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- Date published:
8:57 pm, October 23rd, 2025 - 68 comments
Categories: broadcasting, chris hipkins, journalism, Media, music, news, radio, tv, willie jackson -
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New Zealand’s media landscape is falling apart.
According to the latest New Zealand on Air research, audience figures for NZ’s current broadcasting radio and television models are declining. Unlike most countries word-wide New Zealand has not had a publicly-funded media entity since 1975 when the NZBC was disestablished by the then Minister of Broadcasting Roger Douglas.
Today New Zealand’s predominantly commercial television landscape is struggling in a tight economic environment and is suffering from declining audiences. This has necessitated drastic moves for the survival of all three networks.
Last year 294 jobs went at Newshub while TVNZ recently slashed Sunday, the Midday News, One News Tonight and Fair Go. Kiwi audiences are increasingly being deprived of access to dynamic news and current affairs information vital in a free democracy.
In order to survive the amount of advertising has been increasing. Recently during the hour of TV One’s 6pm News Bulletin I counted 61 ads, taking up a full 16 minutes. In many cases trivial ads come up against some extremely confronting news coverage. It’s not surprising an AUT survey carried out last year showed a 38% drop in trust in NZ media since 2020.
Meanwhile Radio New Zealand National is struggling to maintain it traditional image. Publicly-funded RNZ’s problem is not the advertising but the direction the current CEO adopted since his appointment more than 10 years ago. He came to RNZ without any public sector experience or a working knowledge of broadcasting. During his tenure RNZ National has experienced an ideology more akin to a Newstalk ZB model.
Unfortunately as part of this process we have seen many of the country’s finest radio broadcasters discarded.
His attempt to “dumb down” RNZ’s Concert content in 2020 however was not as successful. The decision created a national outcry, with hundreds of Concert supporters protesting in Parliament grounds, illustrating how clearly New Zealanders loved the station.
A former RNZ audience specialist believes RNZ National has lost “its point of difference” by mimicking Newstalk ZB’s informal “chatty” style, notably in the case of Morning Report. Newstalk ZB now has 8% of the total radio audience, while RNZ National (formerly the most highly-rated) has slipped to just 7%.
RNZ National no longer includes the same amount of analysis of the news, a former strongpoint. Instead there is a proliferation of lifestyle coverage which is also smattered on their News website. Investigative programmes like Insight have been ditched.
The network’s failings were laid bare recently in a review by former news boss Richard Sutherland. It painted a picture of a broadcaster “that has lost its way – culturally, strategically, and on air.” He described a widespread belief among staff that live radio was a “sunset activity” rather than a growth opportunity and said the quality of broadcast talent was variable: “some people shouldn’t be on air” at all.
The consequences are showing in the ratings: RNZ National has shed nearly a quarter of its listeners since 2019, dropping from over 616,000 to fewer than 470,000. If that trend continues, the audience could fall below 340,000 by 2030 – a disaster for a public broadcaster whose flagship radio division was once regarded as untouchable.
New Zealand audiences deserve better… a well-managed publicly funded media entity. In early 2023 we were almost there with the passing of the third reading of the Aotearoa New Zealand Public Media Bill introduced by the then Labour government.
Introducing the Bill, Broadcasting Minister Willie Jackson said:
The creation of this new entity will strengthen the delivery of New Zealand public media services for future generations. With increasing levels of misinformation around the world, a rapidly changing media landscape and declining commercial revenues projected, New Zealand needs strong independent public media more than ever. It is critical to the functioning of a healthy democracy.
We need a public media entity that can inform, entertain, and educate in a uniquely Kiwi manner. We need strong independent journalism that holds Government and those in power to account. We need all the people and voices of Aotearoa to be represented not just on our screens but in the development and delivery of our public media content and services.
So what happened?
In February 2023 just prior to the implementation of the Bill, a newly-selected Prime Minister Chris Hipkins (worried about an upcoming election) got cold feet and ditched it. This followed a huge amount of public money being spent on paying the architects of the legislation.
Including the advantages outlined by Willie Jackson several obvious benefits of the changes planned were overlooked. First we currently have two separate news entities (TV News and RNZ News) chasing the same stories. In the case of publicly-funded networks journalists like those at the BBC are expected to file a “piece to camera’, a “written” for news bulletins and the internet, a “voice report” for radio and be ready to do two-way live interviews for both radio and television. This avoids the “doubling up” of resources as is the case in New Zealand.
Another positive outcome would have enabled New Zealand television channels like Whakaata Maori and Radio NZ to join the wonderful European Broadcasting Union, a resource library for programme exchange. An excellent way to promote “who we are” at the bottom of the world.
Chris Hipkins feared a negative political reaction to the proposed Bill. Last year the University of Canberra’s News and Media Research Centre found almost two-thirds of Australians believe publicly-funded media is “very” or “quite” important to society. These findings reflect the ABC’s own figures which show 80% of Australians trust the ABC compared with average trust of 57% for commercial media. We have seen too how much RNZ Concert listeners appreciate the publicly-funded Concert network.
A new Labour led Government must restore Willie’s Bill that makes a publicly-funded media entity covering television, radio and a digital platform a reality.
Sue Barnett ATCL, Former Radio New Zealand News and Current Affairs Producer (Morning
Report, Insight) and former Producer BBC World Service programme Outlook
lprent: fixed a typo – see author comment
If you made an error this obvious, what else was wrong in this post?
[How on Earth did you miss “pubicly”?
In addition, I found three other typos.
If you do not want to engage with the content of the Post in a meaningful constructive manner then move on and STFU instead of acting as a disrespectful troll. This is your warning – Incognito]
Mod note
Barnett is using the time taken up with ads as part of her argument – but we know that the time she gives here is wrong. That's worse than a simple typo, where you know what word she meant.
The Author provided context around the ‘offending error’:
Only a dick troll would choose not to understand what she meant.
Furthermore, there’s a lot more substance in the Post to engage with but you double-down with lazy trolling.
Typo, like 61 instead of 16?
My apologies for the typo ..i should have been 16 minutes….a stupid mistake.
I'll modify the post.
OK, but you say "in order to survive the amount of advertising has been increasing." If it's 16 minutes now, how much was it before?
The mistake was mine – I retyped Sue’s script as cut and paste didn't work
I think it's too late for NZ. Decent public broadcasting/health/education/nice things in general require taxes (from whatever source), but the conditioning that we're apparently already overtaxed is so ingrained that I can't see that changing.
And of course, the neoliberal brainwashing idea that anything 'public' is bad, and has no value, or worth to society because it doesn't make a profit for someone. Again, read: health, education.
The damage was done a long time ago, and really, it's inevitable that RNZ would follow the trend of dumbing down. Given most of us here are the last generation who can remember just a couple of ads every 15 mins on TV- not the current 5-6 ads every 7 minutes- I don't think the attention span is out there. When I was lucky enough to go to the UK a while back, I checked out the BBC and couldn't work out what was wrong- I'd been watching an intelligent programme for an hour and there were no ads. Ditto ABC.
Thankfully we still have Concert to switch to when the constant yabbering on Morning report gets too unbearable. A much less depressing way to start the day.
I have to echo yr sentiment re Morning Report.
The dumbing down is matched by a (at best) attempt to be relatable. Eg 'I can't do maths', ' backing a car is hard'.
The other criticism is the correspondents they use. One in particular, Simon Marks I think, can't help but gave his liberal politics dominate especially when it comes to the president who's name starts with T.
I'm sure the funding could be increased but editorial direction and cooperation with TVNZ would be great places to start.
Also a Leader of a political party that was prepared to lead rather than follow opinion polls.
The dumbing down is matched by a (at best) attempt to be relatable. Eg 'I can't do maths', ' backing a car is hard'.
I can't do maths and can't drive, so only partly relatable? I really couldn't care less if Ingrid can't do maths, there's just no need for her academic shortcomings and opinions to be broadcast nationally on what used to be the only intelligent news programme in NZ. I do have to wonder, though, how the presenters feel about having to dumb themselves down, and how much say did they have in the matter?
Yes, I understand where you're coming from re Simon Marks et. al. For a foreign correspondent I want politically neutral- report the facts, maybe some background/context. The BBC guys seem to fit this criteria fairly well.
https://www.thejuicemedia.com/honest-government-ad-visit-new-zealand/
A(t)las, the Coalition of Cuts has no ‘interest’ in public services – it's all going to plan.
And Juice Media, with their 'Honest Government' ads – now that's good yabbering.
Brilliant yabbering! More often than not now, good satire is required to get accurate information, and the reason that said satirists are under attack from politicians, especially those on the right. Read: US late night (one of my main sources of US political news).
Standards are dropping everywhere. Earlier today on Nine To Noon I happened to catch an extended interview with some local correspondent in the Tauranga area. The person (whose name anyone can find out if they want) seemed to me barely articulate, dropping in an all-purpose "yeah" about every third word.
Very good comments!! I agree with you completely. As Sharon Crosbie used to say
"Concert is the jewel in the crown"
Would it cost too much to run an ad free channel, internet only (via TVNZ+), and perhaps evenings only to start with, similar to channel 7 of yesteryear. The latter was scotched by Bill English because he deemed it to have insufficient patronage.
I remember the patronage argument (which turned out to be false), but wasn't aware of the profit motive. I think the government of the day were also a tad frightened the public might be being educated on topics we shouldn't know about.
TVNZ spokeswoman Megan Richards said the decision not to retain TVNZ7, or replace it with a new channel, was driven by economics and the Government's expectation of a 9 per cent return on investment.
"The rationale for this boiled down to some fairly basic facts of life for us. As a commercial broadcaster we need to make a profit, or at least not make a loss," she said.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/6857009/TVNZ7-scrapped-in-favour-of-repeats-channel (Stuff article from 2012)
Serious question. Where would the content come from? (ad revenue partly pays for the content – either purchased or generated).
Also – really – who would watch it?
Broadcast TV is pretty much dying. And, if the content (see above) – is freely downloadable – then you just make it available, and people can choose to watch (or not) – without the necessity for a broadcast.
Steven Moffat once said he had to make Doctor Who appeal to people who voted for Brexit. This sounds outrageous, but it's literally the majority of the British population, and probably an even larger majority of people who pay the license fees. If we have an entirely state-funded media entity, it would have to appeal to National Party voters.
Not in 2020. And not now.
PS
Most people in the UK now regard Brexit as a mistake
Right, but he said that in 2017.
Majorities do not last long. It's a dumb premise to use when making drama.
That's true. Another issue is what appealing to Brexit voters actually means. But before mentioning Brexit he said he couldn't cater exclusively to progressive liberals, which is true for any state-funded media.
Had they remained in the EU they would probably now be saying that that was a mistake.
Isn't it "licence" fees, Mr Wilson,
Typos are a fact of life!
Blame it on too much American social media – that's how they spell it.
Not National Party voters under the age of 30 (or, to be fair, Labour or Green or ACT voters either – virtually none of them watch a TV broadcast, ever)
And, are you implying that National Party viewers would be greater consumers of ad free viewing (the OP suggested purpose of the channel) – than Labour or Green viewers?
Seems a pretty unlikely suggestion.
Even if viewership was exactly proportional to election results, 38% of the audience would be National supporters, big enough to have to make an effort to appeal to. Without offending the other 62%, of course.
Ha! Good luck with 'not offending' the majority….
Absolutely. The days of linear broadcast dominance are long gone. Like the postal service, sone including the Op Ed writer still cling to it as having some notion of relevance. However, just like the 61 minute hour, that’s now something from mystical magic fairy cake land.
The relevance is the continuation of the delivery of content. Regardless if it is broadcast, or on demand online.
Peter Thompson has ideas for a new funding model that includes streaming content. It basically involves levies on advertising and populist content that would go towards funding public interest news journalism:
That sounds like an interesting funding model.
But tying it to broadcast (even if it's an Internet broadcast model) – is pretty much pointless.
It's just not the way that people (especially young people) consume media.
How do you mean?
It's about targeting levies at content – doesn’t matter where or how it's consumed. Then and using the funds to produce public interest content, no matter where or how it's consumed.
The original comment was around an add free Internet-only broadcast.
But, the funding model suggested by Peter Thompson includes sharing of content across platforms and networks, and clearly recognises that there will be a production of advertising.
The idea is a levy on the production of content, including ads and popular content; and that would be used to fund public interest content, that could be shared across platforms.
I'd have thought any public interest content produced with the funding would be free to view, wherever it was shared.
And, I should add, it sounds like the ads that would be levied when produced would be for any platform, including Google, Facebook, etc. The article says:
So that would mean any ads produced by and for NZ, wherever they are shown, on NZ or overseas media platforms, would be levied. The funding from that would be used to fund selected public interest productions made in NZ.
You need to explain what it is about (young) people's media consumption that wouldn't suit this model.
Peter Thompson, the author of the article and funding model that I linked to, is an Associate Professor in the School of Arts and Media at Victoria University. So, I'd have thought he has a pretty good idea of how people these days consume media these days.
I'm fine with the model – I'm pointing out that it doesn't work (for young people, and increasingly for older ones) – via a *broadcast* medium. Which is the original suggestion that was made.
"Sir" Bill probably didn't like that it was the home of that irreverent (to him) and much-missed programme Back Benches.
There was also Bomber's Citizen One.
So, weirdly, I think citizen journalism is doing a sufficiently good job that I'm not going to miss 1News or indeed professional reporting full stop.
I only ever watch 1News when I'm visiting my 83 year old dad. I get unvarnished media releases straight out of Scoop myself rather than waiting for reporters to distort them.
I get a lot more entertained and informed with Bernard Hickey's The Kaka than 1News.
Professional newspaper reporting began in New Zealand on any scale in the 1860s, and since the late 1980s they have increased in bias and attack so much I can't see why we defend them as a profession.
If we need to imagine a world without professional reporters, well here it is, and the world hasn't caved in.
Long live citizen journalism; quality subscriptions will win out in the end.
Care to explain the consequence of no requirement for fair and balanced reporting in the UK and USA?
Not much outside slander and defamation law civil proceedings.
So you do not see any impact on political society from Murdoch?
there's whole strata of NZ who can't afford subs but who do have free access to broadcast or online news. I assume I don't have to point out the implications for the country of that being the main way people access news.
I don't watch 1News either, I get a lot of my news feed from twitter, TS, and other similar places. I often then go to the MSM outlet to read/watch the original piece, because NZ MSM does still have some standards. For every person reading Hickey, there are many more getting their news fed to them via SM, which relies heavily on MSM. Hickey is great, but I'm guessing doesn't have the reach of TVNZ/TV3
The very idea of a public discourse in which there's a stable base facts we all work off has been gone for many, many years. Again, world hasn't caved in.
Those nerdy few who care a lot about the news will subscribe whether it's through Youtube feeds or Substack or a general browse. If you're just paying by consuming youtube advertising, and you're listening in for a couple of minutes, guarantee you will get what you pay for.
It's analysis that's the thing.
News stations from newspapers or radio or tv for the most part are the enemy of the left, and have been ever since The Star finished within grunty populist left reportage and just led with boobs.
I get more news that's useful to me at work each day, the pub quiz on Thursday, drinks on a Friday, Forest and Bird on Saturday, and church on Sunday. Citizen reporting for myself.
For everything else there's Foreign Affairs, the TLS, Newsroom, a few substacks … and not a pure reporter in sight.
Village gossip and anecdata are a kind of ‘news’ but they don’t spread far & wide & fast nor is it known for fact checking. News doesn’t come out of thin air and isn’t disseminated by fairies – if a tree falls and there’s nobody around … For example, have you heard of award-winning reporter Melanie Reid who works at Newsroom? She even does photos.
https://newsroom.co.nz/2023/09/22/queenstown-under-state-of-emergency-after-flooding/
Where do you think Newsroom get their material from to write about?
quite.
I'd actually class Newsroom as MSM now. People think it's different because its only online, but it's significant journalism
They produce some of the best and most thoughtful articles – plus Steve Braunais. Recommend his latest satirical salvo.
I'm going to make a guess that your F & B mates are relying heavily on MSM, or SM that is relying on MSM.
Dirty Politics, Cambridge Analytica, Russian bots, proto-fascist America (Trump's SM platform, twitter) to name a few say otherwise. That's not even getting to the shit storm on the near horizon with AI.
MSM isn't perfect, but it's one of the things saving us atm. As Incog points out, we're all reliant, directly or indirectly. We also have regulatory standards on MSM.
re RNZ, there are some things they do well eg emergency coverage. But their SEO is terrible, and it's hard to understand why they don't fix this. Their website search is not that great either, so it's harder to find content than on other MSM.
They also seem to drop the ball on news coverage in the evenings and weekends. I prefer RNZ for current news (I like their website format and the lack of ads is a big draw), but when I look at those times, I end up going to Stuff or 1News because RNZ don't have anything up. Is that a financial issue, or one of focus and intent?
Unfortunately they've had way too much experience with emergencies to get very good at it. It would be interesting to know how much their 'ratings' shot up yesterday.
Their statutory emergency broadcaster status in a way adds to the whole problem around public broadcast media. I recall it was just before the Kaikoura quake in 2016 that one of RNZ's cost-saving ideas was to not have a presenter on the night shift. Well we all know what happened at 12:02 AM and the hours afterwards. Funnily enough, I haven't seen that idea mentioned since.
Given how disaster-ridden this country is, we're always going to need that guaranteed fully-funded and commercial-free service. Can you imaging hearing "stay tuned for the latest tsunami warning…right after the break."
completely agree. I followed RNZ broadcast that night of the quake, it was a vital source of information while we were all wondering if there was a tsunami risk and where. We have much better comms in NZ around tsunami in part because of that I think.
I'm more likely to get info online now including twitter and FB, but there are still plenty of people who just don't have that access.
I really should get a proper radio for emergencies though ☺️
The Warehouse has a great little transistor radio
😎
https://www.thewarehouse.co.nz/c/electronics-gaming/audio/home-audio/radios
Or something like this and a couple of packs of batteries with a long shelf life.
https://www.dicksmith.co.nz/dn/buy/zeaway-solar-starting-dynamo-amfmnoaa-radio-flashlight-led-reading-light-cell-phone-charger-with-usb-adapter-bd-gzlschager681b/
nice. I suspect there's going to be a run on those, but will have a look cheers
Watch the frequencies on those. If they have US weather frequencies, which are useless here, they won't have the full NZ fm band, for starters.
thanks. Will it be obvious?
Bands on the radio should match these.
NOAA. US weather band. Is not used in NZ.
US broadcasters use the same AM/FM bands that we do.
Sórry. If they are sourced in Japan etc.
Even if they have NOAA channels, they still may not cover NZ fm band fully. Been caught out before.
For mine the biggest issue is onboard batteries, they die, and making sure that any device you're going to rely on can use replaceable batteries. Hence the packs of batteries with a long shelf life.
Well said Kay!!!
Excellent article, thanks for writing it. I often wonder what is happening in NZ's media
Thank you Mountain Tui. We have to keep the pressure on our politicians.