Newshub, one of the key media companies in Aotearoa New Zealand, is to close its newsroom on June 30, reports RNZ News.

Staff were told of the closure at an emergency meeting today.

Newshub is owned by US-based global entertainment giant Warner Bros Discovery which also owns Eden, Rush, HGTV and Bravo.

In 2020, it took over the New Zealand channel’s assets which had been then part of Mediaworks.

Staff were called to a meeting at Newshub at 11am, RNZ News reported on its live news feed.

They were told that the US conglomerate Warner Brothers Discovery, owners of Newshub, was commencing consultation on a restructuring of its free-to-air business

This included the closure of all news operations by its Newshub operation

All local programming would be made only through local funding bodies and partners.

James Gibbons, president of Asia Pacific for Warner Bros Discovery, said it was a combination of negative events in NZ and around the world. The economic downturn had been severe and there was no long hope for a bounce back

Revenue has ‘disappeared quickly’
“Advertising revenue in New Zealand has disappeared far more quickly than our ability to manage this reduction, and to drive the business to profitability,” he said.

He said the restructuring would focus on it being a digital business

ThreeNow, its digital platform, would be the focus and could run local shows

All news production would stop on June 30.

The consultation process runs until mid-March. A final decision is expected early April.

“Deeply shocked’
Interviewed on RNZ’s Nine to Noon programme, a former head of Newshub, Mark Jennings, said he was deeply shocked by the move.

Other media personalities also reacted with stunned disbelief. Rival TVNZ’s Pacific correspondent Barbara Dreaver said: “Thinking of my friends and colleagues from Newshub.

“So many super talented wonderful people. Its a terrible day for our industry that Newshub [will] close by June, we will be all the much poorer for it. Much aroha to you all.”

Newshub has broken some important Pacific stories over the years.

Jennings told RNZ a cut back and trimming of shows would have been expected — but not on this scale.

“I’m really deeply frankly shocked by it,” said Jennings, now co-founder and editor of Newsroom independent digital media group.

He said he expected all shows to go, including AM Show and investigative journalist Patrick Gower’s show.

Company ‘had no strategy’
“I think governments will be pretty upset and annoyed about this, to be honest.”

“Unless they have been kept in the loop because we’re going to see a major drop in diversity.

“Newshub’s newsroom has been, maybe not so much in recent times, but certainly in the past, a very strong and vibrant player in the market and very important one for this country and again as [RNZ Mediawatch presenter] Colin [Peacock] points out, who is going to keep TVNZ’s news honest now?

“I think this is a major blow to media diversity in this country.”

“First of all, Discovery and then Warner Bros Discovery, this has been an absolute shocker of entry to this market by them. They came in with what I could was . . . no, I couldn’t see a strategy in it and in the time they owned this company, there has been no strategy and that’s really disappointing.

“If this had gone to a better owner, they would have taken steps way sooner and maybe we wouldn’t be losing one of the country’s most valued news services.”

Loss of $100m over three years
Jennings said his understanding was the company had lost $100 million in the past three years, which was “really significant”.

“I wonder if it had been a New Zealand owner, whether the government might have taken a different view around this, but I guess because it’s owned by a huge American, multi-national conglomerate, they would’ve been reluctant to intervene in any way.”

He said Broadcasting Minister Melissa Lee, a former journalist who ran the Asia Down Under programme for many years, faced serious questions now.

“It’ll be her first big test really, I guess, in that portfolio.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

A New Zealand-based media research and publication group has called for an “urgent rethink” on Papua New Guinea’s draft media development policy, saying its proposed regulation plan for the country’s media council and journalists threatened a free press.

The Asia Pacific Media Network Inc. (APMN), publishers of the research journal Pacific Journalism Review, said in a statement that it supported the Community Coalition Against Corruption (CCAC) plea for more time to be granted for public consultation.

The CCAC is a loose coalition of NGOs chaired by Transparency International-PNG and the PNG Media Council and is supported by churches, chambers of commerce, the Ombudsman Commission and the Office of the Public Solicitor.

While noting that the Ministry of Information and Communications Technology had granted an extra week from today following the original 12 days for submissions on the draft National Media Development Policy 2023, the APMB said this was still “manifestly inadequate and rather contemptuous of the public interest”.

“In our view, the ministry is misguided in seeking to legislate for a codified PNG Media Council which flies in the face of global norms for self-regulatory media councils and this development would have the potential to dangerously undermine media freedom in Papua New Guinea,” the statement said.

The statement was signed by the APMN chair Dr Heather Devere; deputy chair Dr David Robie, a retired professor of Pacific journalism and author, and a former head of journalism at the University of Papua New Guinea in the 1990s; and Pacific Journalism Review editor Dr Philip Cass, who was born in PNG and worked on the Times of Papua New Guinea and Wantok newspapers.

“The draft policy appears to have confused the purpose of a ‘media council’ representing the ‘public interest’ with the objectives of a government department working in the “national interest’,” the statement said.

Risk to PNG media freedom
“If the ministry pushes ahead with this policy without changes it risks Papua New Guinea sliding even further down the RSF World Press Freedom Index. Already it is a lowly 62nd out of 180 countries after falling 15 places in 2021.”

The statement made reference to several principles for media freedom and media councils, including Article 42 of the Papua New Guinea Constitution, the M*A*S systems of media accountability and ethics pioneered by Professor Claude-Jean Bertrand, and the 2019 declaration for press freedom of the Melanesian Media Freedom Forum.

It said the ministry needed to consult more widely and take more time to do this.

The APMN called on the ministry to “immediately discard” the proposed policy of legislating the PNG Media Council and regulating journalists and media “which would seriously undermine media freedom in Papua New Guinea”.

It also asked the ministry to extend the public consultation timeframe with a “realistic deadline to engage Papua New Guinean public interest and stakeholders in a meaningful dialogue”.

It added that “essentially journalism is not a crime, but a fundamental pillar of democracy as espoused through the notion of a Fourth Estate and media must be free to speak truth to power in the public interest not the politicians’ interest”.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The BBC celebrated its 100th birthday last Tuesday. It came as the institution faces increasing competition for audiences from global entertainment providers, anxieties about the sustainability of its funding and a highly competitive global news market.

Its international broadcasting operation, the BBC World Service, is only a little younger, established 90 years ago.

Delivering news and programmes in 40 languages across the continents, it faces similar, significant questions about financing, purpose and its ability to deliver in a world of increased social media and online news consumption.

Currently the BBC’s international services are mostly funded by British people who pay a television licence fee, with a third of the total cost covered by the UK government.

The BBC claimed that, as of November 2021, the World Service reached a global audience of 364 million people each week.

The role of radio
Radio is still clearly a key means to extend the reach of the World Service and a core part of the BBC’s global news package. It is highly adaptable and reasonably affordable.

It also gives people in parts of the world where access to media can be difficult relatively easy access to news. Short-wave radio, the traditional means of broadcasting over very long distances, is also difficult for hostile regimes to block.

Recently, fears that Russia would target Ukraine’s internet infrastructure and erect firewalls to prevent its own citizens’ accessing western media sources, led the BBC to reactivate shortwave radio news services for listeners in both countries. UK government funding of £4.1 million supported this.

Current thinking about the World Service has been shaped by a 2010 decision of UK Prime Minister David Cameron’s government to withdraw Foreign and Commonwealth Office funding for BBC international operations from 2014. This seemed to end a 60 years-long era when the BBC was the key subcontractor for British global “soft power” (using cultural resources and information to promote British interests overseas).

The plan was that British TV licence-fee payers would fund the World Service, seemingly as an act of international benevolence, free of government ties. However, this seemed unlikely to be sustainable at a time when BBC income was being progressively squeezed.

In 2015, World Service revenues were boosted by a major grant from the UK’s Official Development Assistance fund, covering around a third of the World Service’s running costs.

One anonymous BBC insider was quoted by The Guardian saying that this would sustain the corporation’s “strong commitment to uphold global democracy through accurate, impartial and independent news”.

Even before the Second World War, the BBC claimed it only broadcast truthful and objective news. Policy makers recognised this as a crucial asset for promoting British interests overseas, and seldom sought to challenge (openly at least) the “editorial independence” of the BBC.

The BBC’s 2016 royal charter further entrenched this thinking, stating that news for overseas audiences should be “firmly based on British values of accuracy, impartiality and fairness”. The idea that a truthful approach to news was a core “British value” that could help promote democracy around the world became part of the BBC’s basic mission statement.

In 2017, the BBC established 17 new foreign-language radio and online services. To maximise possibilities for listening it purchased FM transmitter time in major cities around the world, and deployed internet radio, increasingly accessible to many users via mobile devices.

The focus was on Africa and Asia. However, the World Service also strengthened its Arabic and Russian provision to serve those who “sorely need reliable information”.

The British Broadcasting Company has placed an advertisement in today’s edition of The Times for its first permanent members of staff.

(14 October 1922) pic.twitter.com/iRSDfvHsAz

— The BBC, 100 years ago today (@BBC100yearsago) October 14, 2022

Fake news factor
The World Service’s rationale has been strengthened by growing concerns about “fake news”: distorted and untrue reports designed to serve the commercial or geopolitical interests of those who manufacture it.

The BBC has, in response, further emphasised its historic role as a truthful broadcaster. In its trusted news initiative it has worked with other global media outlets to tackle disinformation, hosting debate and discussion, and sharing intelligence about the most misleading campaigns.

Claims for continued relevance also rest on a drive to bring news to an ever larger audience. The BBC’s stated aim is to reach 500 million people this year, and a billion within another decade.

In 2021 the BBC claimed to be on course to realise this goal, reaching a global audience of 489 million. The audience for the World Service accounted for the single largest component of this global figure.

What then should we make of the BBC’s announcement in September 2022 that 400 jobs would have to go at the World Service due to the freezing of the licence fee and rapidly rising costs?

Radio services in languages including Arabic, Persian, Hindi and Chinese will disappear, and programme production for the English-language radio service will be pared down. Certainly, these cuts will reduce the BBC’s impact overseas.

But they should also be understood as part of a longstanding and ongoing transition from shortwave radio to web radio.

Similarly, cutting back on World Service non-news programming might not be a major cause for concern. In an age of global streaming services and social media, audiences can receive programmes from providers from across the globe.

The World Service would find it hard to compete with many of these services. However, the BBC remains in a pre-eminent position to offer trusted news.

By focusing on providing news online, the World Service is putting its resources where it can best promote British soft power and international influence, thereby improving prospects for its own continued existence.

However, abandoning radio entirely would be a mistake. As the Russian invasion of Ukraine has demonstrated, radio remains a crucial way to reach audiences who might find their access to trusted news via the internet suddenly cut off.

Dr Simon Potter, Professor of Modern History, University of Bristol. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The Aotearoa New Zealand Public Media Bill — introduced to Parliament this week — will have a long journey before it is fit for purpose.

The Bill gives effect to the government’s plan to replace TVNZ and RNZ with a new entity designed for the digital age, but the legislation as it stands does little more than cement the two public broadcasters together.

On first reading (mine, not Parliament’s), it looks like a legislative instrument to give effect to the merger, but its stated intent and functions are much wider. This is supposed to be the legal foundation upon which a new age of public media is to be built.

The general policy statement accompanying the Bill says: “This Bill seeks to strengthen the delivery of public media services by establishing a new public media entity.” It may achieve the latter, but it falls far short of guaranteeing its objective.

The Bill falls short on many fronts: Matters that should be covered are omitted, others are dealt with in obtuse ways, boilerplate clauses are employed in place of purposeful creativity, and ironclad protection of the public interest is absent.

The Bill’s shortcomings are too numerous to set out all of them, but a few key failings give a sense of how much work must be done on the proposed law through its committee stages.

The Bill states the new organisation will be a Crown entity but does not stipulate the category under which it must fall. We need to go to Schedule 2 Part 1 to find that Schedule 2 of the Crown Entities Act is to be amended to make Aotearoa New Zealand Public Media an autonomous Crown entity.

Why the change?
Both TVNZ and RNZ are currently Crown companies. Why the change?

Was it because autonomous Crown entities “must have regard to government policy when directed by the responsible Minister”? While the new public media organisation will be protected against ministerial interference on matters relating content and news gathering, there are many ways to skin the cat.

Why was the new entity not designated an Independent Crown Entity which is “generally independent of government policy”?

The Bill states that, in accordance with provisions of the Crown Entities Act, the Minister of Broadcasting and Media will appoint the board of the new entity, but the new Bill stipulates at least two of those directors will be nominated by the Minister for Māori Development.

As things stand, that means Willie Jackson will appoint the entire board because he holds both portfolios. The proposed legislation does not anticipate that aggregation of power.

Ministers are writ large across the Bill. There is oversight of the new entity by no fewer than three, possibly four. Aside from the Minister of Broadcasting and Media, the finance minister has direct powers over financial issues and the Māori development minister has Te Tiriti oversight.

The Crown Entities Act provides for the broadcasting minister to appoint a monitor to act as his eyes and ears over the new entity. The Ministry for Culture and Heritage has been working behind the scenes to gear itself to take on that role – and an even wider role across all media if its current strategy framework draft is anything to go by. So, it is possible that its minister (currently Carmel Sepuloni) will also have a look-in.

Independence absolutely vital
I do not think that augers well for the independence that is absolutely vital if the new body is to gain and retain public trust and confidence.

Yes, the Bill does carry over the provisions in existing legislation that tells ministers to keep their hands off editorial matters. However, there are too many other mechanisms by which politicians can influence the direction of the new organisation.

There is a charter that should provide its own protections, given that the relevant minister’s actions must be consistent with it. However, the charter in the Bill consists largely of boilerplate generalities that are less aspirational than the existing RNZ charter.

It is in marked contrast to the BBC Charter, which is erudite, explicit, and carries more direct obligations.

Submissions on the Bill will, no doubt, focus on the charter and it may yet go through iterations that improve it. One necessary improvement relates to the digital environment that made all of this reorganisation necessary. Although there is passing reference to online services, the tenor of the Bill is rooted in the present, not the future.

The entity’s principal purpose is “broadcasting”. That would be fine if the term was defined in broad enough terms. However, it talks of “transmitting” and “reception by the New Zealand public by means of receiving apparatus”. That hardly conjures up pictures of very smart interactive devices and a community for whom one-way linear transmission is antiquated.

The charter does state that one of its principles is “innovating and taking creative risks” but that looks tame alongside the BBC Charter’s clause on technology that states it “must promote technological innovation, and maintain a leading role in research and development”.

Technologically aspirational requirements
I would have thought that, in order to set the stage for a future-oriented organisation built for the digital age, the Bill just might contain some technologically aspirational requirements.

It is not the only element of the new organisation that is absent from the proposed legislation.

Aside from a pressing need to provide far more robust independent governance, the Bill’s most glaring omissions relate to finance and internal structures.

The Bill contains an explicit requirement that RNZ’s commercial-free services will continue, and where a charge is applied to new services on first broadcast it will later be free. There is no reference in the Bill, however, to TVNZ’s current commercial status, nor to annual appropriations from government.

It takes a careful reading of the Bill’s schedules and amendments to those in other acts to determine whether the current practice of channelling RNZ’s funding through NZ on Air will continue. Reading between the lines it appears that a more direct funding stream is being contemplated, with some form of coordination with other bodies such as NZ on Air and Te Māngai Pāho.

The Bill itself makes no direct reference to future requirements for TVNZ to pay a dividend but a tick in a column in the Bill’s schedule suggests the new entity will not contribute to the Treasury coffers.

Beyond that, the finances of the new entity are a deep void. The new organisation faces real challenges in reconciling public funding and commercial revenue. It must also determine the division of expenditure associated with programming to meet the expectations created by both sources.

No legislative guidance
However, there is no legislative guidance on how these challenges should be met. There is total silence on commercial expectations, and on the mechanisms by which any continuity of government funding will be calculated or guaranteed. The Cabinet papers released to date suggest funding matters will be dealt with through the Ministry for Culture and Heritage. So why is that not explicit in the Bill?

Internal structures — which must address the cultural and funding process differences between commercial and non-commercial broadcasting — are apparently entirely in the hands of the Establishment board as there is nothing in the Bill that mandates the unique internal structure that will be needed to satisfy both imperatives. Does Parliament have no view, for example, on whether news and current affairs should be structurally separated from a commercial enterprise, say as a separate subsidiary with its own statutory independence?

Why is there no requirement to follow the Irish precedent whereby the state broadcaster RTÉ must adhere to a Fair Trading Policy that complies with EU rules on State aid? That policy requires RTÉ “to trade in a manner which ensures that public funds are not used to subsidise RTÉ’s commercial activities…[and] that ensures that RTÉ’s commercial activities are compatible with its public service objects.”

These questions, and more, will be raised during the Bill’s select committee hearings. My fear is that the timetable set out for the legislation — it must be passed and in force by the end of the year — will truncate the process to the point where the necessarily exhaustive examination of its provisions will not take place.

Last week I set 12 labours for the new Minister of Broadcasting and Media. This Bill, as it currently stands, will make Willie Jackson’s tasks even more Herculean.

Dr Gavin Ellis holds a PhD in political studies. He is a media consultant and researcher. A former editor-in-chief of The New Zealand Herald, he has a background in journalism and communications — covering both editorial and management roles — that spans more than half a century. Dr Ellis publishes a website called Knightly Views where this commentary was first published and it is republished by Asia Pacific Report with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The New Zealand government has appointed eight people to oversee a business case for a new public media entity to replace state-owned Television NZ and RNZ.

The Minister of Broadcasting and Media Kris Faafoi says he plans to present the business case – due to be completed by mid-year – to cabinet for approval by the end of the year.

The business case will consider what a new public media entity would cost to develop, implement and operate –  and how it would “collaborate with and complement the work of private media”.

The business case for Strong Public Media is expected to be completed around the middle of the year – a tight timeframe.

The group will be chaired by former NZ First party deputy leader Tracey Martin.

Board appointees
The other appointees are:

• Broadcasting Standards Authority chair Glen Scanlon – a former head of news at RNZ
• Former MediaWorks chief executive Michael Anderson
• TV producer, former reporter  and member of Prime Minister’s Business Advisory Council Bailey Mackey
• Broadcasting and technology consultant William Earl
• Dr Trisha Dunleavy, Victoria University of Wellington media academic
• Producer Sandra Kailahi, former journalist at TVNZ’s Tagata Pasifika, Te Karere and Fair Go
• John Quirk, former chair and director of state-owner transmission company Kordia.

Media Minister Faafoi said the Minister for Māori Development, Willie Jackson, was also “leading work to enhance support for the Māori media sector”.

“The Governance Group will oversee the development of a business case . . . which will  look at how a potential new public media entity could meet the changing expectations of New Zealand audiences and support a strong, vibrant media sector,” Faafoi said in a statement

The minister also said the group would “lead work to gather input on a Charter for the potential new public media entity”.

The process has been heavily criticised by the National Party and its broadcasting spokesperson Melissa Lee.

She has said it has taken too long and effectively stalled progress on important projects at both broadcasters, including the review of RNZ’s Charter – which was due to begin next week – and RNZ’s plans for a new youth service, the subject of major controversy in 2020 when plans to reallocate RNZ Concert’s FM frequency and cut back the network were announced, and then scrapped.

The story so far
It was back in 2019 that Minister Faafoi first raised the prospect of a new state-owned public media entity under the banner Strengthening Public Media.

Thanks to a source spilling the beans to RNZ in January 2020, it was revealed the government had settled on that option to replace state-owned RNZ and TVNZ within three years.

But back then cabinet wanted to know more about precisely how it would work and ministers demanded a business case before giving it a green light.

It was even common knowledge that PwC had been hired for the task under the guidance of the Ministry of Culture and Heritage before the minister confirmed all that the following month.

He also said it would have revenue from both “Crown and non-Crown sources”  –  a mix of public funding then and commercial revenue in other words.

(This was re-stated by the minister today, but he has declined to discuss the balance of public and commercial funding until after the completion of the business case).

Those who called it a “merger” were corrected by the minister and officials.

Not just mashing together
They have insisted all along this was not just mashing together the public service non-commercial RNZ – whose foundation is radio – with a heavily-commercialised TVNZ founded on television broadcasting and advertising.

But how a completely new digital-age media organisation with a new charter could be created by 2023 out of the resources of two organisations with very different budgets, priorities and cultures remains an unanswered question.

When MPs asked about that in the annual reviews of TVNZ and RNZ last year, the answer was “wait for the business case”.

When covid-19 intervened in March 2020, Strengthening Public Media took a back seat to saving the media.

The business case was put on ice in April 2020.

But earlier this month, Minister Faafoi told the Parliamentary committee reviewing TVNZ and RNZ that work was back on,

TVNZ‘s chief executive Kevin Kenrick told the committee TVNZ was merely an “observer” in the process.

“This future public media entity is basically being progressed by officials at the Ministry of Culture and Heritage right now,” he said.

But RNZ chairman Jim Mather echoed the minister’s language on strengthening public media when he declared RNZ’s strong support.

“We believe, as a board and executive team, it is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to create a stronger public media system the would benefit all New Zealanders,” he told Parliament’s Social Services Committee.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz