Media bosses, minister and NZ On Air meet to discuss journalism woes

Tuesday, 6 August 2019

NZ On Air chief executive Jane Wrightson said she was convinced media bosses were being honest about the challenges to journalism and were not just 'playing on the violin'.

ANALYSIS: Extra help could be on the way for journalism after NZ On Air hosted a 'Chatham House rule' meeting with the country's biggest media firms late last month.

Among those present were TVNZ's head of news John Gillespie, Stuff chief executive Sinead Boucher, MediaWorks news head Hal Crawford, NZME managing editor Shayne Currie and Broadcasting Minister Kris Faafoi, who sat in as an observer.

Another speaker was Delia Rickard, deputy chairman of the Australia Competition and Consumer Commission, which has just published a report that voices concerns over the growing power of digital platforms such as Google and Facebook and questions whether regulatory frameworks need to be addressed.

On the face of it the two-hour meeting came at a time of growing difficulties in the news media.

**READ MORE:

TVNZ chief executive Kevin Kenrick has quietly revealed it will suspend paying dividends to the Crown as rumours around the broadcaster's future role in the media sector abound.

* Nine will 'focus on the long term' with bids for Stuff below fair value

* Minister reassures media over 'plurality' in wake of hints TVNZ may want Stuff

* Media giants agree it's 'time to talk' about sustaining journalism**

TVNZ has freshly forecast an 80 per cent drop in its net profit in the year just closed to $1 million and is budgeting for a hefty $17m loss in its new financial year.

That is likely to mean that all of the major free-to-air television stations in New Zealand are now losing money.

Broadcasting Minister Kris Faafoi attended a 'Chatham House rules' meeting hosted by NZ On Air as an observer and is keeping his thoughts on the discussions to himself.

The state-owned TV company is also joining publisher and radio company NZME in suspending dividend pay-outs, with TVNZ saying that is for the foreseeable future.

In TVNZ's case that is to prioritise spending on investment, spokeswoman Kirsty Way says, and in NZME's case it has been to pay down debt.

NZ On Air chief executive Jane Wrightson says the discussion it hosted confirmed its view that there is 'trouble at the journalism mill'.

'The picture was painted pretty clearly that public interest journalism is indeed under pretty serious stress at the moment and not many people in that space are feeling very cheerful at all.

'The commercial mastheads are obviously under serious stress and even those publicly-funded like RNZ and Māori Television are reporting that it is not easy in their space either.'

If New Zealand was to conduct a similar inquiry to the ACCC's it would probably find not much was different here, she says.

'Clearly globally there is a problem about the provision of quality journalism and if that is a 'market gap', which it clearly is, then NZ On Air is in the business of market gaps.'

But she cautioned, 'if we have an interest in this, it is about about saving journalism it is not about saving businesses'.

Less than clear at this stage exactly how NZ On Air could step in, or when.

'It would be such a different thing for NZ On Air to be involved with, that would take us some thinking to do,' Wrightson says.

A key consideration is that NZ On Air might find it difficult to fund public journalism in any areas where unsubsidised competition that could be harmed by such alternative funding still survived.

But as Wrightson points out, if really no-one was reporting in an area, then you would have to question whether anyone needed to.

The fact that news reporting can't be planned in advance of the news that is being reported on, means it doesn't sit well with the types of governance arrangements that taxpayer money usually entails, though Wrightson does play down that obstacle and NZ On Air's need to micro-manage.

So no breakthrough, but the appetite to do something does seem to be there.

Faafoi is keeping his thoughts from the meeting to himself, but it might not be surprising if he was feeling some degree of relief.

While TVNZ's financial forecasts raise a lot of questions, other developments have perhaps taken the immediate edge off the long-unfolding crisis in journalism.

Chief among these is a new presumption from Stuff's Australian-owner Nine last month that it will not sell the New Zealand business until it has put the business on a better earnings trajectory and can get a higher price for it.

Had Nine decided to press ahead with the proposed sale of Stuff under current conditions, Faafoi might have had to decide whether to support a bid by TVNZ to buy at least the Stuff website.

The alternative might have been taking the risk that Stuff in its entirety could have fallen into the hands of a wealthy individual with their own agendas to push or faced a destructive break-up.

But now that Nine has seemingly switched from being an enthusiastic seller of Stuff to a patient and well-resourced holder of the business, Faafoi has been saved from that possible dilemma for now.

The corollary to that is that NZME faces a longer future than it might otherwise have hoped for competing against a similarly-resourced rival that has eschewed its paywall strategy.

Stuff is the publisher of the Stuff website and newspapers including The Dominion Post, The Press and The Sunday Star-Times.

There has been a positive development also for television channel 3 owner MediaWorks, with Australian-listed outdoor advertising company QMS last week finally getting the last regulatory green-light for the merger of its New Zealand business with MediaWorks, with the transaction currently expected to be completed by early September.

MediaWorks may be unhappy that TVNZ has been given the green light to suspend dividends, but there may be some relief that the prospect of TVNZ getting a heap of fresh capital to build its presence in online news could have receded as a result of Nine's decisions.

Equally, all the big media firms bar RNZ will be pleased that additional annual funding for RNZ in the Budget was kept to a relatively modest $2.75m, and that any full-blown move by it into television in competition to TVNZ and MediaWorks appears to have been shelved.

But rumours abound, and it may be that Faafoi, perhaps in conjunction with TVNZ, still has a rabbit to pull out of the hat – something unexpected that would let the Government go into the next election able to claim it had done more than keep a watchful eye on the sector and provide some hope through NZ On Air.

A restructure and a package of changes that saw TV One drop advertisements and morph into a non-commercial channel probably can't be entirely ruled out – nor perhaps the Government helping public broadcasters create some new open platform for local online journalism.

That speculation aside, Wrightson may be right that NZ On Air itself is not in the business of 'saving businesses', and that can't be how it thinks about things.

But the Government may avoid some headaches if that is in fact the upshot of whatever interventions it approves.