TVNZ reports $53m net profit but true picture more one of covering its costs

Friday, 28 February 2025

TVNZ has reported a huge $53 million net profit and a more modest $12m “underlying operating profit” for the six months to the end of December, while warning it could soon be back in the red.

After a year of programming cutbacks and dozens of redundancies, during which the state-owned broadcaster warned of a need to plug a $30m “revenue gap”, the profits may confound onlookers.

But the true picture revealed by the accounts is that TVNZ appears to be washing its face and operating around break-even.

Chief executive Jodi O’Donnell acknowledged even that represented an encouraging outcome given the pressures on the media industry.

“While the advertising market remains challenged, we’ve worked hard to shore up our revenue pipeline and reduce our costs,” she said.

TVNZ’s bottom line was dramatically boosted by a $41m accounting gain as it partially reversed a $61m write-down of its assets that contributed to a $85m horror loss in the year to the end of June.

The broadcaster’s improved operational performance had allowed it to “write back in” value that it had scratched from its books in its earlier accounts, O’Donnell said.

The smaller $12m underlying operating profit was a “more relevant” guide to TVNZ’s finances and represented an improvement to its trading performance as the effort to stabilise its performance yielded results, she said.

A modest 2% drop in its revenues to $153m for the half year was far more than offset by a $20m drop in its costs to $144m.

But the broadcaster cautioned that advertising revenues tended to be higher in the first half of its financial year than in the second for cyclical reasons, and it is forecasting anything between a $5m operating profit and a $5m operating loss for the full year.

It’s full year result might also be impacted by a further write-down, it warned.

“I don't know what the outcome will be, because that would need to be based on TVNZ’s financial position at the end of the financial year,” O’Donnell said.

TVNZ confirmed this month that it had made 48 staff redundant as a result of a round of restructuring announced in November, bringing its total headcount down to about 550.

Last year, it shed more staff when it axed current affairs shows Sunday and Fair Go.

O’Donnell told The Post that despite the profits in its interim results, those were decisions that needed to be made.

“We had to make some really hard decisions last year, and that has enabled us to be in the position that we're in right now.

“I think we are certainly on a path to seeing TVNZ being a sustainable business long term,” she said.

O’Donnell said she was starting to see confidence in the economy “but wouldn't say that we're having ‘green shoots’ at this stage yet”.

“I think there's probably still a bit of volatility out there, not just in our economy, but also more broadly, with the global players disrupting the market.”

She singled out a 16% increase in TVNZ’s digital revenues – essentially advertising on streaming service TVNZ+, where TVNZ sees its future – as a highlight in the accounts.

“We loved” Sunday and Fair Go, she said.

“But they were very strong in our broadcast business and less so in our digital business.”