Data requirements

In order to calculate averaged licence renewal prices, the following data is required:

• For each auctioned/tendered licence:
  • The original price
  • Latest census population data on the licence's original coverage area and the licence's current coverage area
  • The Averaging Group in which it is to be included
  • The licence's original duration (to the nearest year)
  • The population growth rate to be applied to that Averaging Group
• For each grandfathered licence:
  • Population coverage from the latest census
  • The Averaging Group in which it is to be included

We understand that the Ministry is not yet able to determine 2001 census population coverage for each licence. For the purposes of ongoing policy development and consultation on licence renewal, the Ministry may undertake some "first cut" calculations to develop indicative averaged prices. This calculation would be based on the Ministry's best available data, which is from the 1991 census.

Within an Averaging Group, if all licensees' covered populations have grown at the same rate between 1991 and 2001, using the 1991 census data will produce the same averaged renewal prices as the 2001 data. If population growth rates have differed between licensees (within an Averaging Group) between 1991 and 2001, 1991 census data will produce different averaged renewal prices than 2001 census data. The Ministry has informed us that licences within an Averaging Group tend to have very similar population coverages. Such licences would therefore be expected to have seen very similar population growth between 1991 and 2001. It is therefore likely that differences in averaged renewal prices calculated with 1991 data will not be significant, but without actually testing each Averaging Group, we cannot state the magnitude of such differences with certainty.