Media leaders on how to save the media

Saturday, 13 April 2024

We asked the experts, what’s your one best idea for ‘fixing’ the media? Here’s what they told us.

Mark Jennings, Newsroom co-editor

I think we all know that traditional advertising is no longer going be enough to support most of our private media companies. The key is getting consumers to pay (we were all used to paying for our newspapers but that habit has been broken) for local news.

Their needs to be an incentive to encourage this and I think a full tax rebate on subscriptions for corporates and individuals would be something the Government could do. It won’t help our free to air broadcasters who need to immediately move to online delivery of their content rather than the current means of transmission. The Government could accept that they need to do this and assist them.

The Government could also give New Zealand On Air some more money to support investigative journalism. It would be a small investment in the overall scheme of things – but a valuable one.

David Farrier, Webworm substack journalist and documentary maker

I've found it incredibly encouraging that over the last three years, Webworm has slowly but steadily growing a worldwide audience that appreciates journalism, deep dives and media criticism. But I know this is a small, rare niche in the middle of a truly chaotic, depressing time for the media and journalism.

I think it would be really great if members of the New Zealand government didn't whip out childish attacks like 'woke' when referencing the fourth estate doing their job. Of course none of this is surprising - New Zealand enjoys nothing more than to happily follow whatever America is doing.

The cries of 'go woke, go broke' are boring ripples of Donald Trump's mindless cries of 'fake news' from years back. In many ways I think the media mainly needs rescuing from people's brain worms, as boomers struggle to tell if a giant statue of Jesus made from shrimp is real or not. Education and media literacy has a lot to do with this - and so I think more resources poured into education is a pretty good start.

Paul Thompson, RNZ chief executive and editor-in-chief

If we want to continue to see our communities reflected in our media, to see and hear what makes us uniquely New Zealand, and receive trusted information, then we need to look at ways to help the industry thrive. And it’s hard to see that happening without existing policy and rules changing.

Not all options have been exhausted or examined. Tax is an example. Such as permitting a charity status on certain publications and outlets or allowing subscriptions to be tax deductible. And increasingly there are calls for a levy on digital advertising for redirection to local news content providers, something we would support.

Public media also has a role to play. RNZ believes the case for public media was strong in the past, and arguably stronger now. We can continue to play a constructive role as a cornerstone provider. For example, we have over 60 editorial content sharing agreements and run the Local Democracy Reporting scheme. And we remain open to fresh initiatives which help the media sector and serve the public interest.

There are likely to be many different opinions across all quarters, but it is vital for our democracy that we have a thriving media sector.

James Hollings, associate Professor of journalism at Massey University and author

Lots of ideas, but in brief:

1. Information law reform. Access to public Information is being slowly strangled. This is making it harder for journalists to be useful to the public. If doctors could no longer get medicínes they would lose clients too.

2. Media education in schools.

3. People have to pay to use songs, so why should Google etc not pay when they use journalism and books etc?

Duncan Greive, founder of The Spinoff

Despite the devastating news from TVNZ and Three, events of the past week have made it clear that the media crisis goes beyond news, with iconic and important shows like Shortland Street now imperilled. Given the current government's antipathy toward the Digital News Bargaining bill, there's an opportunity to replace it with something broader and more durable. All week on The Spinoff I've been asking two questions of media leaders (including Stuff's Laura Maxwell) from news, to broadcast, to screen production, to advertising, to public media.

There is a striking level of consensus around a levy, which could then be distributed amongst media organisations both in the news and content business. It's not uncomplicated, but has the distinct advantage of allowing for platforms to rise and fall, while also costing the government and taxpayer nothing. So long as it's administered machantically with a minimum of interference, this seems to be the best method we have to ensure New Zealand retains news and productions which speak to this land and its peoples, and prevent us becoming a client state of big tech companies which barely know we exist.

Andrew Holden, public affairs director at News Publishers’ Association

Introduce tax relief that supports journalism. This might be tax deductibility for news subscriptions (businesses can claim it, why not individuals if quality information is considered important?); tax relief for property leasing costs in regional centres (to encourage news companies to keep journalists in the regions); or a tax credit for employing journalists, as happens in Canada.

Peter Thompson, associate professor, Victoria University’s media and communications programme

If the problem is providing adequate funding for the news media and local content sector, a levy model applied to different commercial revenue streams offers a workable solution. Such models already exist in various forms in many other countries: The UK, France and Italy already have a digital services tax, Austria has a 5% levy on digital advertising, while Denmark has a 6% levy on streaming services.

There are several permutations to be considered here, including:

Scope: Which services are subject to the levy and which are exempt? For example, this might include digital services (including search engines and social media), online advertising spend, SVOD subscriptions, mobile and broadband services, or even retail sales of audio-visual hardware. Exclusions could apply to companies with lower turnovers or invest significantly in local content.

Level: How much should the liable services have to pay? The levels might be incremental so that the biggest media companies pay a higher rates, or there might be a pre-set quantum of revenue to collect spread proportionally across all the liable services (that’s how the existing telecommunication development levy works). If we adopted Austria’s 5% levy on digital advertising, that would generate around $85-90m per year. Denmark’s 6% levy on SVOD services would generate around $24m here in NZ. A 3% levy on telecommunications services would provide roughly $150m. A 2% levy on audiovisual retail goods would generate around $140m. Just a 1% levy across a full range of commercial media revenues would generate around $150m!

Eligibility: Who benefits from the revenue collected? The value of the proposed news bargaining bill has been estimated at around $50-60m. Just a 3% levy on digital advertising alone would match that and triple the much-maligned Public Interest Journalism Fund which cost about $18m per year. If local content is the priority, NZ On Air’s funding costs about $137m which equates to a 2% levy on audiovisual retail. If we want public service media, the abandoned ANZPM public media entity was due to cost $109m.

Levies are transparent and the cost to media companies is proportional to the commercial revenues they generate in the NZ market. Where they are passed onto the consumer this is likewise proportionate to their media consumption. One can argue over the amounts but these are game-changing figures: Even a small levy across a wide range of commercial media revenues could save our news sector and leave spare change for a lot more local content and public media.