RNZ's budget has been cut by almost $5 million a year. Photo / RNZ
The axe has come down on shows, roles and an entire youth strategy after budget cuts at RNZ. The broadcaster reveals the number of jobs to go - and the likely savings.
RNZ’s youth platform Tahi has been scrapped, along with various cuts to its weekend shows and presenting roles, as part of the public broadcaster’s response to an almost $5 million annual funding reduction.
The public broadcaster is also cutting one of two presenting roles on its Sunday afternoon Culture 101 show, as well as the At The Movies film review segment, and some other programming.
An RNZ spokeswoman said today eight roles were impacted by the changes, including an existing vacant position.
“We are recruiting three roles to work across music, arts and culture. As we are currently in a recruitment process, we cannot confirm final savings but expect these to be in excess of $300,000 a year.”
Media Insider revealed last month RNZ was planning to ditch Tahi, part of broader proposed changes to its coverage of music, arts and culture in light of Government budget cuts.
One source said Tahi’s social media growth had been “abysmal”.
“The youth market is notoriously difficult and despite the hard work of everyone involved, Tahi has not reached the target audience to the extent that would justify continuing to fund it,” RNZ said in a statement today.
RNZ said its Culture 101 show – which airs from 12pm to 4pm on Sundays – would drop from two presenters to one.
“This is to bring the programme in line with its sister show Music 101 and to boost production of the show,“ RNZ said.
RNZ said it was also cutting its At the Movies weekend radio segment, although it would retain the movie review show in podcast format.
The one-hour Sunday Sampler show had also ended.
The Government announced in May’s Budget that taxpayer funding for RNZ would be slashed by almost $5 million a year – about 7% of its annual budget.
The Government has said it wants to see improved audience reach, trust and transparency.
“With the reduction in RNZ’s funding in this year’s budget, RNZ reviewed how it covers music, arts and culture to determine whether it could be more effective at reaching audiences across platforms and be more efficient,” RNZ said in its statement today.
“This means there will be some programming changes. We recognise that change is difficult for audiences and kaimahi [staff].
“As a publicly funded media organisation, RNZ has a responsibility to assess and ensure all parts of the organisation are performing in a way that delivers for our audience and serves the public interest.”
RNZ interim head of content John Hartevelt – in referring to Tahi’s closure – said expansion of platforms such as YouTube and TikTok had made it difficult to support dedicated youth channels.
“We are able to reach younger audiences by making our content freely available on those platforms, and our focus will now be on making sure we continue to offer a wide range of vibrant content that fulfils our charter requirements to reach audiences of all ages.”
The final Tahi podcast will be released on November 6.
Tahi was established in 2021 and followed a disastrous separate attempt by RNZ in 2020 to turn Concert FM’s nationwide FM frequencies into a music-based network for young listeners. The idea was killed by fervent public and political opposition.
Between 2013 and 2018, RNZ also operated a digital youth-focused website called The Wireless. This was eventually folded back into RNZ’s website.
For the past four years, Tahi has been operating on social media platforms and streaming music on its own website, tahi.fm.
Despite the protestations of legendary actor Sir Sam Neill, RNZ is cutting its At the Movies film review segment.
“Who is running RNZ?“ Neill wrote on Instagram last month.
”What cloth-eared clowns got that job? Fix this, the country is angry.”
RNZ said today: “Part of the review into how RNZ covers music, arts and culture looked at how we are ensuring audiences benefit from a variety of voices.
“As a result, RNZ is changing how we meet the audience demand for film reviews, through the introduction of multiple contributors that will allow for an increased diversity of viewpoints and for more reviews to appear across RNZ’s platforms.”
Despite the end of the At the Movies radio show, an At the Movies podcast feed “will be retained as a showcase for the wide range of reviews on RNZ National”.
In news that will be music to Neill’s ears, RNZ did say it would be confirming summer programming, including Matinee Idle – another Neill favourite – shortly.
While The Sunday Sampler segment had ended, RNZ said its long-running album review segment, The Sampler, continued as part of the Music 101 show on Saturdays.
“Music reviews will continue across RNZ’s radio programming and digital platforms, ensuring all of RNZ’s audiences can benefit.”
RNZ has not yet revealed the level of savings as a result of these changes, or how many people have lost their roles.
RNZ has been contacted for comment.
A source told Media Insider last month that Tahi was RNZ’s third or fourth attempt at a youth-focused brand, and it had “failed every time”.
“If you want to achieve something that hasn’t been achieved before, you have to try things that haven’t been tried before, and you have to put effort into those things.”
Within RNZ, there was a process known by some as the “RNZ complicator”, the source said.
“Whenever you try and do anything, it becomes incredibly complicated, and there are all these boxes to tick and 15 people you have to talk to, and they all have to approve it.
“So, at the end of the day, nothing actually happens and nothing gets innovated.”
According to a scan of its social media pages last month, Tahi has 3120 subscribers on YouTube, just over 8000 Instagram followers and 11,200 TikTok followers.
The source said growth on the likes of Instagram had been “abysmal”.
“There’s a real culture of everyone acting like everything’s fine all the time, even when it’s clearly quite horrific, and that is definitely the case with Tahi.”
The source pointed to the engagement on Tahi platforms and podcasts, saying the brand had been basically left to its own devices.
NZME, publisher of the NZ Herald, has also launched and closed two youth-focused brands in recent years, including digital audio brand Kick and social media brand What the Actual?!
Editor-at-Large Shayne Currie is one of New Zealand’s most experienced senior journalists and media leaders. He has held executive and senior editorial roles at NZME including managing editor, NZ Herald editor and Herald on Sunday editor and has a small shareholding in NZME.