Stuff-Newshub TV news deal: Six questions for 6pm - a new-look evening news and a leading contender to front it

ANALYSIS

Sinead Boucher and Glen Kyne sat side-by-side on perfectly aligned chairs in the seventh-floor conference room at Stuff’s Auckland HQ as their media inquisitors filed in and out, in military-like precision, for personal interviews about the new-look 6pm news. They looked like a pair of newsreaders themselves.

You have five minutes, instructed the PR organiser. I’ll knock on the door, she added, when there’s just over a minute to go.

She left Boucher, the owner of Stuff, and Kyne, the New Zealand boss of Warner Bros Discovery, to face the onslaught together.

Warner Bros Discovery's Glen Kyne and Stuff's Sinead Boucher at a press conference to mark Stuff's takeover of the 6pm news on Three from early July. Photo / Michael Craig

Five minutes is an incredibly short time to steer through a list of questions - and there were certainly a good number after the initial press statement and then press conference on Tuesday to announce that Stuff and Warner Bros Discovery had signed a deal to save the 6pm news on Three (TV3).

Together in the conference room with Media Insider, the pair were upbeat, smiling, happy but also realistic. There is a lot of work still to be done.

From early July, Stuff will provide a one-hour weekday news bulletin and half-hour weekend news bulletins for Warner Bros Discovery (WBD) - the deal starts on Saturday, July 6, the day after WBD’s Newshub shuts down for good, with the loss of up to 300 jobs.

The Stuff deal is positive news for the public in almost every respect - it was couched as such by the two companies and welcomed as such by rivals, including NZME - especially after the dark days of the past six weeks.

It means some jobs will be saved - perhaps several dozen - and viewers will still have a choice of TV news at 6pm each day.

And it’s exciting in terms of what Stuff might be able to come up with in terms of a new news product in 80 short days.

But there’s a far deeper question about just how many people will still be tuning into those bulletins in the coming months and years. For all the PR lines about modernising and innovating the news, the sad reality is that viewers are switching off traditional television.

In reality, the new deal is more an attempt by Warner Bros Discovery - soon to be free of a huge and costly newsroom - to preserve what’s left of traditional television revenue in the short term. That revenue is still substantial, advertising sources say - in the low tens of millions each year for Three’s bulletin, but it is falling.

Warner Bros Discovery’s new deal will see the American giant pay an annual fee to Stuff to provide the daily news bulletins.

Stuff says it’s happy with the financial deal - the annual fee it receives is likely to be in the low millions of dollars - and says it will be enough to give it a margin, once you take out the cost of hiring more staff and producing and broadcasting a daily news bulletin.

So, we know the length of the bulletins and the start date but, beyond that, not a lot else.

We don’t know, for example, what the two companies have agreed to, financially. We don’t know the name of the bulletin, although it won’t be Newshub. Perhaps StuffHub or Stuff at 6?

We don’t know the length of the contract or even who will be hosting the bulletins, although it’s widely anticipated there will be just one newsreader.

Media Insider understands Samantha Hayes is a leading contender for the weekday bulletin - both companies say they will be collaborating closely over appointing a newsreader/s and determining the look and tone of the bulletin more generally.

Newshub newsreader Samantha Hayes.

But ultimately, it will be Stuff’s baby and Stuff’s responsibility - it seems likely there will be up to 30 or 40 new staff (including the newsreader/s) employed by Stuff, although this is not confirmed either. Many will have to have technical experience - camera people, technicians and producers.

Stuff says it will be also relying on its existing journalists and newsrooms around New Zealand. They’re already trained in visual journalism, although some might need a refresher course, Boucher said at an earlier press conference in the Stuff office, surrounded by journalists - those visiting, and those working there.

The deal certainly represents a major step-change for New Zealand media - and is one of the starkest examples yet of the convergence that has engulfed the media industry over the past decade.

As the likes of Stuff and NZME’s NZ Herald have invested considerably in video news in that time, so too have TVNZ, RNZ and Warner Bros Discovery invested in their text-based news websites.

All media companies are striving to focus on the best ways to engage their audiences, especially digitally.

But Stuff’s new deal is a big leap - a company with a proud print and digital background that is now jumping into the traditional broadcasting space. It is bold, brave and not without danger.

Six key points for 6pm:

1. Stuff’s new deal represents considerable opportunity but also risk. In light of the troubled media environment and struggling economy, Stuff can probably ill-afford any endeavour that doesn’t have a reasonable profit margin. It will be keeping a close eye on the costs of producing the new bulletin, while also ensuring it does not pare it back to the extent that it noticeably impacts quality for audience/advertisers. And Warner Bros Discovery will be keeping a close watch too.
2. Stuff will need to quickly bring on board outgoing Newshub talent who are prepared to be agile for a new digital world - that’s a massive task in itself. The production team will be as important as journalists and any on-air broadcasting talent, given Stuff’s lack of experience on the technical TV side.
3. Stuff will use Newshub’s existing Flower St studios initially but is likely to need to enlist the help of the likes of Sky Television for the use of studios, equipment and other production expertise longer-term. Boucher is keen to speak to Sky about Stuff producing its 5.30pm news bulletin, as Newshub currently does.
4. Stuff has a content-sharing agreement with TVNZ - I’m not sure that’s now sustainable, although TVNZ says it’s too early to say. There are a mass of agreements that Stuff and Warner Bros Discovery will need to work through, too, and then there’s the question of Stuff now falling under the Broadcasting Standards Authority’s jurisdiction, which sounds like a bureaucratic nightmare, given it also comes under the Media Council. Perhaps the Government might help.
5. While NZME missed the opportunity to provide a new TV service to Newshub, it might have also dodged something of a bullet. Chief executive Michael Boggs told staff on Tuesday that the Stuff announcement was positive news for the news industry. For NZME, which last week said it expected boosted earnings this year, he said: “Adding another element to our business right now would have only been a distraction - something that would need lots of extra resource, and some important projects we’re currently working on would’ve needed to go on the back burner. We are able to offer jobs at NZME to a number of people across Newshub and TVNZ who have lost their roles - more on that to come.”
6. In my view, Stuff’s competitors, such as NZME, should now quickly double down on digital video news in the evenings - NZME should look at what it can do with its considerable, existing broadcasting talent such as Heather du Plessis-Allan, Madison Reidy, Cheree Kinnear and potentially any new names from Newshub. TVNZ will no doubt be emphasising its television production expertise and quality in meetings with advertising agencies and clients. They and other media companies will be still seeking to pick up as much revenue as possible once Newshub goes off air on July 5.

• 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.