TVNZ expects $49m ‘underlying loss’ next year after brief respite

Monday, 7 July 2025

TVNZ is forecasting it will make an “underlying” loss of almost $49 million in the financial year just started, after a brief return to an underlying profit in the year just closed.

However, a spokesperson says the state-owned broadcaster, which now employs the equivalent of 530 fulltime staff after a series of recent cutbacks, currently has no additional restructuring planned for the year ahead.

TVNZ forecast in a “statement of intent” that revenues would fall to $273m in the year to June 2026 while its operating expenses are expected to climb to $312m on the back of a large but confidential investment in the digital infrastructure it uses to stream programmes online.

In the year to June last year, its revenue totalled $289m and its expenses $304m.

“We are making a significant technology investment to address ‘tech debt’ and support our digital audience and revenue aspirations,” its spokesperson said.

TVNZ has yet to report its result to the end of June this year, but its statement of intent revealed it expected an $8.7m underlying profit after an equivalent $23m loss last year which translated into an actual reported net loss of $85m after write-downs.

In February, it reported a surprise interim profit of $53m and a more modest $12m “underlying operating profit” for the six months to the end of December, but warned that performance was unlikely to be sustained.

TVNZ normally performs better in the first half of its financial year than the second due to the benefit of high advertising demand in and around the holiday season.

Chief executive Jodi O’Donnell told the The Post in February that the broadcaster was “on a path to seeing TVNZ being a sustainable business long term”.

In said in its statement of intent that it intended to more than double the size of both its digital audience and digital revenues by 2030, targeting earnings of $150m a year by then from its streaming services.