,000 figure for weekly cumulative audience, and Russell then states that:

... the audience figure that has come to be accepted as valid even by supporters of TVNZ 7’s retention was probably incorrect by a factor of about 200%.

This is not correct. It would be accurate to say that the false figure was 'probably incorrect by a factor of about 3'. You could also say that the actual audience was about 300% of the figure cited.

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