Media Releases

RNZ's 2025 programming highlights

Released at 11:59 am on 23 January 2025

Regular programming resumes on 27 January

RNZ National and RNZ Concert summer schedules wrap up on Sunday 26 January, with the regular programmes and presenters back on air from Monday 27 January.

RNZ Pacific’s key news programme and podcast Pacific Waves is also back on air from next week.

The country's Best News & Current Affairs Podcast (NZ Radio & Podcast Awards 2024) The Detail returns six days a week from Monday 27 January.

Amanda Gillies officially joins the team alongside Sharon Brettkelly, Gwen McClure and Davina Zimmer, led by Alexia Russell. The Detail is produced by Newsroom for RNZ.

Long-running podcasts Our Changing World, Here Now, Country Life and Mediawatch return next week to podcast platforms, and RNZ National and rangatahi podcast The TAHI returns every Tuesday and Thursday from 28 January.

Programming highlights

Chinese New Year
Farewell Guangdong – seven stories of love, humility, and sacrifice. An intergenerational celebration of women from our Chinese New Zealand community. Farewell Guangdong will launch on rnz.co.nz on 29 January to coincide with Lunar New Year.

The RNZ Chinese team will have extensive coverage of Lunar New Year celebrations and more stories about Aotearoa’s Chinese community at rnz.co.nz/chinese.

Waitangi Day

With knowledge comes understanding, and with understanding comes change. Treaty Talks is an eight-part visual podcast series that seeks to educate both Māori and non-Māori audiences about the Treaty of Waitangi and its historical and contemporary significance in the context of colonisation, creating dialogue that encourages cultural exchange and understanding among diverse audiences. Launching on Monday 3 February, Treaty Talks is presented by Kara Rickard (Ngāti Porou, Ngāti Koata, Tainui).

RNZ National will broadcast the Dawn Service on Thursday 6 February, followed by Waitangi Day with Julian Wilcox and Mihingarangi Forbes live from the Treaty Grounds. RNZ’s Māori News Team will be reporting on all the key events on air and online, and an episode of Māori current affairs programme MATA with Mihingarangi Forbes will also be recorded at Waitangi, and the first programme of Māpuna with Julian Wilcox for 2025 will be broadcast from Waitangi on Saturday 1 February at midday.

RNZ Concert’s Music Alive programme will feature Whirimako Black: Jazz at the Opera House at 8pm. In this Wellington Jazz Festival concert (2021), Black offers unique performances of jazz standards sung in te reo Māori from across her stellar recording career.

The Hui (audio version) will be broadcast on RNZ National again this year, starting on Monday 24 February and will also broadcast audio versions of Te Ao with Moana. Part two of Hori on a Hīkoi will be released in the first quarter of 2025.

Tamariki
Join Suzy & Friends for a weekly slice of a Kiwi kid’s life! Kids share their thoughts, talents, and tales; and hosts Suzy Cato and Trevor Plant share songs, stories, and silliness. Available at rnz.co.nz and podcast apps every Monday, with the 2025 season starting from 10 February.

rnz.co.nz/series will host new seasons of two local video series, with Bird’s Eye View coming to RNZ and the return of What Will I Be Today, originally an audio series, exploring what’s possible in a world of imagination.

Our Changing World visits Antarctica

Step out onto a frozen landscape with New Zealand researchers investigating the future of Antarctica. Each winter the sea ice that forms around Antarctica effectively doubles the size of this massive continent. It’s one of the biggest annual global changes. It reflects sunlight, drives ocean currents and is a home to a host of critters key to the Antarctic food web. For a long time it was increasing, bucking all expectations in our warming climate, but the last few years has seen it flip the other way. Is this a blip, or a trend? And what will it mean for New Zealand and the world?

This six-episode series titled Voice of the Sea Ice will be released weekly on podcast apps on Thursdays from 6 March and will be broadcast on RNZ National.

In production

RNZ turns 100 in 2025 and has commissioned an audio-led multimedia series that will examine how RNZ has been a place of connection for kiwis through significant New Zealand events. The podcast is expected to be released mid-year.

As a platform and partner for producers, RNZ will stream a number of feature-length documentaries in 2025, including a follow up for Ruamata: It’s More than Hockey, which won best Sports Programme at the NZ TV Awards last year and documentary series 1984, about the Sikh Massacre in India and the subsequent diaspora that led to an influx of Punjabi/Sikh immigrants into Aotearoa. I Am A Dark River and The Haka Party Incident will stream on rnz.co.nz following their cinematic releases. In the longer term, Dame Gaylene Preston’s film about the celebrated artist Dame Robin White Grace and cinematic documentary Guardians of the River are in production.

The three arts and culture podcasts commissioned through a Creative New Zealand, RNZ and NZ On Air co-fund are beginning production, with release dates to be confirmed later this year. The Lost Children of Aotearoa will tell a missing chapter in New Zealand’s history – the impact of Māori children being incarcerated and abused by the state. Witi Underwater follows Witi Ihimaera through a year of te reo Māori immersion study tracking the struggles and triumphs of him and his hoa tauira.

Other podcasts in production include The Casefiles of Inspector Cummings, New Zealand’s real-life Sherlock Holmes, Māori Wardens (working title), investigative podcast Nark, a podcast version of The Negotiators television series and the second part of Kim Hill Wants to Know.

There’ll be more to watch across a variety of genres and topics including a third series of multi-platform interview show 30 with Guyon Espiner coming in March, Journey of Scent following a perfume-maker creating bespoke perfumes, Joy, Full & Final sharing the life story of celebrated author Joy Cowley and Isabella, the story of Samoan plus-size model and opera singer Isabella Moore. Gripping documentary series Stolen Lands returns with A Highlanders Quest and Outside the Lines delves into the human facets of sport in Aotearoa where Pacific people over-represent.

A second season of inspirational series on living with disability This is Wheel Life is in production for streaming via rangatahi platform TAHI, along with The All Goods Race, which sees social media stars Torrell Tafa and Terewai Kopua face off in a race across the North Island. Young emerging filmmakers from across Aotearoa release shorts exploring cultural, social and political issues with Day One 2025.

Episode One Redux will see four Pan-Asian teams develop, write and pitch a web series and produce a pilot episode over the span of a year.

Content funders

• Farewell Guangdong, 1984, Stolen Lands: A Highlanders Quest, Lost Children of Aotearoa, The Negotiators Podcast, Joy, Full and Final, Journey of Scent, Outside the Lines, Birds Eye View and What Will I Be Today are funded by NZ On Air.
• Treaty Talks, Witi Underwater and Hori on a Hīkoi are funded by Te Māngai Pāho
• MATA, The Hui, The All Goods Race, Day One 2025 and Te Ao with Moana are supported by NZ On Air and Te Māngai Pāho.
• The Haka Party Incident is funded by NZ Film Commission and RNZ.
• Episode One Redux is funded by NZ On Air, RNZ and University of Auckland – Faculty of Arts.
• I Am A Dark River is funded by Creative New Zealand.
• Grace and The Detail are funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.
• Guardians of the River is funded by RNZ, Screen Australia, VicScreen, Shark Island, Three Springs Foundation.
• Reporting for Voice of the Sea Ice was supported by Antarctica New Zealand's community engagement programme.
• Arts and culture podcasts with the working titles Toitū​ te Toi, Tukua and Orators Anonymous were backed via a Creative New Zealand, NZ On Air and RNZ co-fund.

About RNZ

RNZ is New Zealand’s independent non-commercial public media organisation and has proudly been so for 100 years. 

Public broadcasting began in New Zealand with the establishment of the Radio Broadcasting Company in 1925. The 1995 Radio New Zealand Act established RNZ as a Crown entity with a Charter.  

RNZ National, RNZ Concert and the organisation’s news and digital platforms and content are funded by NZ On Air, with some additional content funded by NZ On Air and other funders including Te Māngai Pāho. RNZ Pacific is funded by the Ministry for Culture and Heritage.