The government has confirmed it is creating a new public media entity next year to incorporate RNZ and TVNZ - and then replace them. It says the goal is public media 'fit for the future', but it will be partly funded by ads and no-one knows how much public funding the government will commit. What new services it might provide and who will run it are also unknown. Mediawatch asks players in the process how it might pan out.
Broadcasting minister Kris Faafoi announcing the new public media entity today. Photo: screenshot / YouTube
When Kris Faafoi appeared on RNZ’s Checkpoint on Tuesday to talk about the urgent issue of visas for Ukrainian migrants, presenter Lisa Owen asked him when he would confirm plans for RNZ and TVNZ.
She was asking more in hope than expectation.
Two weeks had already passed since the Cabinet had reportedly given a green light to replacing them with something new. And ever since he first signaled that more than two years ago, almost everything has been done behind closed doors with only a select few broadcasting executives, civil servants and ministers in the loop.
About 20 minutes after the broadcasting minister was saying ‘wait and see’ last Tuesday, a memo was sent to news media detailing an announcement in Christchurch just two days later.
On Thursday he duly confirmed our existing state-owned broadcasters would be subsumed into one new public media entity (PME) from next year “to future-proof public media for New Zealanders for decades to come.”
“I want to be clear that all current non-commercial programming and platforms will endure. The likes of RNZ National and Concert will continue. In plain English, the government is committed to them,” he said.
“The exciting thing about the new entity is it will create an opportunity for those strongly-focused public media platforms to grow stronger,” he said.
But key things remained unclear about the PME to come - including what new services the public might get on those platforms.
“We'll still have RNZ National and Concert - and doubtless we'll still have TVNZ 1 and 2, Duke and other subsidiary services. But the real issue here is the expansion of public service measures online,’ said Dr. Peter Thompson, who has followed public broadcasting policy and funding closely over the years.
“That's been a mission, certainly for Radio New Zealand, in recent years. It’s realised that it can't rely on all the demographics that it wants to reach coming along and listening to the radio or finding its podcasts,” said Dr. Thompson, who’s also a former chair of campaign group Better Public Media.
“But exactly what it will look like, we don't know. We're not really that much the wiser now from when the minister first started talking about a new entity back in 2019 and 2020,” he said.
What do we get?
Will we end up with a single new service serving both radio and television? One news website where RNZ and TVNZ now operate their own? Will we get new TV channels - commercial or non-commercial - out of this?
The Minister said that details of how the transition would happen would be down to an ‘Establishment Board’ that's not yet been appointed.
“Some of the questions that are being asked today are not for ministers to decide,’ Faafoi told reporters.
Viewers hoping for the return of non-commercial free-to-air TV channels - a decade after TVNZ switched off TVNZ 7 - shouldn’t hold their breath.
A new PME depending heavily on commercial TV revenue is unlikely to launch non-commercial channels that could take the audience away from its commercial ones.
“I don't want to get into the design of the new entity and what it will do. But I think even in that short time, technology has changed. The technology possibilities are much more diverse now than they were,” Faafoi said.
“There has been a bit of commentary about why there hasn't been enough detail here,” Faaoi told Mediawatch.
“But you don't want ministers making those decisions. It is for the Establishment Board - which will have representation from both our RNZ and TVNZ - to make those decisions and make sure that it does work before the entity gets up and running in July next year,” he said.
“Beyond that, there will be a board which will set targets - and the government will set a very clear direction and public media focus for this new entity,” said Faafoi.
Another unanswered question: how will it be funded?
Cabinet papers released previously made it clear the new PME will have “Crown and non-Crown sources of revenue” In other words, a mix of public funding and TV ad revenue.
That means this new entity will depend upon TVNZ’s ability to make money from ads (currently about $300 million a year).
The business case says there's currently $51 million in direct crown funding for RNZ and TVNZ and $14.6 million is budgeted this year for “establishment and integration”
But any estimates of complementary public funding in the future were redacted from the business case and other documents made public the same day as the Minister’s announcement. The minister could only say we'll have to wait till the next Budget to find out.
If the government is committed to this, why not indicate how much it might invest?
“Getting that balance between crown and commercial revenue is going to be one of the challenges that the new entity will have. We've still got to get to that state with the new entity and the personalities who are in it,” Faafoi told Mediawatch.
“That will be able to get us into some exciting and new places in the future, both in a non commercial in a commercial space.” he said.
Been here before?
That's a contrast with the previous policy position of this government.
Back in 2017 it wanted a non-commercial TV channel from RNZ out of a proposed $38 million funding boost to follow - though the policy came to nothing.
Previous Labour governments have made half-hearted, low budget attempts to boost public service television through TVNZ: the TVNZ charter introduced in 2002 and publicly-funded non commercial TVNZ channels were introduced in 2006, but only lasted until 2012.
“You have to organise the funding arrangements alongside the organisational structure. By delegating the those questions to this new establishment committee - and by apparently deferring the funding decisions to the next Budget round - the two may not be aligned,” said Dr Thompson.
“You have to make provisions that go well beyond simply saying: ‘We're committed to it as a government’ - not least because any future government can change that with the stroke of a budget pen,” he said.
It’s a real risk.
Predictably perhaps, the National Party opposed the plan unveiled on Thursday.
Deputy leader Nicola Willis said it would be a costly and unnecessary restructure.
“I'm a little bit concerned about the competition side as well. The merged new media entity could potentially be squeezing all of the private media out,” National’s long serving broadcasting spokesperson Melissa Lee told Mediawatch.
The government plans to make public media “future-proofed”. But is it even change-of-government-proof?
“The National Party is a sensible party,” Lee told Mediawatch.
“It's already cost so many millions of dollars getting to this stage that would have been better spent putting it into content rather than fiddling around with the actual structure and providing uncertainty for people,” said Lee, who formerly made publicly-funded current affairs shows for TVNZ.
“But I don't think any National government would actually unpick something just for the sake of unpicking it,” she added.
“Radio New Zealand journalists and TVNZ journalists both take pride in their own entities and actually do their very best job. Now how they are actually going to work is unsure. Where does the editorial lead actually come from?” she asked.
Strings attached?
Faafoi insists independence from government will be baked in to the new entity.
“It's written into the law that the current entities are both operationally and editorially (independent). And the law (for the new entity) will mirror that,” he said.
“In my days back at TVNZ, there's nothing than we enjoyed more than making sure that we expressed that independence. I would expect that to continue and the new entity as well,” Faafoi told Mediawatch.
RNZ’s top brass backed the PME plan enthusiastically from the start, and even in the absence of key details like how much money the government will put where its mouth is.
Why is chief executive Paul Thompson confident that this will be better for RNZ’s audiences than the way things are now?
“The policy really does take a good look at the problems that it's hoping to deal with - the almost unrivaled power of the global platforms, misinformation and disinformation, the commercial pressures on all advertising-dependent media businesses are facing,’ Thompson told Mediawatch.
“And while we know that RNZ and TVNZ are strong in broadcasting and getting stronger in digital delivery, there's a lot more that will need to happen to deliver on that public media charter. That's the other thing which I think the policy has got right which gives me confidence,” he said.
But without firm and ongoing funding commitments, how can he be sure?
“I'm waiting to see that myself. I think it's a big question,” he said.
“We're just under 18 months away from day one for the new entity. So those gaps will need to be filled by then,” he said.
“There has to be an increase in funding for this new entity to make a difference . . and allow us to fulfill that charter. As a not-for-profit entity, any profit that it generates will be ploughed back into public media services. The cabinet paper actually makes it really clear that those earnings go back into fulfilling the public media charter - not supporting the commercial media activities,” he said.
Clash of cultures?
TVNZ has long been an aggressively-commercial operator maximising free-to-air TV audiences for advertising revenue.
It paid out $77m in salaries in 2021 and currently employs more than 300 people earning more than $100k a year, according to its last annual report. RNZ’s total annual budget in 2021 was just $42m.
The new entity will still depend on its ability to sell its audience to TV advertisers. It will need to do multi-billion dollar deals with offshore entertainment companies for crowd-pleasing content - as well as covering the expanding costs of existing and new public service stuff.
Pushback against the public service tail wagging the commercial dog is likely, even if they’re all wearing the same badge in future.
“This organisation is going to be mandated to deliver public media services and to prioritise them. That will not happen if commercial imperatives dominate. Cabinet’s been really, really clear on that. The policy is really sound. The next step is to get that into a good piece of legislation with a strong charter,” Thompson told Mediawatch.
“None of this will be easy, but it is absolutely achievable,’ he said.
“Internal competition within media companies is not a new thing. But I think there's a real challenge for the people working in both organisations . . . being open to doing things differently,” Thompson said.
“You can't be an RNZ-er or a TVNZ-er in this new environment. You'll need to become committed to the new entity.”
”I think all of those questions you've raised will be dealt with by the board and the management team. That's the right place for them to be determined. You would not want to be coming into a new organisation where a lot of the details had already been worked through. The board and the management team need to make this thing come alive,” he said.
Thompson has led RNZ for nearly a decade and is the longest-serving media boss in the country. His TVNZ counterpart Simon Power started the job just two weeks ago.
Does he want to run the new entity?
“Lots of people have asked me that question, but I'm not going to comment on it,” Thompson told Mediawatch.
Power appeared on TVNZ’s 1 News last Thursday to applaud his shareholder’s plan for public media - and reiterate assurance of editorial independence.
But TVNZ’s official response on Thursday came from commercial director Jodi O'Donnell.
“We are pleased the announcement has confirmed the dual-funded nature of this new entity,” she said.
That would be music to the ears of the former TVNZ journalist behind the plan.
Just 12 years ago, Faafoi he was covering politics at Parliament for TVNZ.
For years, critics have complained it makes little sense for the Crown to own a heavily-commercial TV broadcaster - especially one that returns so little (and in recent years, nothing) to the state coffers.
Treasury has warned successive governments TVNZ may actually require financial help to stay afloat in future. The business case for the new PME also said TVNZ’s revenues would decline further in the years ahead.
Was that a big driver of the current decision?
“The changing tide for TVNZ (is) a reflection of the fact that revenue is changing for them . . . because technology is changing and audiences are changing. And we need to change our legislation to allow us to move into different platforms (as well as) on television and radio. Times are changing, and we need to change with it,” Faafoi said.
Mashed together? Or more joined up?
The business case - which we are now finally able to see - concluded current arrangements are “inflexible, inefficient and disjointed.”
“Public media entities will struggle to maintain current provision, even with increases in public funding,” it says.
What will be more efficient about the new structure, beyond cost savings from single premises letterheads and so on?
“A lot of the things you mentioned, while important to their troops on the ground, are the ‘administrivia’ of it. I think the really important thing is the content ability here,” said Faafoi.
Faafoi cited the controversy over RNZ Concert in 2020.
“One of the restrictions based on funding and the mandate that RNZ has had in the past is to be able to branch out into different platforms. If we can make a better investment in the likes of our Symphony Orchestra, they can have a presence on RNZ Concert and also on a different platform that is visual,” he said.
“Then I think you're getting a better reflection of the kinds of cultures . . . that you have in the country that I don't think we're quite able to make at the moment. If you tell a story in the new media entity, I think it can go across all platforms and therefore be exposed to different audiences.”
