Broadcasting Minister Clare Curran reveals who gets what in Budget funding

Broadcasting Minister Clare Curran has announced where funding for public media will go. Photo / NZ Herald

Radio New Zealand will receive $4.5 million in Budget funding, a fraction of what it might have been expecting, to build up its multi-media platforms.

Broadcasting Minister Clare Curran today revealed how the $15m announced in the Budget for public media would be divided up between RNZ, NZ on Air and a new innovation fund.

"RNZ will receive $4.5 million to extend its services to reach more people in different ways. It takes RNZ several steps closer toward the fully digital multi-platform public media organisation - RNZ+," Curran said in a statement.

She also revealed a new $6m innovation fund to drive more public media content for under-served audiences such as Māori and Pacific Peoples, children and regional New Zealand.

"The new Innovation Fund will see RNZ commissioning content in a joint venture with NZ On Air. The multi-media content developed with this funding will air on RNZ platforms and be commissioned from the independent production sector using NZ On Air's existing funding processes," Curran said.

Final decisions on programming rested with RNZ and NZ On Air but Curran said she expected additional content, along with news and current affairs, for under-served audiences.

"This exciting concept signals a new type of sector-wide collaboration. Quality New Zealand programming and journalism are crucial to our national identity and need this type of innovative, ongoing and sustainable resourcing."

NZ On Air would receive $4m to support the production of more diverse local content.

Curran said public media in New Zealand was poorly funded, compared with other countries.

"The $216 million being spent on all broadcasting purposes in 2017/18 is clearly inadequate. Denmark invests $935 million in public broadcasters, and Australia nearly $1.5 billion. This increase for New Zealand public media is just the beginning. With it we're on our way to a fully comprehensive pubic media which tells our stories, in our own voice," she said

The remaining $500,000 would go to researching how Crown-funded media agencies could use their assets more efficiently and to work out the level of funding required for an effective public media well into the future.

"Over time, I want to develop the public media system into a full, modern, multi-platform service for the entire population, comparable to top public broadcasting services in other OECD countries," Curran said.

Labour had promised before the election that it would commit $38m to public broadcasting, with RNZ expected to receive the lion's share.

By Budget day in May, that had been whittled down to $15m.

Curran had been keen to see a new television channel, a vision that was shared by former RNZ head of content Carol Hirschfeld, who was put in charge of the RNHZ+ project.

It was that shared vision that brought about the end of Hirschfeld's career after she repeatedly told her bosses that a meeting with Curran late last year was a chance encounter.

RNZ bosses were not so enamoured of the television idea but were keen to expand the public broadcaster's digital media platforms.

Earlier this year Curran set up an advisory group to establish a public media funding commission.

She said today she was now considering its report on that.