NBR senior journalist and former Newshub presenter Mike McRoberts. Photo / Sylvie Whinray
RNZ plans to ditch youth brand and some on-air weekend roles; Politicians, business leaders receive hacked Mike McRoberts email; NZ on Air-NZ Film Commission merger axed; Why the ban on Sunday morning TV advertising has not yet lifted; The Spinoff reveals new editor.
RNZ is planning to ditch its youth brand Tahi, part of broader proposed changes to its coverage of music, arts and culture in light of Government budget cuts.
One source says Tahi’s social media growth has been “abysmal”.
The public broadcaster is also planning changes for some of its weekend RNZ National schedule, including a proposal to disestablish the existing two presenter/producer roles for its Culture 101 show, which airs from 12pm-4pm on Sundays.
It is understood that it may be looking to create a single on-air role.
RNZ is also proposing to disestablish a specific movie-reviewing role – it has a producer for a segment called At the Movies – for a broader range of entertainment reviews.
RNZ interim head of content John Hartevelt said the proposed changes to RNZ’s coverage of music, arts and culture were a “necessary response to the reduction of RNZ’s funding”.
Taxpayer funding for RNZ is being slashed by almost $5 million a year - about 7% of its annual budget - and the Government has said it wants to see improved audience reach, trust and transparency.
Hartevelt said: “The [change] proposal aims to allow RNZ to adapt to the changes in audience behaviour and spread the available funding for this type of content more evenly across platforms, while allowing for a wider range of voices and a structure that fosters collaboration.
“We have shared the proposal with impacted kaimahi [staff] and will not be commenting further on it while we await their feedback.”
Media Insider has been leaked a specific proposal that includes “decommissioning the Tahi podcast and platforms”.
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.
“We just wanted to make something cool for young people,” RNZ’s then head of content Megan Whelan said in 2021. “We went through a whole process, we did research, we talked to a lot of young people.”
A source told Media Insider it 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 this week, 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?!
Hackers managed to infiltrate the work email address of journalist and broadcaster Mike McRoberts yesterday, attempting to use it to trick other journalists, politicians and business leaders.
A range of people received an email from the work address of the National Business Review (NBR) Te Ao Māori editor and former Newshub presenter.
The email carried a link to a PDF document, which recipients were urged to “kindly review”.
However, clicking on the link would have exposed the recipients’ own personal data.
A little over an hour later, NBR’s customer team emailed recipients.
“We’re writing to you today with an urgent security alert. It has come to our attention that a spam email was sent this morning from an account impersonating our Te Ao Māori editor, Mike McRoberts.
“Please delete this email immediately and do not click on any links or open any attachments. This email is a sophisticated phishing attempt designed to steal personal information. We want to be clear that this email did not originate from our systems. We are actively investigating the situation to determine the source of this malicious activity.
“We sincerely apologise for any alarm or inconvenience this has caused. Thank you for your understanding.”
McRoberts – an unwitting and innocent bystander – told Media Insider the saga was “incredibly annoying”.
“I was on stage MCing the Taituarā local government conference in Christchurch when my phone started blowing up with everyone from politicians to business and iwi leaders calling to tell me I’d been hacked.
“NBR quickly resolved it and made everyone aware. The hack originated from Mexico, but that’s about as much as I know.”
NBR later added in an updated email: “We have taken action to prevent further attempts and have strengthened our security protocols to better protect our system from future attacks.”
NZME and Stuff – no. TVNZ and RNZ – no.
And now, it’s also a “no” for the proposed merger of screen funding agencies NZ on Air and the New Zealand Film Commission.
The Government had raised the prospect of a merger as one of five key planks in its media reforms package announced earlier this year.
Media and Communications Minister Paul Goldsmith said the Government was no longer considering the marriage, which would have been in line with how Screen Australia operates across the Tasman.
“There’s a strong case for some sort of merger eventually; however, I’m conscious of the distraction, time and energy consumed by structural change, and so we will not be pressing ahead immediately,” Goldsmith told Media Insider in a statement.
“Additionally, there is a lot of legislation before the House and the Government is focusing on other priorities for the rest of the parliamentary term.”
An earlier discussion document described New Zealand’s screen current funding regime as “splintered and overlapping”.
“This distinction is increasingly blurred by shifts in how content is produced and consumed, and there are now overlaps in the entities’ functions and the sectors they support,” it said.
“Change could support more coherent and impactful delivery of public funding for content and industry development, particularly in the screen sector. Change could also create back-office efficiency and support streamlined administration processes for funding applicants.”
The other four key areas of the media reforms package are still under consideration. These are:
A 73-word bill that lifts a ban on TV advertising on Sunday mornings and certain public holidays has been delayed, yet again.
It had earlier been couched as one of the easiest and quickest ways the Government could support the media sector – a key plank in Goldsmith’s “immediate” actions.
According to some estimates, the lifting of the ban would bring a total additional $6 million in advertising revenue into the media sector this year – hardly earth-shattering, but a start.
In July last year, the Government said the new law would be in place by late 2024.
That was then pushed out to June this year, because of a drawn-out Parliamentary process. But there’s now no firm date.
Labour has had to support the bill after National’s coalition partner, NZ First, rejected the idea.
The bill has had its second reading, but there’s no date for its third and final reading.
“We want to pass the bill as quickly as possible; however, we’re a busy Government with lots of legislation before the House,” Goldsmith said in a statement.
Labour Media and Communications spokesman Reuben Davidson said: “For such an innocuous piece of legislation, it is moving incredibly slowly. I think the minister’s struggling to convince his full coalition that progressing it is a good idea.”
Davidson said NZ First had voted against the bill at every opportunity.
“We’ve supported it at both readings but with strong criticism that in and of itself, it’s going to have such a minor effect.
“I mean, it’s pitiful really and needed to be part of a much bigger suite of support for the media sector, which is – despite promises of immediate action – missing in action.”
NZ First MP Jenny Marcroft told Parliament during the bill’s second reading in July: “Sunday mornings have become the time for screening special-interest programmes, and my colleague [Green MP] Hūhana Lyndon outlined a number of those special programmes that attract [a] minority audience of little value to advertisers, although don’t tell Jack Tame that.”
She said Sunday morning shows such as Tagata Pasifika, Attitude, Q+A (hosted by Tame), Praise Be, Neighbourhood and What Now were “really important programmes”.
“ ... if there was commercialisation pumped in around those programmes, the value of those time slots would change, and those programmes might be pushed out to where there’s absolutely no audience or might be gone altogether. Take a look at Sunday.
“The important role of television in connecting to marginalised niche or other non-commercial audiences should not be overlooked. Sunday morning has become a place to do that.”
The Government’s biggest piece of planned media legislation, the Fair Digital News Bargaining Bill, has been placed not so much on the back burner as taken to the bach and placed under a covered-up, disused BBQ.
The law would force the likes of Google and Meta to help pay for the journalism that drives their algorithms and hugely profitable business models.
“No decisions have been made,” said Goldsmith, when asked for an update on the progress of that bill.
“When we have something to announce, we will. It is important we’re cautious in how we proceed. The global political climate is just one of the factors we have to consider.”
For that bill, NZ First has previously been in support, but Act has opposed it.
NZME, Stuff, Are Media and others were all proclaiming strong readership results, with the announcement yesterday of the latest Nielsen data.
NZME trumpeted the NZ Herald brand (print and digital) audience – it said it had been “consistently growing for the last five surveys, now reaching 2.39 million Kiwis each week (+139,000 readers year on year)”. It also championed New Zealand’s most popular news app and newspaper.
In a separate release, NZME said its new Herald Now morning news show had attracted 2.4m views in July, across YouTube and nzherald.co.nz - it did not give a specific breakdown for each platform.
Stuff, on the other hand, was celebrating “reaching 3.4 million Kiwis every month” as well as its monthly online audience numbers – in July, Stuff had a unique audience of 2.25 million versus nzherald.co.nz’s 1.9 million.
Stuff also highlighted the growth of The Post brand – across digital and print, 812,000 people now read The Post each month.
Are Media, meanwhile, was celebrating its own readership increases – now at a total 1,912,000 readers, up 22,0000. Lifestyle titles NZ Woman’s Weekly, Woman’s Day and the Australian Women’s Weekly were each up 3%.
“Are Media also retained the coveted crowns for most-read weekly title held by NZ Woman’s Weekly, and most-read monthly title held by Kia Ora," a company press release said.
“This is another great result for our print readership and, combined with the significant growth we’ve achieved across digital, ensures we can continue to provide advertisers with highly engaged audiences in key lifestyle verticals at scale,” Are Media NZ general manager Stuart Dick said.
Highly respected journalist Veronica Schmidt has been appointed the new editor of The Spinoff.
She will step into the role in November – the fourth editor in The Spinoff’s 11-year history, following on from Duncan Greive, Toby Manhire and current editor Madeleine Chapman.
“I’m so excited to be joining The Spinoff, a platform I’ve always admired for its unique voice, sharp commentary and commitment to local stories. Madeleine Chapman and the team have done such a great job building a dynamic and trusted publication,” Schmidt said in a statement.
“I’m really looking forward to working with this talented group of writers and producers to continue delivering the fresh, witty and bold journalism The Spinoff is known for, and to explore new ways to connect with their audience.”
Schmidt has more than 20 years’ experience in journalism, as a reporter and writer, newsroom leader and editor.
She launched and led RNZ’s investigative and long-form InDepth team, and was more recently TVNZ’s general manager of digital news and content. She left that role earlier this year to take up the position of director of communications at NZEI.
She has written for the likes of The Times (UK), the Listener, Metro, NZ Herald and Sunday Star-Times.
The Spinoff CEO Amber Easby said the appointment signalled an exciting new chapter.
“We are thrilled to welcome a leader of Veronica’s calibre to The Spinoff,” she said.
“Her track record in building and leading high-performing teams is exceptional. Veronica’s strategic vision for digital media and her proven leadership will be invaluable as we continue to evolve. We are incredibly excited for her to lead our talented editorial team and guide The Spinoff into its next era of growth.”
Congratulations to all the big winners at this year’s Marketing Awards.
Individual and Overall/Supreme Award Winners
Brand of the Year: Vogel’s
Marketer of the Year: ANZ marketing general manager Matthew Pickering
Marketing Team of the Year: Zuru Group
Marketer of the Future: Goodman Fielder brand manager Simran Wadhawan
Marketing Hall of Fame: Craig Baldie, Lion NZ managing director
Best Overall Marketing Campaign: Animates NZ Holdings
Supreme Marketing Excellence: Spark New Zealand
International judge Thomas Barta said: “The top brands stood out this year by transforming the way people act, buy and choose.”
Vogel’s took out Brand of the Year because, Barta said, “their brave creative work didn’t just move customer hearts, it moved wallets”.
One of the country’s biggest PR agencies has launched a reputation-impact side hustle – complete with a very clever name.
Pead PR is launching a specialist division, Houston Issues Management, to help firms “proactively prepare for and respond to issues that impact their reputation”.
It’s named after that infamous – but widely misquoted – line from the Apollo 13 space mission in 1970: “Houston, we have a problem...” (the commander of the flight actually stated: “Houston, we’ve had a problem.”)
“In today’s fast-paced digital world, reputation risk is everywhere. News spreads instantly, digital footprints last forever, and in New Zealand word travels fast. One issue, big or small, can derail sales, damage relationships and shake team culture,” Pead PR partner Louisa Kraitzick said.
“The risk landscape is intensifying at a time when the stakes for business have never been higher, which is why we are launching this service.”
Houston Issues Management would provide a suite of services to help businesses and would be “staffed by senior issues management specialists”.
Pead PR founder and chair Deborah Pead said: “Too often, businesses turn to their lawyers first, who, with respect, don’t always provide the practical insights and communication strategies needed to navigate public perception.
“Our formalised service will help companies strengthen resilience before a crisis strikes ... ”
Don’t miss the new sitcom The Paper, which rolls out on TVNZ+ from today.
The producers behind The Office have brought the same fly-on-the-wall perspective to a struggling newspaper, the Toledo Truth Teller.
The Paper stars Domhnall Gleeson as the incoming editor-in-chief trying to sort out an eclectic group of newsroom staff, while striving to uncover big stories in the community.
There are some laugh-out-loud moments in the opening episodes, although I suspect this series will appeal mainly to media-minded folk.
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.