Television New Zealand has breached its collective agreement with the E tū union when deciding on discontinuing programmes, the Employment Relations Authority has ruled.

It was announced in March that 68 staff members who work for news programmes Midday and Tonight, consumer justice programme Fair Go, current affairs programme Sunday, and the youth programme Re: and in-house video content production were affected by redundancy.

Last month, the company confirmed the axing of Fair Go and Sunday, along with its midday and late night news bulletins.

Yesterday, the Employment Relations Authority (ERA) ordered the broadcaster to go into mediation with E tū union.

“The Authority finds that TVNZ has breached cl 10.1.1 of the collective agreement,” the ruling stated.

It said that if after mediation, matters were not resolved, an order would be made against TVNZ to comply with its collective agreement.

Executives, staff gave evidence
TVNZ executives and staff were among those giving evidence in an investigation meeting at the ERA in Auckland on Monday relating to the state broadcaster’s alleged breaches in its redundancy process.

E tū union took the case against TVNZ, arguing the company did not follow the consultation requirements under its collective agreement with its members.

E tū wants more of a role in the initial decision-making, which it said TVNZ was obliged to do under the collective agreement.

But TVNZ opposed the application, claiming there had been no breach and that the company had clearly communicated to staff and unions that redundancies would take place.

In a statement, TVNZ said: “We are disappointed by the decision today from the Employment Relations Authority. We will now take the time to consider the decision and our next steps”.

Staff still employed
E tū negotiator Michael Wood told RNZ Checkpoint yesterday that the determination was a very clear one and any redundancy notices that had been issued were therefore not valid.

Staff still continue to be employed during this mediation because “there has not been a legitimate process to result in their redundancies”, Wood said.

It had been a “botched process”, he said.

“If you have an agreement with someone that says you’re going to work through something in a particular way, you need to follow it and TVNZ did not follow it in this case and the ERA has affirmed that.”

It had been an incredibly disruptive time for stuff and they were “really happy about this outcome”, Wood said.

The ERA said the clause that TVNZ had breached was an uncommon provision, but Wood said the company signed off on it.

“We would like to meet as soon as we reasonably can.”

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

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Many observers said this had been coming but few seemed to have a plan for it, including the government. 

Mediawatch looks at what viewers will lose, efforts to resist the cuts and talks to the news chief at Newshub which is set to close completely.

By Colin Peacock, RNZ Mediawatch presenter

On the AM show last Wednesday, newsreader Nicky Styris suffered a frog in the throat at the wrong time.

Host Melissa Chan Green took over her bulletin while Styris quickly recovered. Minutes later Styris had to take the place of no-show panel guest Paula Bennett.

Just before that, viewers saw co-host Lloyd Burr on his knees fixing the studio flat-pack furniture with a drill.

Three hours later they were at an all-staff meeting at which executives from offshore owner Warner Bros Discovery (WBD) confirmed the complete closure of Newshub by midyear.

On TVNZ’s Midday news soon after, reporter Kim Baker-Wilson was live from the scene of the announcement of Newshub’s demise.

The previous day the roles were reversed, with Newshub’s Simon Shepherd outside TVNZ’s building reporting TVNZ’s Midday had been scrapped, along with the late news Tonight and Fair Go. 

On Wednesday TVNZ also confirmed flagship current affairs show Sunday will cease next month.

So as things stand, it’s the end of the line for all news bulletins on TVNZ other than 1 News at 6, though the news-like shows Breakfast and Seven Sharp survive because they accommodate lucrative sponsored content (“activations” in the ad business) as well as ads.

And TV channel Three will be entirely news-free for the first time in its 35-year history.

Senior journalists led by investigations editor Michael Morrah presented a proposal for a stripped-back and shortened news bulletin to keep the Newshub name alive (and some jobs) but while WBD took it seriously, it eventually turned the idea down.

Another media player to fill the Newshub void?
There have been rumours and reports that other media companies were talking to WBD about filling the Newshub at 6 news void.

Initially light-on-detail reports of lifelines suggested a possible sale of Newshub to another media company. Then there were reports of other media companies pitching to make news for WBD on a much-reduced budget.

Among the names mentioned in media despatches was NZME, which has radio and video studios and journalists around the country, though most of them are north of Taupo.

NZME told Stuff “it was not currently part of the process”.

The Herald’s Media Insider column reported on Tuesday that Newshub was “set to receive a lifeline” and understood Stuff was “among the leading contenders.”

However when Stuff itself reported on Wednesday that Stuff was “understood to be a likely contender,” a spokesperson for Stuff declined to comment to Stuff’s reporter on whether Stuff had been in talks with WBD — or not.

RNZ said it wasn’t in the frame for this. (It recently killed off the video version of its only daily news show with pictures, Checkpoint).

Sky TV has production facilities galore and its free-to-air TV channel Sky Open currently runs a Newshub-made news bulletin at 5:30 each weekday. Sky has only said it was an “interesting idea” — or words to that effect.

“At this point there is no deal,” WBD local boss Glen Kyne told reporters after confirming the closure of Newshub on Wednesday.

Kyne also said the company’s “door has been open to all internal and external feedback and ideas, and we will continue to be”.

But anyone opening that door clearly isn’t willing to do it in daylight — or  tell the rest of the media about it.

Lifelines likely?

If there is to be any kind of “Newshub-lite” lifeline, a key question is: what is WBD prepared to pay for the programme?

Presumably not much, given that they said they had no choice but to carve the cost of Newshub — amounting to tens of millions a year — from its bottom line in line with its reducing revenue.

So is it worth any major media company’s while to commit to making news in video for another outlet? And it would have to be done in a hurry because the last Newshub bulletins screen on July 5.

When Newshub’s owners first announced they wanted to get rid of it in late February, its former chief editor Hal Crawford told Mediawatch the problem with finding a buyer was that minimum viable cost for a credible TV news operation was greater than anyone here was prepared to spend.

Longtime TV3 news boss Mark Jennings (now co-editor of Newsroom) said any substitute service on the fraction of the current budget would have another problem — TVNZ’s 1 News.

“You’re up against a sophisticated TVNZ product so viewers will have an immediate comparison. Probably that won’t be favorable for Warner Brothers,” he told RNZ.

TVNZ has its own news production problems after the cuts they confirmed this week.

“We’re proposing to establish a new long-form team within our news operation, which would continue to bring important current affairs and consumer affairs stories to Aotearoa in a different way on our digital platforms.”

TVNZ declined Mediawatch‘s request to speak to TVNZ’s news chief Phil O’Sullivan about that at this time.

Newshub’s news boss responds

One who did though is Newshub news boss Richard Sutherland — appointed as interim senior director of news at Newshub in January.

It was his second spell at Newshub, during a career in broadcast news spanning four decades at almost every significant national news outlet in the country, including RNZ, where he stepped down as head of news a year ago.

In that time he’s experienced many a financial crisis in the business — but did he see this one coming?

“The last couple of weeks has been coming for quite some time. I think that the so-called legacy news operations have almost done too good a job of keeping the lights on and papering over the cracks. And we just got to a point [the industry] couldn’t paper over the cracks any longer.

“But when you look at audience behaviour and the fall off and revenue, particularly in the advertising market, then that doesn’t surprise me that we’ve got to where we’ve got to.”

But if the audience was big, the ad revenue would be too?

“It’s certainly by no means as big as it once was simply because people have other options available to them. The cliche is that you’re not in a war with the other media, but in a war for people’s attention.”

“It’s not so much the audience has changed so much as the dynamics of the advertising market that has really changed over the last sort of 10 to 15 years. The digital advertising — and the big two main players in that space, Facebook and Google — are eating everybody’s lunch.”

TV ad income on the slide
Annual advertising stats that came out this very week show media in 2023 attracted $3.36 billion across the whole of the media industry — about the same as in 2022.

But TV advertising revenue of $517 million in 2022 slumped to $443 million last year.

“That’s why what the TV industry has found is that can’t cut its costs fast enough to meet the falloff in the advertising income,” Sutherland told Mediawatch. 

Digital-only ad revenue rose by $88 million in 2023 — but it’s Google and Facebook which secures the vast bulk of that.

But if this has been coming for a number of years, as Sutherland says, has there been enough planning for it?

After the closure of Newshub was mooted by its owner last month, seven of Sutherland’s colleagues led by investigations editor Michael Morrah put together a transition plan to keep Newshub on air in a few days.

Shouldn’t this sort of transition planning have been done at high levels over recent years right across the television business?

“Every media company that I’ve worked for or have observed over the last few years has been trying to innovate and get to a more sustainable level. The revenue was just collapsing far faster than anyone ever anticipated.”

“It annoys me when I hear people say older media haven’t innovated enough. We’ve done a lot of innovation. That’s pretty lazy politics to just say: ‘You need to innovate.’

“It’s also lazy politics to say, the government should just come in and bail everyone out. New Zealand Incorporated needs to have a big conversation about what it wants to do with the media and how it wants to fund it.

“For the past few years the industry has been like so many rats in a sack, fighting with each chasing a smaller and smaller amount of ad dollars. We need to get together and work out how we get ourselves collectively out of the sack,” Sutherland told Mediawatch.

Shortly before TVNZ and Newshub announced their cuts, there was a meeting of chief executives including Newshub’s owners Warner Bros Discovery to discuss a shared new service. TVNZ rejected the idea.

“But a lot has changed in the last couple of months. And I would like to think that eventually we’ll get to a point where we can actually have honest and productive conversations about what we can do to help each other as well as maintaining a degree of competition, but also realising that if we just keep fighting with each other, we’re not going to have a sustainable industry,” Sutherland said.

Would Sutherland want to work for a low-budget alternative to Newshub stave off the complete closure? And would Kiwis want such a service?

“There is a segment of the audience that appreciates a very highly produced, well-curated news bulletin every night. And there’s large numbers of people who no longer see that as part of their media diet.

“The trick is to provide options so that people can get what they want when they want it.

“It’s not really for me to say what a possible replacement for Newsub might look like. I’m well away from those negotiations.

“If we reach a stage where the media scene here withers away to nothing, there’ll be no-one to tell the stories. The media uncovers a lot of shady stuff in this country.

“And the fear of media coverage prevents people in positions of power and authority at all levels doing a lot of shady stuff. So it is important to document the ructions of the New Zealand media scene just like we do in other parts of the country.”

Minister in a corner

The day the axe fell at Newshub and at TVNZ, New Zealand’s screen producers’ guild Spada said “while the newsroom cuts have dominated media coverage to date, it is actually the whole production sector being impacted”.

“While TVNZ and Three aren’t giving definitive numbers at this time, Spada has calculated that we are looking at around $50 million coming out of our sector,” said president Irene Gardiner.

Spada is also asking the government to exempt screen funding agencies from the percent public spending cuts and to force the international streaming platform to support local production.

Spada called for” swift and decisive action” from the government on this.

Should they be holding their breath?

When confronted by reporters for a response to the current TV news crisis, Broadcasting Minister Melissa Lee said: “If only I was a magician, if I could actually just snap up a solution, that would be fantastic.

“But I’m not a magician, and I’m trying to find a solution to modernise the industry . . .  there is a process happening.”

But the media are not expecting magic — just a plan rather than assertions of a process with no timeline.

She has repeatedly said she’s preparing policy in a paper to take to cabinet, but refused to give any details.

On RNZ’s Checkpoint, persistent and pointed questions from Lisa Owen yielded few further clues.

Newstalk ZB Drive host Heather du Plessis-Allan told Melissa Lee she was being “weird and shady” and the next morning ZB’s Mike Hosking told her she was using “buzzwords that don’t mean anything” and was doomed to fail.

Stuff’s Tova O’Brien reported that the need to consult coalition allies on policy means it can’t be progressed until after Winston Peters returns from overseas at the end of the month.

The under-wraps media policy is also not in the government’s recently-released quarterly action plan.

Meanwhile this week, our two biggest TV news broadcasters ran out of time.

Ex-minister leading resistance to cuts

After his unenlightening on-air interview with minister Melissa Lee on Thursday morning, Mike Hosking’s ZB listeners told him she reminded them of ministers in the last government.

Coincidentally, one of them was also one of few people who did speak out about the crisis while it was unfolding.

Michael Wood represented TVNZ journalists from the E tū union as its negotiations specialist.

E tū  is now taking legal action against TVNZ, claiming it failed to abide by the conditions of their employment agreement.

Could that reverse or wind back any of the cuts TVNZ has announced?

“That does remain to be seen. The collective agreement has very clear processes around what should happen if TVNZ wants to move forward and make changes. It requires [staff members] to be involved throughout the process, and for the company to try and reach agreement with them. Our very strong view is that that hasn’t happened.”

“Staff have said: ‘Look, five years ago, we came to you and said we want to do these things with our shows to make sure they have a sustainable future to make sure that they have a strong online platform.’ And [TVNZ] frankly has not demonstrated strategy and leadership around those things.”

“These are still shows that are very, very popular. Canceling them will reduce costs, but based on TVNZ’s own information that they’ve provided, it will reduce revenue by more.”

It’s been difficult to get any media company executives or even journalists at the two companies affected by these cuts to talk about them, even off-the-record.

Wood is one of the few people who has spoken frankly to broadcasters’ executives, albeit confidentially behind closed doors.

“There is a bit of a delicate dance which has to happen when media companies themselves are making these decisions. And media need to report on that.

“So I have some sympathy, but these aren’t just individual employment issues. This is a public policy issue . . .  about whether we have a functioning and vibrant Fourth Estate.”

Wood was until last year a minister in the Labour government which could have averted the TVNZ cuts.

It spent more than $16 million planning a new public media entity to replace TVNZ and RNZ with a not-for-profit public media entity — but then scrapped it weeks before it was due to begin.

“You’ve just identified one of the core things that we’ve got to deal with. TVNZ, in terms of its statutory form, is neither one thing nor the other. It has a commercial imperative and it also has some other obligations in terms of public good.

“News and current affairs should be at the heart of that — and that is something that we should be much clearer about.”

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

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The day the news axe fell: Presenters, insiders fear ‘huge blow for democracy’

The future of New Zealand’s media landscape is becoming clearer by the day, with confirmation that it will no longer feature one of the country’s big two TV news networks.

Warner Bros. Discovery has revealed that all of Newshub’s operations will be shut down, effective July 5. That includes the flagship 6pm bulletin, The AM Show, and the Newshub website.

294 staff are set to lose their jobs.

It’s also been confirmed that TVNZ’s programme Sunday will be cancelled, following yesterday’s announcement that Fair Go, as well as both 1News at Midday and 1News Tonight, are being canned in their current format.

New Zealand’s media industry has been rocked by the bleeding obvious which is that their failed ratings system for legacy media was always more art than science.

The NZ radio ratings system is a diary that you fill in every 15 minutes — which no one ever fills in properly.

The NZ newspaper ratings are opinion polls and the NZ TV ratings system is a magical 180 boxes that limits choice to whoever had the TV remote.

When the sales rep told the advertiser that 300,000 people would read, see, hear their advert, it was based on ratings systems that were flattering but not real.

With the ruthlessness of online audience measurement, advertisers could see exactly how many people were actually seeing their adverts, and the legacy media never adapted to this new reality.

What we see now is hollowed out journalism competing against social media hate algorithms designed to generate emotional responses rather than Fourth Estate accountability.

New Zealand has NEVER had the audience size to make advertising based broadcasting feasible, that’s why it’s always required a state broadcaster — with no Fourth Estate who will hold this hard right racist climate denying beneficiary bashing government to account?

Minister missing in action
Broadcasting Minister Melissa Lee has refused to support the Fair Digital News Bargaining Bill that Labour’s former minister Willie Jackson put forward that would at least force Google and Facebook to pay for the journalism they take for free.

Lee has been utterly hopeless and missing in action here — if “Democracy dies in darkness”, National are pulling the plug.

This government doesn’t want accountability, does it?

Instagram this year switched on a new filter to smother political debate and we know actual journalism has been smothered by the social media algorithms.

I don’t think that most people who get their information from their social media feeds understand they aren’t seeing the most important journalism but are in fact seeing the most inflammatory rhetoric to keep people outraged and addicted to doom scrolling.

When Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters does his big lie that the entire mainstream media were bribed because of a funding note by NZ on Air in regards to coverage of Māori issues for the Public Interest Journalism fund — which by the way was quickly clarified by NZ on Air as not an editorial demand — he conflates and maliciously spins and NZ’s democracy suffers.

Muddled TVNZ
Television New Zealand has always come across like a muddle. It aspires to be BBC public broadcasting yet has the commercial imperatives of any Crown Owned Enterprise. If Labour had merged TVNZ and RNZ and made TVNZ 1 commercial free so that the advertising revenue could cross over to Newshub, it would have rebuilt the importance of public broadcasting while actually regulating the broken free market.

When will we get a Labour Party that actually gives a damn about public broadcasting rather than pay lip service to it?

Ultimately Newshub’s demise is a story of ruthless transnational interests and geopolitical cultural hegemony.

Corporate Hollywood soft power wants to continue its cultural dominance as the South Pacific friction continues between the United States and China.

New Zealand is an important plank for American hegemony in the South Pacific and as China and American competition heats up, Warners Bros Discovery suddenly buying a large stake in our media was always a geopolitical calculation over a commercial one.

Cultural dominance doesn’t require nor want an active journalism, so they will keep the channel open purely as a means of dominating domestic culture without any of the Fourth Estate obligations.

That bitter angry feeling you have watching Warner Bros Discovery destroy our Fourth Estate is righteous.

Social licence trashed
They bought a media outlet that has had a 35-year history of being a structural part of our media environment and dumping it trashes their social licence in this country.

That feeling of rage you have watching a multibillion transnational vandalise our environment is going to be repeated the millisecond you see the American mining interests lining up to mine conservation land with all their promises to repair anything they break.

Remember — the transnational ain’t your friend regardless of its pronouns.

That person they rolled in with the soft-glazed CEO face to do the sad, sad crying is disingenuous and condescending.

Now Warner Bros has killed Newshub off, we have no option as Kiwis but to boycott whatever is left of TV3 and water down Warner Bros remaining interests altogether.

They’ve burnt their bridges with us in New Zealand by walking away from their social contract, we should have no troubles returning the favour!

The only winners here are rightwing politicians who don’t want their counterproductive and corrupt decisions to be scrutinised.

We are a poorer and weaker democracy after these news cuts.

Why bother having a Minister of Broadcasting if all they do is fiddle while the industry burns?

Welcome to your new media future in Aotearoa New Zealand . . .

Republished with permission from The Daily Blog.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Warner Bros Discovery will struggle to retain viewers in New Zealand if it has no news operation, Newshub journalist Paddy Gower predicts, as he continues his crusade for someone to save at least part of its newsroom.

A grim 48 hours for news media has resulted in many jobs being lost in the sector — as TV3 confirmed the closure of Newshub, and TVNZ announced it was going ahead with axing its current affairs flagship Sunday, consumer affairs Fair Go and two news bulletins.

About 250 jobs are being lost in the shutdown of Three’s national news service, which will close in July.

Gower told RNZ Morning Report Warner Bros Discovery needed to get on and do a deal for another party to take over the news bulletin.

He was among seven senior Newshub journalists who pushed back against the company’s proposal and put forward their own plan.

The proposal, led by his colleague Michael Morrah, was “radical”, “aggressive” and would have pared the news operation back to the bone, he said.

It centred on the 6pm bulletin which brought in a lot of advertising revenue, retain the website and would later build up the digital operation.

“Basically it was a cutdown radical proposal to hang on to the 6pm bulletin and find digital solutions out into the future.”

While management gave them access to figures and helped them in other ways they ultimately decided not to go ahead.

He said when the closure was confirmed, there was a feeling of “the weight of history” at the loss of a taonga which Kiwis would miss when it disappeared.

“It’s gonna be a dark time for news in this country,” he said.

Gower said Warner Bros Discovery would have “a helluva time” keeping viewers without Newshub providing news and current affairs.

“We tried. That’s the Kiwi way. That’s the Newshub way.”

He said another media company, such as Stuff or NZME, could now come in and further their own news brand and their reputation by saving part of a significant news operation.

They would oversee the making of a 6pm news bulletin that would be sold to Warner Bros Discovery and in the process be working with one of the world’s leading media companies.

“That has to be a possibility . . . They would be seen to be saving news in New Zealand and that’s a big ups for them . . .

“The company that is able to get that deal done …. is going to get some incredible journalists on board to help them do it,” Gower said.

It would probably save about 40 to 50 jobs, he said.

Warner Brothers Discovery declined to be interviewed by Morning Report.

Broadcasting Minister accused of lack of vision
Former head of news at TV3 Mark Jennings believed Broadcasting Minister Melissa Lee was “all at sea” as the country veered towards a media crisis.

He found her response to the Newshub closure confusing and did not believe the cabinet paper she has been working on would provide anything beneficial.

“I think you’re likely to have three parties, New Zealand First, ACT and National, all with different points of view and I can’t see them agreeing on any forward course of action, particularly not with Melissa Lee who appears to have no vision here at all.”

Jennings said he was notsurprised the Morrah-Gower plan did not succeed, because employers had considered other options and then made up their minds before the consultation period began.

If an offer from an outside organisation did get the go-ahead, it would be a “basic product” and would be “news-light”, he said.

It might be shot on i-Phones and edited by journalists and would not resemble Newshub’s current flagship bulletin.

While both the pandemic and social media had lowered the quality threshold of what viewers might accept, it would still be compared to what TVNZ was screening.

“The challenge will be for them to hold on to their ratings and more importantly, their share. Their share has been decreasing over time and if it gets too much lower, they’ll find themselves back at square one really.”

Minister Lee was unwilling to be interviewed by Morning Report.

On Wednesday, she refused to tell RNZ once again what her plans to reform the sector were, citing cabinet confidentiality.

She said she was focused on ensuring New Zealand’s media industry was sustainable and modernised, and she was looking at reviewing the Broadcasting Act.

Although she has written a cabinet paper, she would not say what was in it.

Lee said she had talked to international companies on how they could support and increase New Zealand screen production, but it would not include a quota.

She said it would not have helped the situation at Newshub.

Not much scope for NZ on Air
New Zealand on Air chief executive Cam Harland said the agency had a limited ability to intervene because its remit was to provide funding for a large number of audiences across a range of genres.

He heads the agency responsible for distributing public funds but its budget isn’t nearly enough to address shortfalls.

Daily television news was expensive to produce, so he considered it unlikely NZ on Air would help much, he told Morning Report.

The loss of jobs and talent was “monumental” and NZ on Air bosses intended to meet with TVNZ and Newshub as well as senior journalists, such as Jennings, to get more information before making any decisions.

“We absolutely want to help . . .  so I guess our view now is: Can we be more innovative with what we’re funding, can we get more bang for the buck?”

The organisation was also faced with reviewing its spending in line with the government’s requirements for the public sector.

Union files claim against TVNZ

The union representing journalists has filed a claim against TVNZ alleging the company breached its own consultation requirements in its job cuts process.

E Tu’s negotiation specialist, Michael Wood, said the broadcaster should have involved its employees before the proposal was presented.

Talks were continuing with the Employment Relations Authority to see if a legal case could be heard as quickly as possible.

“It’s an urgent matter now . . . We’ll be trying to get an outcome there as soon as possible and we want to see an outcome that respects the process.”

He said mediation between the parties might be a part of the process.

While the union and employees had a small victory with a handful of jobs being saved, there was still “a massive loss of capacity” with the axing of several programmes.

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

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The company says no deal is in place yet with any third party to supply daily news.

Newshub staff learned of the company’s decision at a meeting fronted by Warner Bros Discovery’s Australia and New Zealand chief Glenn Kyne and its Asia-Pacific president James Gibbons today.

In a statement, Gibbons said there was “nothing anyone in our New Zealand networks business could have done better” to avoid the closure.

“It was a combination of very strong economic headwinds both in New Zealand and the global market,” he said.

“The downturn has been severe, and the bounce-back has not materialised as expected.”

Warner Bros Discovery first revealed its proposal to close Newshub on February 28. Newshub Michael Morrah told RNZ’s Midday Report many staff saw today’s decision as inevitable.

‘Many resigned themselves’
“The confirmation was still very upsetting and disappointing, but nothing like the shock of six weeks ago. Many had resigned themselves to the closure,” he said.

“I have worked here for 18 years. We believe in what we do. And know it is important to the people who watch — 900,000 every week. What happens to those people who relied on us to present key news and current affairs?

“And to the investigations that are being worked on?”

Gibbons said $74 million disappeared from broadcast TV advertising in New Zealand in 2023 alone. That was the single largest year-on-year drop over the last three decades outside of the Global Financial Crisis in 2007-8.

“Every business in its own market has to be financially sustainable, and we simply could not continue in our current form.”

Fresh annual figures released yesterday showed total TV advertising revenue in New Zealand TV fell from $517 million in 2022 to $443 million last year.  Digital advertising revenue is increasing but the vast bulk of that goes to offshore tech companies Google and Facebook.

Kyne said free-to-air and news operations were too expensive to run as they were. He was concerned that the move would leave TVNZ as the only service running free-to-air broadcast news, but said there was no other choice.

Impact on plurality
“We are deeply aware of the effect this is likely to have on the plurality of media voices in New Zealand. Having just one TV news operation in New Zealand — that is state-owned — will be an ongoing issue until it is solved.

“But as we noted on the day, it is simply impossible to continue operating in our current form.”

The final day for staff who have been made redundant will be on July 5, and that will also be the final day for the Newshub bulletin, the statement said.

When Newshub’s closure was first proposed in late February, staff were given six weeks to give feedback on the proposal.

“Myself and six colleagues suggested a stripped back Newshub live at 6 and retention of the Newshub (website) to transition from linear TV to a fully-digital model. We thought we had a profitable way forward.

‘We were told the option would be problematic for WBD and produce a downward trajectory for the business,“ Newshub’s investigations editor Michael Morrah told RNZ’s Midday Report.

Other alternative proposals to replace or continue Newshub were also considered amid heavy secrecy, bolstered by the use of non-disclosure agreements.

Considering proposals
In recent days media reports have indicated WBD has been considering proposals from other media companies to create a news service for the company’s channels.

New Zealand Herald media commentator Shayne Currie yesterday reported that Stuff was a leading contender for taking on the organisation’s 6pm news. Some have speculated that NZME, which owns the Herald and Newstalk ZB, could also have an interest.

WBD said today no arrangement with any third party was in place but Mediawatch understands the company has already rebuffed several and is only pursuing projects with one or two players.

Stuff reported yesterday that Stuff was “understood to be a likely contender”  but a spokesperson for Stuff declined to comment on whether it had been in talks with Warner Bros Discovery.

“The main thing is Newshub needs a lifeline. These people deserve a lifeline. Those people who are looking to do these deals, get on and get them done and save some of these people and save some news for Kiwis,” Newshub presenter Patrick Gower told reporters after today’s announcement.

Kyne said the company’s “door has been open to listening to all internal and external feedback and ideas, and we will continue to do so”.

“However, as of now, no deal regarding news output has been made.”

News archives
Kyne said the company was also looking to work with Nga Taonga to preserve its 30-year news archives.

Mediawatch understands that several staff made submissions calling on the company to preserve those archives, with fears that years of work — and New Zealand history — could be lost if they were deleted.

Newshub’s shutdown is the biggest and most far-reaching news closure in the post-covid era.

“Every time we think we’ve landed on stable footing, something comes along and makes it unstable again, forcing us to look at ways of further reducing costs,” Kyne said in a statement when the closure was first proposed.

“We’ve now reached a stage where any further reduction in costs means . . .  proposing to shut down the newsroom and the Newshub website.”

“Everyone can see that the media sector, here in New Zealand, and around the world is facing some very tough circumstances. While Warner Bros Discovery is a large global media company, each business is managed on its ability to sustain itself within the market it operates in.

“Subsidising losses for ongoing years indefinitely is not sustainable,” said Gibbons.

At the time, Warner Bros Discovery said its proposal was is to make the ThreeNow online app “the core of the model, supported by free-to-air linear channels” such as Three, Bravo, Eden, Rush and HGTV.

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

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Just a third of New Zealanders now say they trust the news. That is the major finding of Auckland University of Technology’s research centre for Journalism, Media and Democracy (JMAD)’s fifth annual Trust in News in Aotearoa New Zealand report, reports RNZ News.

Trust in news in general fell from 42 percent last year to 33 percent in this year’s report — but it is a whopping 20 percentage points down from the first report in 2020 when it was at 53 percent.

All 16 news brands that were part of this survey suffered declines in trust.

The independent Dunedin daily newspaper Otago Daily Times (ODT) had the highest trust score, with public broadcaster RNZ and the National Business Review (NBR) tied in second place, with TVNZ, Newsroom, BusinessDesk and “other commercial radio” tied for third.

Other findings from this year’s survey: Fewer people believed the news media was independent of political influence and more said they actively avoid the news to some degree.

The survey was conducted in February just before the shock announcement that Newshub was set to close, and that TVNZ would be cutting jobs and news programmes.

Final decisions are expected from both organisations this week.

RNZ’s Nine to Noon programme Kathryn Ryan was joined by Dr Merja Myllylahti and Dr Greg Treadwell, co-authors of the report, to discuss this report.

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

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New Zealand’s media and communications minister is defending pulling out of pre-booked interviews about her portfolio, saying they would have been “boring” for the interviewers.

Last week, Media Minister Melissa Lee cancelled interviews with NZME’s Media Insider and RNZ’s Mediawatch, despite initially agreeing to do them.

It is a tumultuous time for media, with the proposed shutting of Newshub and cancellation of news and current affairs shows at TVNZ, as well as the unclear fate of legislation to make social media giants pay for the news they use.

Lee is set to take a paper to cabinet soon, setting out her plans for the portfolio. She has been consulting with coalition partners before she takes the paper to cabinet committee.

Yesterday, she said that given the confidentiality of the process, there was nothing more she could say in the one-on-one interviews.

“I have actually talked about what my plans are, but not in detail. And I think talking about the same thing over and over, just seemed, like, you know . . . ”

Lee said she received advice from the prime minister’s office, but the decision to pull out was ultimately hers.

‘A lot of interviews’
“I’ve been doing quite a lot of interviews, and I couldn’t sort of elaborate more on the paper and the work that I’m actually doing until a decision has actually been made, and I felt that it would be boring for him to sit there for me to tell him, ‘No, no, I can’t really elaborate, you’re going to have to wait until the decision’s made’,” she said.

It is believed Lee was referring to either the NZ Herald’s Shayne Currie or RNZ’s Colin Peacock.

Asked whether it was up to her to decide what was boring or not, Lee repeated she had done a lot of interviews.

“I didn’t think it was fair for me to sit down with someone on a one-to-one to say the same thing over to them,” she said.

Lee said her diary had been fairly full, due to commitments with her other portfolios.

The prime minister said his office’s advice to Lee was that she may want to wait until she got feedback from the Fair Digital News Bargaining Bill process, which was still going through select committee.

‘The logical time’
“Our advice from my office, as I understand it, was, ‘Look, you’re gonna have more to say after we get through the digital bargaining bill, and that’s the logical time to sit down for a long-format interview,” Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said.

Labour broadcasting spokesperson Willie Jackson said he believed the prime minister’s office was trying to protect Lee from scrutiny.

“There’s absolutely no doubt she’s struggling. If you look at her first response when she fronted media, she had quite a cold response,” he said.

“That’s changed, of course now she’s giving all her aroha to everyone. So they’ve been working on her, and so they should, because the media deserve better and the public deserve better.”

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

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The union representing Television New Zealand staff is calling on the public to join a campaign protesting the broadcaster’s plans to axe programmes and cut jobs.

Last week TVNZ announced plans to cut up to 68 jobs — and scrap several long-running shows, including Fair Go and Sunday.

E Tū union spokesperson Michael Wood has told Midday Report the Save Our Stories campaign united workers, viewers and supporters to remind TVNZ of its responsibilities.

“TVNZ isn’t just some business, it’s a vital part of our society and Kiwis need a strong TVNZ to tell Aotearoa’s stories and hold power to account.

“This is about everyone — every single New Zealander is a stakeholder in this, so we invite everybody who wants to build and protect a strong media landscape to support the campaign.”

People could help by signing an open letter to TVNZ, and sharing the campaign video, he said.

“So many people have reached out to our union to show their support for TVNZ workers and ask how they can help. From prominent public figures, to people whose lives have been changed thanks to TVNZ’s coverage, to dedicated viewers who don’t want to see their favourite shows get the axe,” he said.

“These people can help by signing the open letter, sharing our video, and sending the message to decision-makers that our media is worth protecting.”

TVNZ staff from the E Tū union voted unanimously to reject the proposals.

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Television New Zealand’s chief executive has been challenged by the public broadcaster’s Pacific correspondent Barbara Dreaver at a fiery staff meeting over job cuts and axing of high profile programmes, reports The New Zealand Herald.

Writing in his Media Insider column today, editor-at-large Shayne Currie reported that Dreaver, one of TVNZ’s most respected and senior journalists, had made the challenge over the planned layoffs and axing of shows such as the current affairs Sunday and consumer affairs Fair Go.

Dreaver reportedly asked chief executive Jodi O’Donnell if she would apologise to staff — “apparently for referring to her watch during an earlier staff meeting on Friday”.

“TVNZ would not confirm specific details last night, but it is understood O’Donnell pushed back during yesterday’s meeting, along the lines that perhaps she might also be owed an apology,” wrote Currie, a former Herald managing editor.

“One source said she talked at one stage about the response she had been receiving.”

Media Insider quoted a TVNZ spokeswoman as saying: “We expect sessions like this to be robust, but to give all TVNZers the opportunity to be free and frank in their participation, we don’t comment on the details of these internal meetings to the media.”

Dreaver told 1News last night: “We need really strong leadership and we expect to get it. And I’m quite happy to call out and challenge it [and] my own bosses when we don’t get that, just as I would a politician or any other person who deserves it.”

A ‘legend, icon, queen’
Media Insider reported that in a social media post today, Sunday journalist Kristin Hall had described Kiribati-born Dreaver as a “legend, icon, queen” for her Pacific reporting.

Legend, icon, queen 👑

So proud to call @barbaradreaver a colleague https://t.co/FNksH6ih2f

— Kristin Hall (@kristinhallNZ) March 11, 2024

In November 2022, Dreaver was named Reporter of the Year at the New Zealand Television Awards and in 2019 she won two awards at the Voyager Media Awards for her coverage of the Samoa measles outbreak.

In this year’s New Year Honours, Dreaver was appointed an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to investigative journalism and Pacific communities.

Yesterday’s TVNZ meeting came amid a strained relationship between the TVNZ newsroom and management over the way the company has handled the announcement of up to 68 job cuts, as least two-thirds of them journalists.

The shock news followed a week after the US-based Warner Bros Discovery announced that it would be closing its entire Newshub newsroom at the end of June.

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Television New Zealand is proposing to axe its long-running and award-winning current affairs programme Sunday, hosted by veteran broadcaster Miriama Kamo.

It is part of plans to cut dozens of jobs at the public broadcaster.

Staff were learning which programmes will be affected at a series of meetings today.

TVNZ said a proposal had been presented to Sunday staff which could result in cancellation of the programme.

The show was named Best Current Affairs Programme at the Voyager Media Awards and the New Zealand Television Awards last year.

It first aired in 2002 and has run for more than two decades, showcasing a mix of New Zealand stories and reports from overseas.

One award-winning investigation looked into the 2008 Chinese poisoned milk scandal, and how patients were treated at Porirua Hospital.

Veteran journalists like John Hudson, Janet McIntyre and Ian Sinclair have contributed to the show.

News bulletins may be canned
RNZ understands the 1News Midday and Tonight bulletins may also be canned, and consumer affairs programme Fair Go could to be cut too.

Its understood four out of 10 roles at youth platform Re: News are set to go — head of Re: News, head of content, production manager, and a journalist.

Its understood four out of 10 roles at youth platform Re: News are set to go — head of Re: News, head of content, production manager, and a journalist.

The remaining five staff will have a change in reporting line, reporting to TVNZ digital news and content general manager Veronica Schmidt.

RNZ has been told there will be a shift away from social media in a bid to drive more traffic to the Re: News website. Its documentary series funded by NZ On Air is also set to be canned.

The digital media platform was launched in 2017 as a current affairs platform aimed at audiences under-served by mainstream news.

It produces documentary videos, articles and podcasts particularly relevant to youth, Māori, Pasifika, rainbow communities, and migrant and regional audiences.

The platform won four awards at last year’s Voyager Media Awards, including best news, current affairs or specialist publication; video journalist of the year; best video documentary series; and best original podcast — seasonal/serial.

On average, Re: News receives more than a million video views each month.

Difficult choices
TVNZ chief executive Jodi O’Donnell said in a statement that difficult choices had to be made to ensure the broadcaster remained sustainable.

It comes just a week after rival Newshub announced it had proposed to axe its entire news operation of 300 staff.

A hui for all news and current affairs staff is due to be held at 1pm, following the individual programme meetings.

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon, speaking at a press conference in Whangārei, said he was concerned about reports of job cuts and that it was a “pretty tough time if you’re a TVNZ employee”.

Luxon said consumers are consuming news in different ways and advertising and revenue models are changing.

He said it was a pretty tough time for people working in the media but he had travelled the country and many other sectors were doing it tough.

Media companies needed to evolve and innovate in order to adapt, he said.

Fair Go
Fair Go is one of New Zealand’s longest running and most popular television series.

The consumer affairs show, which investigates complaints from viewers, first aired in April 1977 and is just shy of its 47th birthday.

During a 2021 interview with RNZ’s Afternoons programme, original host and creator Brian Edwards said he was inspired by a BBC programme called That’s Life.

“One particular segment was on consumers and I think that was the germ of the idea, that we could do a programme in New Zealand where we could look at protecting people right there in their normal daily lives from rip offs and scams by various people and it it just soared from the beginning. I mean, it was tremendous,” Edwards said.

“I suppose my main function was to grill the villains, and because I’m a really quite unpleasant person, this fit in my my personality very well.”

Well-known presenter Kevin Milne hosted the show for almost three decades, from 1983 to 2010.

“It was beautifully set up, really, and it didn’t require any change as much and still hasn’t, you know, 44 years later,” he told Afternoons during the same interview.

‘Good deal of cynicism’
“I remember that there was a good deal of cynicism in the early days from the newsroom journalists who thought that because there was an element of entertainment on the show that you couldn’t call it real journalism, which was nonsense because it ended up leading the way in terms of investigative journalism.”

The show broke new ground, Milne said.

“It’s hard to believe now that back then, at the time when Brian set up those programmes, most broadcasters never named names. I can remember now hearing news stories which could say a well-known department store in Lambton Quay appeared in court this morning. No mention [of name], and when Fair Go started up, it was decided it would name names.”

Edwards said that was an “absolutely critical” aspect of the show.

“The thing would have been pointless I think, if you couldn’t name names. The thing was to expose the wrong doers if you like . . . what was the point in in doing that if you couldn’t name names?

“And I think we probably, together, our team, won some battles there and being able to do that. It took a while and I think there was a degree of nervousness by the broadcaster and eventually it turned out all right.”

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

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Television New Zealand will start talks from tomorrow with staff who will lose their jobs in the state broadcaster’s bid to stay “sustainable”.

It is proposed that up to 68 jobs will be cut which equates to 9 percent of its staff.

TVNZ chief executive Jodi O’Donnell told staff today that “tough economic conditions and structural challenges within the media sector” have hit the company’s revenue.

She said “difficult choices need to be made” to ensure the broadcaster remained “sustainable”.

Changes like those proposed today were incredibly hard, but TVNZ needed to ensure it was in a stronger position to transform the business to meet the needs of viewers in a digital world.

RNZ understands a hui for all TVNZ news and current affairs staff will be held at 1pm tomorrow. This follows separate morning meetings for Re: News, Fair Go, and Sunday.

A TVNZ staffer told RNZ it was not yet clear what the meetings meant for those programmes — whether they were to be fully cut or face significant redundancies.

RNZ also understands 1News Tonight might also be affected.

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said of the job cuts: “It’s incredibly unsettling”.

He said he felt for the staff there and acknowledged some would be at his media standup in Wellington.

Luxon said all media companies here and around the world were wrestling with a changing media environment.

Minister Shane Jones interrupted and said “a vibrant economy will be good for the media, bye bye”.

More than TVNZ 60 roles to go with 6pm news & current affairs threatened. Increasingly hard for free to air public broadcasters to survive commercially. Time to bite bullet & accept that as with BBC & Oz ABC, public broadcasting needs 2 be publicly funded? https://t.co/oL7awc7ag2

— Helen Clark (@HelenClarkNZ) March 6, 2024

Former prime minister Helen Clark said on X it was becoming increasingly hard for free to air public broadcasters to survive commercially.

She asked if it was time to accept that, as with the BBC and ABC, public broadcasting should be publicly funded.

‘Dire implications for our democracy’
Sunday presenter Miriama Kamo said the news of jobs possibly being axed was “awful”.

“It’s devastating not just for our business, it’s devastating for what it means for our wider society.”

She said along with the likely demise of Newshub it had “dire implications for our democracy”.

When cuts were being made in news programmes at the state broadcaster that indicated how dire things had become.

“I’m very very concerned about what the landscape looks like going forward.”

A TVNZ news staffer who spoke to RNZ on the condition of anonymity said the most disappointing part of the process was finding out there would be job cuts via other media, such as RNZ and The New Zealand Herald.

“Our bosses didn’t have the decency to be transparent about what was going on. You know, they say that they’ve been forthcoming over the past month over what’s going to happen in this company and whatnot — they haven’t.

‘What sort of vision?’
“So it’ll be an interesting day tomorrow to see how widely the team’s affected, and to see what sort of vision they have for TVNZ, because in the time that I’ve been working there they keep talking about this digital transformation, and I haven’t seen any transformation yet.”

The mood among current staff this morning was “pretty pissy”, particularly from those affected.

“Obviously, not impressed,” the person said.

Media commentator Duncan Greive said some TVNZ staff were hopeful an argument could be made against the job losses.

Greive, who also founded The Spinoff, told RNZ’s Midday Report TVNZ staff working on Fair Go, Sunday and Re: News were invited to meetings today, and told to bring support people.

He said staff have told him the news was devastating, but said they didn’t yet know how deep and widespread the cuts would be — leaving them hopeful their teams would not be as impacted on as they feared.

Meanwhile, an organisation supporting news media staff said the hundreds of people facing redunancy would struggle to find new work in the industry.

Deeply unsettling
Media chaplaincy general manager Elesha Gordon said it was deeply unsettling for those whose livelihoods were on the line.

She said 368 people (from Newshub and TVNZ) with very specialised skillsets would be stepping out into an industry that would not have jobs for them.

Gordon said the proposed cuts were a “cruel and unfair symptom” of the industry’s financial state.

Last week, TVNZ flagged further cost cutting as it posted a first half-year loss linked to reduced revenue and asset write-offs.

The state-owned broadcaster’s interim financial results showed total revenue had fallen 13.5 percent from last year to $155.9 million.

Its net loss for the six months ended December was $16.8m compared to a profit of $4.8m the year before.

O’Donnell said the broadcaster’s management had tried to cut operating costs over the last year but there was now no option other than to look at job losses.

‘No easy answers’
“There are no easy answers, and media organisations locally and globally are grappling with the same issues. Our priority is to support our people through the change process — we’ll take the next few weeks to collect, consider and respond to feedback from TVNZers before making any final decisions.”

A confirmed structure is expected to be finalised by early April.

The layoffs at TVNZ have come one week after the shock announcement by the US corporation Warner Bros Discovery that it intended closing its Newshub operation in New Zealand by the end of June.

It means up to 300 people will lose their jobs.

Broadcasting Minister Melissa Lee told RNZ Checkpoint yesterday she had spoken to TVNZ bosses last week but it was not up to her to reveal details of the conversation.

She declined to comment on Newshub’s offer to TVNZ to team up in some ways to cut costs, nor suggestions TVNZ could cut its 6pm news to half-an-hour or cancel current affairs programming.

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

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