Why the bets are off on who may replace Kevin Kenrick at TVNZ

Friday, 10 September 2021

Kevin Kenrick has given TVNZ’s board plenty of notice of his departure – more in fact than it may be able to use.

TVNZ may hold off searching for a replacement for departing chief executive Kevin Kenrick until after Cabinet decides whether to merge TVNZ and RNZ into a new public media entity.

Kenrick has announced he will step down in February.

TVNZ’s head of content Cate Slater – who is described by multiple industry insiders as capable and likeable – and MediaWorks’ well-regarded former chief executive Michael Anderson are two of the few names that are being touted as possibilities to replace Kenrick, depending on what Cabinet decides.

Anderson, an Australian who has now settled in New Zealand, has extensive radio and television experience and was appointed by Broadcasting Minister Kris Faafoi to the eight-person governance group overseeing the business case for new public media entity in March.

**READ MORE:

Former MediaWorks chief executive Michael Anderson has experience in TV and radio and has helped overseas the business case for the new public media entity.

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TVNZ’s content head Cate Slater has been described as a popular and capable insider.

But Better Public Media chairman Myles Thomas said it would be helpful if Kenrick’s replacement was someone who came from a background in public media rather than purely commercial media.

“It looks like TVNZ is going to be moving in that direction with an amalgamation with RNZ and whoever gets the role will more than likely be part of that,” Thomas said.

“It is vital they have audiences ‘front and centre’ rather than advertisers, and the impression we have of Kevin Kenrick is that he felt he was there to ensure advertisers had a platform to advertise,” he said.

“It is possible for someone to move between commercial and public service media [but] commercial imperatives become engrained in your psyche.”

There is some speculation the Government might choose to keep RNZ and TVNZ intact with their own separate “brands” and chief executives, even if it does put them under one new roof.

That could mean that TVNZ and the Government would be looking for two separate jobs to fill.

It is understood a business case on the new public media agency has now been completed and that the Cabinet expects to make a final call next month.

National Party broadcasting spokeswoman Melissa Lee said TVNZ would probably want to know “what the job is” it would be recruiting for – a new head of TVNZ or a new public media entity – before starting the recruitment process.

“Candidates would probably want to know that as well,” she said.

TVNZ spokeswoman Rachel Howard would not say whether it planned to wait until it knew whether the public media entity was proceeding and what shape it might take before starting the search for a new head, or whether it intended to push ahead with that process independent of those considerations.