Calming the troubled waters - what’s the future for RNZ?

Saturday, 4 November 2023

As board chairman Jim Mather put it, it's been a year of choppy seas for the RNZ waka, with a rogue editing scandal, high-profile presenter departures and the collapse of the mega-entity touted as the saviour of New Zealand's public media. But a whack of compensatory cash means the public broadcaster is now one of the few Kiwi media companies with money to spend. Nikki Macdonald asks what the future holds.

February started with a triumph ‒ as Cyclone Gabrielle laid waste to homes, orchards and the power supply, RNZ’s crusty old AM network kept on pumping out news to flood victims huddled around retro battery-powered radios.

Then came the death of two years of work and a generation of hope, as the mega-merger between RNZ and TVNZ got the chop.

In March, rising Māori star Māni Dunlop left the broadcaster, after being passed over for a presenter’s job at flagship news programme Morning Report.

June was an unmitigated disaster, as it was revealed an RNZ digital journalist had been inappropriately changing international wire stories for years, including injecting pro-Russian viewpoints. And high-profile Nights presenter Karyn Hay resigned after a long and unexplained absence.

From the outside, it looked like a horror year for the public broadcaster that prides itself on being the trusted voice of the nation. What about from the inside?

“Tough at times, definitely,” says chief executive Paul Thompson, in his typically understated manner.

RNZ’s 2023 Annual Report is appropriately titled “Moving Forward”, and that’s exactly what Thompson plans to do.

He’s confident the worst is over (barring the impending seismic-shock departure of the queen of public radio Kim Hill, obviously).

That’s because the year’s bright spot promises to outshine the dark shadows cast by “those other issues”, as Thompson calls them. A $25.7m annual budget boost makes RNZ a rare beast in a media sector battling declining advertising revenue and audiences abandoning live radio and the 6 o’clock news for YouTube and TikTok.

“We do see it as a crucial opportunity, and really rare opportunity,” Thompson says.

Let’s go shopping

At first glance, Thompson’s shopping list sounds, well, a bit dull.

There’s stuff that needs fixing, after years of underinvestment. That includes replacing AM transmission infrastructure in Northland, and upgrading antidiluvian editorial systems.

Plus they have to fund the 22 recommendations of the rogue editing review (more about that later).

RNZ is also now investing $884,000 in co-funding 16 reporters employed in regional newsrooms under the Local Democracy Reporting scheme.

And they’ve set up a new Asia reporting team, producing news for the Indian community and Chinese-language news for Chinese Kiwis.

But Thompson does have a bold goal ‒ to reach eight out of 10 New Zealand adults a month, by 2027.

That might not seem that ambitious, until you consider that, when Thompson started as chief executive 10 years ago, RNZ was two radio stations reaching about 15% of Kiwis a week.

With the broadcaster’s website, app, podcasts, and its sharing of stories with other media, that’s now at 60% a week.

But live listener numbers are evaporating just as quickly. RNZ National’s weekly audience is 532,400, down from 654,300 in 2019/2020. And Morning Report has reportedly lost 120,000 listeners in three years, from more than 500,000 to 380,152.

“We know we need to do better,” says Thompson, who adds that RNZ audiences drop in election years, as the heavy (but important) political coverage puts some off.

Audience research also suggests the endless stream of grim events is causing “news fatigue“, which RNZ is trying to counter with stories offering hope or humour.

New chief news officer ‒ former Stuff news boss Mark Stevens ‒ will sharpen up RNZ’s digital presence and make it “more relevant and accessible”, Thompson says. But that doesn’t mean a fluffier, more commercial approach.

“That would be a real mistake. Other companies are doing that really well.

“We need to be unique, because we're the only public broadcaster in New Zealand. We're the only organisation with a charter, and we'll be defined by how much people trust our journalism, how accurate it is, how relevant it is, and how it speaks to their lives.”

While Thompson is optimistic listener numbers will bounce back, NZ on Air’s latest audience survey paints a bleaker picture.

Traditional media are increasingly being shoved aside, in favour of YouTube, TikTok and on-demand video streaming. Kiwis now spend longer listening to streamed music than to live radio.

RNZ says its radio audience “is incredibly loyal but continues to grow older and smaller”.

But even those listeners may be in jeopardy, as the NZ on Air survey showed that, for the first time, the drop in traditional media use extended even to the over-60s.

As tech commentator Peter Griffin puts it, “The way people are consuming content ‒ between live events, online social media, video streaming, as well as occasionally going onto a mainstream media platform that might be broadcast by traditional infrastructure ‒ all those things are combining. And RNZ is going to have to be part of that, or its audience is just going to disappear.”

The future is young people, but how do you reach them?

The only person Maia Ingoe knows who listens to RNZ National while doing chores is her gran.

The 21-year-old co-editor of Wellington student magazine Salient says two things are key to reaching the next generation of media users ‒ social media and video content.

While she does read RNZ’s website, that’s because she’s a self-confessed media nerd. Most friends get their news from social media. That might be a 60-second video on TikTok or Instagram that explains an issue or points to a longer, 15-minute video project.

While Salient still has a physical magazine and longform feature stories, it’s also developing short-form video content to draw people in.

“If you’re not engaging with people on social media, then you’re not really noticed.”

Ingoe says if RNZ wants to reach young people, it needs younger voices telling stories about issues that matter to them. But she doesn’t think the brand is dead.

“I don't think it's tainted, and I don't think it's old. I think there's this idea that young people don't want to engage with traditional media forms, because it's old person stuff. Or because it's not young or impassioned. But I think young people do want to engage in wider media forms.

“I think we're just genuinely really tired with the state of the world, and it makes it hard to engage. And I think so many people do recognise the importance of places like RNZ for that informed content, when we do need it. So I think for that reason it will persist.”

But even the media nerd has never heard of RNZ’s youth platform TAHI, which launched in December 2021.

A blend of music streaming, podcasts and quirky video content, it has 4071 Instagram followers ‒ about 700 fewer than Salient.

Thompson says it’s not surprising Ingoe has never heard of TAHI. He won’t rate the project’s success out of 10, but says the three-person platform is “still a beginner”.

“Reaching younger audiences is really challenging. They’re so different. And Tahi is a small team doing great work. But getting wide awareness of it is really, really challenging.”

TAHI is not RNZ’s first attempt at attracting young audiences. In 2013, it launched a youth website, bizarrely named after an obsolete term for a radio that its target audience had probably never heard of ‒ The Wireless.

That never took off, and was folded back into the main site in 2018.

Griffin says RNZ has made “awkward attempts” to reach younger audiences.

“Every public broadcaster in the world is struggling with this ‒ what is the way to really engage that younger demographic, that is going to grow and become the mainstream demographic.”

The best option might be partnerships with places where young people already are, such as technology companies, other media outlets or entertainment companies.

Thompson says he’s open to that. The huge advantage of RNZ is that as long as it’s funded to tell stories, it doesn’t need to worry about making money selling them.

Ingoe says one team “killing it” in terms of news coverage for young people is TVNZ’s youth setup Re: news.

“They feature young people’s voices and stories that are about young people, and are about the issues that young people care about…It’s like anything, if you see yourself in media, then you’re going to engage with that media.”

When you don’t get the top job, it’s time to go elsewhere

When Midday Report presenter Māni Dunlop lost out to Ingrid Hipkiss for the marquee job of co-presenting Morning Report, she quit.

The first Māori journo to present a weekday show at RNZ, Dunlop told listeners “‘when you don’t get the top job, it’s time to go elsewhere”. At Dunlop’s farewell, her then partner (and government minister) Kiri Allan controversially said, “there is something within the organisation that will not, and has not, been able to keep Māori talent and that is a question that I think deserves some deep reflection”.

Thompson acknowledges that, at 8%, RNZ does not have enough Māori staff, and that they struggle to keep them.

But they have made progress, appointing a Māori news director and executive member, implementing a Māori strategy, investing in te reo training, hosting the Mata podcast with Mihingarangi Forbes and a Saturday show presented by broadcasting veteran Julian Wilcox.

They’re also recruiting a new Māori Commissioner to source, commission, develop and publish content.

“We've just got so much more to do,” Thompson says. “The strategy is growing a team of journalists, and then retaining them.

“But …if we rush it we'll get people in the door and they'll be out the door. We've got to create an environment where they feel really involved and can do great work and feel supported.”

Forbes earlier left RNZ, also after missing out on jobs presenting Morning Report and commuter hour show Checkpoint.

“You just move on, because there’s no use staying in places that aren’t ready for you,” says Forbes (Ngāti Paoa, Ngāti Maniapoto).

She now runs independent production company Aotearoa Media Collective with fellow Māori journalist Annabelle Lee-Mather (Ngāi Tahu).

The pair had hoped the planned TVNZ-RNZ merger would create a strong Māori department reminiscent of what TVNZ established in the 1980s and 90s.

“We thought that that would be a really incredible opportunity for Māori broadcasting,” Mather says. “So we were both really supportive, and both sad to see it fall away.”

Working as one of a tiny handful of Māori in a mainstream newsroom with no Māori in positions of power holds “absolutely zero appeal” for the Kohanga Reo generation, who could instead work for their local iwi radio station or set up their own Instagram account, where they can tell their stories in their way, Mather says.

“It’s not just about getting them in the door. It’s about creating pathways for them, that they can see that one day they’ll be taking the six o-clock bulletin to air.”

“It won’t be a bulletin and it won’t be on air,” Forbes interjects, with a laugh.

While efforts have been made to make newsrooms more welcoming, “We haven’t painted the walls and changed and shifted the furniture around enough for our young people to feel like it’s a place for them to grow,” Forbes says.

“Newsrooms are not easy places for young Māori to work in, because they can’t see themselves and they can’t hear themselves. And when the shit hits the fan, as it does in newsrooms, when there’s a crisis, no one can see them and no one can hear them. So it’s my experience over the years, you just lose faith that you’re actually participating as part of the team, or anyone values your perspective.”

Too woke and Wellington?

When Hawke’s Bay farmer Jim Galloway flicks on the radio in the morning, it’s tuned to Newstalk ZB.

Like many (Mike Hosking’s breakfast show now outranks Morning Report), he likes the mix of issues covered by talkback.

He rarely listens to RNZ, but does read the national broadcaster’s app. He reckons its rural coverage is OK, but its regional news is mostly limited to what’s produced by the Local Democracy Project reporters.

And while Thompson says Cyclone Gabrielle highlighted RNZ’s critical role as a lifeline in an emergency, Galloway says those on the ground felt failed by radio.

RNZ did a great job of helping the rest of the country understand the disaster and its impact, but no-one provided flood victims with the basic info they needed, Galloway says.

“What they'd have on the news is someone got rescued off their roof here, something about someone's dog, and State Highway 1 is closed here and 2 is closed there. For everything else, go to your website.

“And there was no website. There was no phones, there was nothing.”

What those affected needed was local civil defence information ‒ these roads are closed; this is happening; these are the evacuation centres, Galloway says.

Sometimes derided as “Red Radio”, RNZ attracts criticism for being left-leaning and too caught up in a Wellington bubble.

Thompson thinks his team does a good job delivering a balanced view. And it remains among the most trusted media brands.

Its audiences have always been stronger in Wellington and Christchurch than in Auckland, but it has now moved at least half of its programming to Auckland.

There are still gaps. While surveys show they touch almost every age group, there’s no doubt RNZ audiences skew older, more urban, more Pākehā and more Wellington, Thompson says.

They also need to ensure they’re relevant in regional New Zealand.

So what does the future look like?

The review into the wire copy editing debacle found the inappropriate edits were a failure of journalistic decision-making, rather than a deliberate propaganda exercise.

The reviewers found Thompson unhelpfully inflamed the situation, by publicly calling the changes “pro-Kremlin garbage”.

The review also criticised the digital news team’s editorial check systems, and the siloed split between that team and general news reporters.

Thompson says the wire copy editing issue was a problem in a small part of the operation, but it was a problem. And the broadcaster has work to do to rebuild trust.

But once RNZ has implemented the review’s 22 recommendations, which include merging the digital and main news teams and updating their editorial systems and training, Thompson believes they will have probably the most robust editorial control system any New Zealand media company has ever had.

The editing scandal was followed by Nights presenter Karyn Hay’s resignation, after a long and unexplained absence. RNZ said she was leaving to “concentrate on writing projects”, but The New Zealand Herald later reported that she had undergone an independent employment investigation, following a producer’s complaint.

Given the Ombudsman demanded TVNZ explain why it misleadingly said the departure of under-fire presenter Kamahl Santamaria was due to a “family emergency”, does Thompson think RNZ’s characterisation of Hay’s resignation was honest?

“No comment,” Thompson says.

So what might RNZ look like in the future?

“If you look forward 3-5 years, you've got a sustainable public broadcaster that develops amazing, rich and diverse new content for new audiences, that's delivering them much more effectively on digital platforms and is collaborating really effectively with the wider sector, and reaching 80% of people a month.

“That's what success will look like to us.”

Thompson thinks live radio will still exist in 10 years, and the AM network will continue to be a critical lifeline in disasters. But technology will change things.

Griffin says RNZ should set up a research and development lab for all public media, to explore new technologies such as artificial intelligence, and augmented reality.

While AI’s ease of fabricating images and audio is a huge risk for media, it also presents huge opportunities, Griffin says. Having an AI bot tuning in to a Gore council meeting and writing up a story could be great for transparency in places where there aren’t enough journos to cover everything.

Thompson says RNZ is cautious about AI, and is drawing up principles for its use.

“What you can't do is ignore it, because it's definitely going to have an impact.”

While RNZ’s extra funding should secure its financial future, Thompson is worried about the global trend of growing distrust in media. The organisation plans to investigate what’s driving that, and share its findings.

“I think it’s a worry for society. I think we all need to think what we can do about that. New Zealand needs a really robust, diverse, sustainable media system. And those are really big questions for us as a country, because I don’t think they’re guaranteed.”