Leaked document shows RNZ planning 'new digital experience' for younger audience
Friday, 8 December 2023
Radio New Zealand is planning a new digital experience to sit “somewhere between Facebook and Stuff”, despite previously saying it would not plough funds from a multimillion-dollar boost in public money into areas where media was already strong.
A strategy document leaked to the New Zealand Herald and outlined in Shayne Currie’s Media Insider column for the publication said the digital experience would include a mobile app with a new brand name and an extension of its existing website.
The document said the experience was intended to sit “somewhere between Facebook … and Stuff,” Currie reported.
In April, RNZ was allocated an extra $25.7 million a year to roll out a new digital platform and maintain its AM transmission.
The funding boost came after then-Prime Minister Chris Hipkins dumped a plan to merge TVNZ and RNZ, saying there was a clear need for further support for public media, “but it needs to be at a lower cost and without the need for significant structural change”.
Commercial media companies had lobbied against the merger, saying it could create unfair competition for their own operations.
At the time, RNZ chief executive Paul Thompson said the funding was needed to ensure New Zealand voices and stories would break through in the digital landscape – currently dominated by foreign-owned media giants.
In May, Thompson told Stuff there wouldn’t be any purpose in RNZ ploughing its resources into areas where the media sector is currently strong, for example by trying to replicate Stuff or the New Zealand Herald’s online platforms.
There was no single, big ambitious plan in the wings to capture the ears of the nation’s youth, which was a really tough nut to crack, he said.
“We have to be realistic about that. I suspect the opportunity around younger audiences is going to be more collaborative than RNZ ‘piling into it’.”
The leaked document recommended RNZ bolster its social media team and develop strategies to use social media to reach specific audiences, and make its website more user-friendly.
It also said RNZ should “provide a new digital experience that younger audiences expect.”
“Introduce a new experience that provides the 30 to 49-year-old audience with a quick and easy way to stay up-to-date and ‘in the know’ by scrolling through shorter, fully formed bits of content”, it said.
On Friday, Minister for Media and Communications Melissa Lee said as she was yet to meet with RNZ as minister, it would be inappropriate to comment on the leaked document.
Lee said her focus was on supporting the Coalition Government’s 100-day plan and “mini-Budget”, expected to be released on December 20.
“Alongside the wider Coalition Government, my expectations are that all parts of government spend public money carefully and with a clear purpose,” she said.
“I will, however, confirm I did not support the merger of RNZ/TVNZ into Aotearoa New Zealand Public Media proposed in the last Parliament and have no intention of re-visiting that policy.”
A spokesperson for RNZ said the broadcaster would continue to create new content and improve its platforms to reach more people.
RNZ worked to the obligations set out by its charter, which said it should have innovative and engaging services, she said.
“What RNZ offers via these will be distinctively RNZ public media content.”
The charter also required RNZ to “inform, entertain, and enlighten the people of New Zealand, and provide programmes which balance special interest with those of wide appeal, recognising the interests of all age groups”; and that it “take advantage of the most effective means of delivery.”