Merger could help RNZ and TVNZ grow beyond broadcasting, says Kris Faafoi

Wednesday, 30 June 2021

The business case for merging RNZ and TVNZ is due to be completed in August.

Broadcasting Minister Kris Faafoi has hinted at an expanded role for state-owned media beyond broadcasting, if Cabinet agrees to merge RNZ and TVNZ into a new media entity.

Addressing a select committee, Faafoi said consultant Deloitte was due to complete a business case in August for the merger, ahead of a decision by ministers later this year.

“We have got a system at the moment that has traditionally relied on broadcasting media,” he said.

“As we know, many more platforms are coming to fruition, and there are some that we haven’t even imagined yet that will come to fruition.”

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New public media entity would produce content for platforms that “we haven’t even imagined yet”, Broadcasting Minister Kris Faafoi says.

Having a public media entity that was “nimble” and able respond to audiences’ needs would be important, he said.

The comments appear to support speculation that the merger would see a combined RNZ and TVNZ grow their online news services more aggressively.

Faafoi also indicated that he saw state-owned media and the rest of the press working together more, suggesting the public media entity would be able to grow and “support the rest of the sector”.

One of the goals of the public media review was to “help the long-term sustainability of the rest of the media market as well”, he said.

“I think there is going to be a lot more cooperation and collaboration among media entities.”

That would “at the end of the day enable more types of content to be available to New Zealanders via public media”, he said.

National Party broadcasting spokeswoman Melissa Lee questioned the time the policy work was taking, saying “millions of dollars” had been spent on various public media reviews.

In February, the Government committed $55 million in contestable funding over three years through NZ On Air to support “public interest journalism”.

Faafoi said he saw little danger the funding would be used for work that private-owned media companies would otherwise have funded themselves, as they had shed about 700 journalists and other staff last year.

“The message we got through is they are struggling cover the likes of regional news,” he said.

“I think if you pick up any community newspaper in a region too much of it is what I would call advertising.”

He indicated the funding might not be ongoing.

“There is three years of funding. We have sent a strong message to those media who might utilise that, that it is limited funding and this is an opportunity for them to rethink their business models in order to get some capacity of journalists back into the system,” he said.