Less than half the New Zealand public now professes “overall trust” in news media outlets, despite big rises in audience numbers during the covid-19 pandemic and economic crisis.

The 2021 Trust in News in New Zealand survey released yesterday found the level of overall trust falling from 53 percent in 2020 to 48 percent in 2021 and trust in the news sources used by respondents themselves falling by 7 points from 62 percent to 55 percent.

The drops in NZ mirrored international research findings in the Reuters Digital News Report 2020, which put trust in media at the lowest level since it began seeking such data in 2016.
But our overall trust figure at 48 percent remains high compared to the international average of 38 percent.

The local survey of 1200 people, run online nationwide by Horizon Research in March on behalf of AUT’s research centre for Journalism, Media and Democracy found all news brands experienced erosion in trust over the 12 months, with Newshub and Newstalk ZB suffering “statistically significant” falls.

Respondents were asked to rate 11 media brands out of 10 for trustworthiness (with 10 being completely trustworthy). Average scores out of 10 were calculated from those who knew of each source.

“In general, trust in the news has declined because the news media is seen as increasingly opinionated, biased, and politicised,” says JMAD co-director Dr Merja Myllylahti.

The survey shows New Zealanders want factual information and not opinion dressed up as news, the researchers say.

While news organisations reported fully on the covid outbreak and were rewarded with big rises in readership, viewership and even user donations, the ebbing away of trust will puzzle some newsrooms.

The JMAD report suggests reasons for mistrust in the media include:

• political bias, especially in talkback radio (“They’re pretty right-wing”)
• politicisation of media
• media pushing certain social/other agenda (including climate change)
• media offering opinions, not factual news and information
• not offering a full picture of events
• selective reporting
• poor standard of journalism, including poor sourcing, factual mistakes, poor grammar and low standard of writing

Readers’ trust in news encountered on social media is particularly low, at 14 percent (down 2) in New Zealand and 22 percent (down 1) internationally, and just 12 percent here would trust social media for good news and information on the pandemic.

Trust in news in New Zealand is clearly below Finland, Portugal and Turkey, but much higher than in countries such as Australia, the US and the UK.

The most trusted sources for news and information on the covid-19 virus and pandemic were RNZ and TVNZ, both state owned.

RNZ riding high in online audience
Not only is RNZ the country’s most trusted news source, it has also surged in the online readership stakes, overtaking TVNZ and now closing in on Newshub for third biggest website audience in the latest, March, Nielsen monthly ratings.

In first place, nzherald.co.nz has pushed back to its near record monthly unique audience at 1.95 million, with Stuff – at 1.77m – now around 300,000 down on its own highs of 2.1m due to removing its content from Facebook. Newshub recorded 890,000, just holding off RNZ at 860,000, with 1News some distance back among the second tier sites, at just 720,000.

The rnz.co.nz audience now is about 60 percent higher than before the Covid-19 pandemic hit a year ago, having spiked like those of many news outlets at the beginning of the outbreak in March and April 2020, but unlike some, holding on to much of its gain.

Stuff is no longer officially part of the Nielsen measurement, so its monthly unique number would be less reliable than others, but the Herald site went past it last year and has not been bested for months on end. When Stuff left Facebook, it was anticipated its total audience would drop as most sites receive major contributions to their readership from referrals from the social media giant.

If the government’s mooted merger of TVNZ and RNZ into a new public broadcaster comes to fruition, the joint public news website could be expected to be a serious challenger (even when the current, separate Nielsen audience numbers are unduplicated) to the Stuff and nzherald.co.nz pairing at the pinnacle of online audiences.

Newsroom is not part of the Nielsen survey.

Discovery discovers cost cutting
It was always going to be on the cards. Four months after taking over MediaWorks’ television arm, Discovery Inc is looking to make cost savings.

The process of talking to staff began last week and will play out over the next couple of months. The company is positioning the cuts as the integration of its Australasian businesses.

Discovery already owned the small free-to-air channels, Choice and HGTV when it bought Three, Bravo, and Edge TV off MediaWorks. Sales and back office functions are obvious areas for rationalisation, although the savings are likely to be minor.

In Australia, free-to-air channel, 9Rush is a joint venture between Discovery Inc and Nine entertainment. Discovery also supplies content to Aussie pay TV networks Foxtel and Fetch.

MediaWorks sold its TV arm because it had been losing millions year after year and dragging the profitable radio operation down. Discovery’s options to cut the loses seem limited unless it gives Three a supply of cheap reality programming, but this risks a ratings drop as TVNZ further ramps up its local production.

Three’s news operation is unlikely to escape the cost-cutters’ attention. Sources say Newshub is part of the cost review but staff are likely to be redeployed rather than axed.

Tim Murphy is co-editor of Newsroom. He writes about politics, Auckland, and media. Twitter: @tmurphynz
Mark Jennings is co-editor of Newsroom. This Newsroom article is republished with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

ANALYSIS: By Dr Merja Myllylahti

New Zealand’s largest newspaper, The NZ Herald, launched its digital subscriptions today for online content, making history at the same time.

Its paywall is the first for a general newspaper in New Zealand.

Back in 2011, The NZ Herald’s parent company APN (now NZME) launched a digital-first initiative which was deemed critical for its future digital revenue. As a part of that initiative, APN was considering digital subscriptions for The NZ Herald.

READ MORE: NZ Herald’s editorial – Premium, strategy an investment in our journalism

Eight years later, this future imagined by APN bosses has arrived and will affect other players in New Zealand media.

The National Business Review, a business newspaper, has charged its readers since 2009, and digital news outlet Newsroom already charges for its premium content.

The New Zealand portfolio of Stuff, which is now owned by Australian Nine, includes digital news site Stuff, print newspapers and the community site Neighbourly. Stuff has no paywall, but The NZ Herald’s move to paid online content raises the question of whether it will follow its competitor.

My bet is that a similar move is unlikely.

Stuff has built its revenue model on e-commerce activities and is now selling broadband access, electricity and health insurance among other things.

Benefits of online traffic
For years, NZME and Fairfax Fairfax NZ (now part of Nine) avoided charges for their digital news content because of their duopoly in the New Zealand print and online news markets. The two companies feared that if one of them would introduce paid content, the other one would reap the benefits and gain in traffic.

On the other hand, traffic is perhaps not the main concern of The NZ Herald as it is targeting to convert a proportion of its audience to paid readers. For the first year, its aim is modest. It is aiming to gain 10,000 digital subscriptions.

To put the current situation into context, in 2018 Stuff had a unique audience of 2.1 million and The NZ Herald 1.7 million. According to SimilarWeb data, in the first quarter of 2019, Stuff had 34 million monthly visits compared to The NZ Herald’s 27 million.

For several years, NZME and Stuff pursued a proposal to merge. But when ruling against the merger in 2017, the Commerce Commission observed:

Both NZME and Fairfax have currently decided against introducing some form of paywall primarily because of the threat of readers switching to their competing online news websites and the risk of putting advertising revenue at risk.

That risk still exists, and it will be interesting to see whether Stuff gains in audience, traffic and advertising now that The NZ Herald paywall is going up.

The Commerce Commission was also concerned that if the merger had gone through, the combined company would introduce a more expensive paywall. As the merger was denied, this worry does not apply. But we don’t know how restrictive or pricey a joint paywall would have been.

Bundled with syndicated content
The NZ Herald paid content model is a “freemium” model. It allows readers free access to some content, but the premium content such as business news will be behind a paywall. It is also a very bundled model as the paper promises paid readers syndicated material from The New York Times, The Financial Times, The Times and Harvard Business Review, to name a few.

At this point it is not clear how much and what content exactly this large syndicate offers for The NZ Herald readers, but clearly the deal does not include full access to these sites.

The paper’s premium content editor, Miriyana Alexander, said:

While our major focus is on the delivery of the very best New Zealand journalism, we know that the addition of these four publishers, alongside the likes of the Washington Post and The Daily Telegraph will make for a terrific, unrivalled package of journalism and content.

As indicated in the table below, the annual digital subscription to The NZ Herald will cost NZ$199, compared to The Age’s and The Sydney Morning Herald’s NZ$294. Compared to prices of The New York Times (US) and The Telegraph (UK) it is cheaper, but compared to Le Monde (France) it is substantially more expensive.

All about business
It remains to be seen how much of The NZ Herald’s content will be behind a paywall and how much will continue to be freely accessible. Interestingly, academic studies of paywalled content have found that paywalled newspapers offer news sourced from newswires and syndicates for free whereas the most valuable content such as hard news, financial news, politics and opinion pieces have been hidden behind a paywall.

Alexander says the paper invests especially in business coverage, and it aims to be “the go-to destination for specialist, insightful and essential business journalism”.

The National Business Review and Newsroom Pro are competing in the same market, and they already have paid content strategies in place. I do wonder if the New Zealand market is really big enough for three players focusing and charging for business content.

One major decision is where to draw the line between free versus paid content. In France, Le Monde paywalls roughly 37 percent of its content, so readers have free access to the majority of its articles. According to Digiday, the paper found that putting more than 40 percent of its content behind a paywall had a negative impact on the potential of gaining new subscribers.

When the paper reduced the number of its paid articles last November, its traffic rose from 84 million to 97 million in a month, increasing its pool of potential subscribers.

Getting the balance rights seems to matter.

Dr Merja Myllylahti  is co-director of the Journalism Media and Democracy (JMAD) research centre at Auckland University of Technology. This article was first published by The Conversation and is republished here under a Creative Commons licence.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz