Final decisions around TVNZ ’s newsroom restructure will be announced in the coming days.
The state-owned televisionbroadcaster’s chief executive Jodi O’Donnell appeared before MPs at select committee today for its annual review where she outlined, people, technology and content as thethree big costs for the company.
O’Donnell said TVNZ was trying to protect content as much as possible in its cost-cutting exercise.
In the past year a number of changes and cuts have been undertaken, most prominently the decision to end popular TV shows, Sunday and Fair Go –replacing them with a slimmed-down team producing video content for the news tab on TVNZ+.
O’Donnell said audience numbers using the news tab on TVNZ+ had nearly doubled in the five months since they had been providing the content.
And while the talent from the investigative journalism teams had not been completely retained, she said the delivery of news and current affairs has been.
“Our commitment to news and current affairs has not changed. We’ll continue to spend over $40 million investing in news and current affairs content, so whilst Sunday and Fair Go – the broadcast shows – are no longer on our screens, a lot of the talent and the stories that they told are still being made available to be executed on our streaming platform, TVNZ+,” O’Donnell said.
“I think we’re still able to tell as many stories as we can within the current environment we’re in.
“So it might not be exactly as it was before but we’re evolving our business ... and we believe that what we are delivering in terms of investigative stories, are meeting the needs of our audience.”
“We decided to not go with that option,” she said, but noted TVNZ had been clear that the website is losing money.
Asked if television reporters would be expected to double as digital reporters to provide more content for the website in future, she said “it’s important that we support and upskill our people to be able to do that”.
On Wednesday, the chair and chief executive of RNZ also presented for their annual review.
RNZ chairman Jim Mather (left), and chief executive Paul Thompson (right) at Parliament's social services and community select committee. Watching on from behind are TVNZ chairman Alastair Carruthers (left), TVNZ chief operating officer Brent McAnulty (centre) and TVNZ chief executive Jodi O'Donnell (right).
Chairman Jim Mather told MPs it had been a challenging year for the wider media sector “and the past year has been marked by a sharp decline in editorial staff and journalism and programme content”.
“These events have reinforced the need for having a public media service.”
Amidst all those challenges, however, RNZ had last month achieved a goal set for 2027 to have 80% of New Zealanders aged 18+ digesting RNZ content each month.
Trust in RNZ continued to track higher than other media outlets, but while it had increased by 4%, chief executive Paul Thompson was clear that was still only “scraping 50%”.
Asked by Act MP Todd Stephenson whether RNZ received complaints about its coverage not being balanced, Thompson said, “accuracy and fairness tend to be what people complain about”.
“We’re not perfect, no media organisation is, but this is really important to us.”
Thompson said he wasn’t concerned that salary costs had risen $5 million as it was clearly part of RNZ’s plan to “build capacity and modernise the organisation”.
“We’re also having to invest in having a cyber programme, that all costs money.”
He told reporters following select committee that the movement in pay bands, and more staff earning over $100,000 was largely down to bringing people in on fixed term contracts to help with transformation and technology.
“We are growing and trying to do more. The media system in New Zealand is incredibly fragile – it doesn’t make sense for RNZ to also be weak when the Government has given us a mandate to be that strong cornerstone.”
Labour MP Willie Jackson questioned Mather and Thompson about RNZ’s commitment to Māori presenters on primetime shows, and its content as a whole, stressing it shouldn’t just be an “add-on”.
Asked whether that was a fair criticism, Thompson told reporters Jackson had been “vigilant on this point for about a decade”.
“If you look at RNZ, we’re quite different these days, we’ve built capability, there are more te ao Māori staff, perspectives, stories and te reo Māori in our programming,” he said.
“I don’t back away from the challenge he’s placed, we can’t be RNZ Aotearoa’s public media organisation without being really strong on this.”
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