TVNZ to pay surprise dividend to Government after return to profit

Friday, 29 August 2025

TVNZ has posted a $26 million profit and will pay a rare $3.1m dividend to the Government.

That is after a year marked earlier by job cuts and a seemingly dire financial warning, and that will now be followed by a planned move into pay-TV, kicking off with event passes for the Fifa World Cup next year.

The broadcaster’s profit for the year to June was lower than its bottom-line profit at just under $11m after adjusting for “one-offs”.

But it was still at the top end of its previous guidance and compared with an $85m loss, or “adjusted” loss of $23m, last year.

This will be the first time since 2022 that the state-owned broadcaster has paid a dividend to the Government and chief executive Jodi O’Donnell said it was too early to say if there would be another pay-out in the next two years.

TVNZ said it had successfully navigated “challenging economic conditions” during the year, despite O’Donnell’s warning to MPs in October that it was facing a “$30m revenue gap”.

But she rejected the suggestion the cuts it had made to its programming might, in retrospect, have been deeper than needed, saying they had been necessary to put TVNZ — which now employs just under 600 staff — on a sustainable path.

The broadcaster reiterated that it expected to return to an operating loss in the current financial year, as well as in the year ending June 2027, in part as a result of the investment it is making in its digital platform.

One goal of that investment is to allow it to charge customers to watch some of its programming through streaming service TVNZ+, though O’Donnell said it would also add other “personalisation” features such as the ability for TVNZ to recommend programmes to viewers.

TVNZ said its paid service would kick off in June next year when it plans to allow viewers to pay to watch the 2026 Fifa World Cup.

It confirmed it had the rights to the 39-day long football tournament last week and would charge for the tournament, but that some matches — including those featuring the All Whites — would also be available free-to-air.

Aside from the technology spend, the move into paid sports is expected to require an investment by the broadcaster in customer service, for example to handle queries from people who buy event passes and who may have billing or technical queries during the event.

O’Donnell said it was “very wide eyes open about that”, but would not comment on the staffing resource it believed that might require.

“We will absolutely be supporting viewers with everything they need to make sure they can enjoy FIFA.”

Media and Communications Minister Paul Goldsmith said TVNZ had not needed government approval for its deal with Fifa but ministers had been kept informed of its decision, and he signalled his support.

“I’m pleased to see TVNZ creating new revenue streams while ensuring New Zealanders maintain free access to news and local content,” he told The Post.

O’Donnell did not rule out moving some news and current content behind a paywall in future however, making clear the pay model would not necessarily be restricted to sports.

“It could be other forms of content. We're really open to exploring those opportunities.”

She also didn’t rule out a subscription model of the kind that might see people pay a fixed weekly or month fee for paid content, while emphasising that was not part of its current plans.

TVNZ might be in competition with Sky TV for some sports rights but they were still very different businesses, she said.

“Sky is very much a subscription business and our offer to sports rights is our unmatched mass-reach audiences, so we still have quite different business models.”

TVNZ’s revenues, which currently come almost exclusively from television advertising, continued their downward trajectory, dropping 2.7% to $281m in the year to end of June.

But it returned to profit by slashing its annual expenses by 10% to $261m.

That reflected major programming and job cuts implemented both during the year and part-way through the previous financial year and that saw the axing of shows such as Sunday and Fair Go.

O’Donnell said the advertising market appeared to be stabilising, with the South Island tracking better than the North Island, “but I wouldn't be calling green shoots at this stage”.

TVNZ reported that a highlight was that digital advertising revenues grew almost 13% to make up a quarter of TVNZ’s total advertising revenues. The broadcaster expected that proportion to increase to a third in the current financial year.

O’Donnell said TVNZ had made huge strides towards its “digital-first goal”.

Last year she said the broadcaster was starting to plan for the time it would cease linear broadcasts and be online-only.