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Published: 7:36PM Monday June 25, 2012 Source: ONE News

The range of films and television programmes on offer at DVD stores could become more limited for Kiwi viewers.

This is because of a funding squeeze at the Censor's office and the fact that more film distributors are choosing not to put their movies up for classification.

A fee of around $1100 to get one movie or DVD a censor's classification is a small fee when it comes to hits like The Avengers.

But for distributors of smaller films and TV shows the fee can be a big barrier.

Jill Macnab of Vendetta Films says the fee means some TV series are not released in New Zealand

"To have to consider that you're going to recoup that from your sales, it often doesn't happen. So we often find that TV series in particular don't get released in New Zealand," Macnab said.

The Office of Film and Literature Classification gets around a third of its $3 million annual budget from private distributors like Vendetta Films, while the rest comes from taxpayers.

Chief Censor Dr Andrew Jack says that funding structure is not working properly and it is vital they find out why, otherwise "New Zealanders might in future see a narrow range of products available for them watch".

Independent Wellington DVD store, Aro Street Video, said it is already aware of hundreds of films that are not publicly released in New Zealand because of high censorship costs.

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Censorship fees shrink range of DVDs at stores