TVNZ has to find another $30 million in savings.

Advertising revenue fleeing to offshore companies operating digital platforms is just one of the broadcaster’s major issues.

While audience viewing habits are stabilising on platforms in New Zealand, free-to-air broadcasting as we know it is going into its death rattle here.

It looks like all efforts are on building up TVNZ+. Finally.

But we have to ask the big question here: How did successive boards at TVNZ fail to identify the issues and not get the broadcaster onto the even keel the Government is asking for long before now?

The writing has been on the wall for years internationally. And we all know that if offshore markets catch a cold, we get the flu, or even worse, pneumonia.

Are we now truly seeing the problems of the commercial public broadcaster model and the separate public TV and radio service really coming home to roost?

TVNZ’s proposal to shutter its online news operation to focus solely on video might seem like a good strategic move, but it’s going to strengthen the already powerful The Herald, Stuff, and now RNZ, who has grown website traffic significantly. At the same time, Stuff, who is now doing Three news, is going to focus more on video, too, it seems. It could well be that with TVNZ downsizing, we all might see less a merger and more a takeover of TVNZ by RNZ.

So what  do TVNZ’s current woes mean for those of us operating in the independent sector?

Well, obviously they’ve got less money to play with, so they are already paying less in license fees for local content. That’s possibly going to get worse.

We’ve seen a couple of hundred or more highly proficient storytellers lose their jobs at TVNZ and Warner Bros. Discovery in recent times. If they’ve stuck around and still want to tell stories on screen, whoever’s left will likely be going after the limited pool of funding like everybody else. That number will undoubtedly increase if more jobs go at TVNZ in the next planned restructure.

With audiences fracturing, and NZ On Air committed to it diversity and inclusion funding strategy and unwilling to put up much in the way of equity investment, budgets for most NZ shows are going to remain low. That means continuing low rates of pay for everyone in domestic production without that illusive offshore money filling the financing gap.

Over at Warner Bros. Discovery NZ, things don’t seem a whole lot better.

In August this year it announced a $138.2 million loss for the 12 months ended December 2023. Meanwhile in the same month, The Wall Street Journal reported its parent company in the US suffered an 11% plunge in its share price after a US$9.1 billion write-down of its TV assets, sparking doubts about its broadcasting business.

How much longer is the US$41 billion-in-debt parent going to put up with its loss-making Kiwi child?

Adding to the problems: Google rattled the cages last week—again—threatening to stop promoting New Zealand news content and stop deals with local newsrooms if the government goes ahead with the Fair Digital News Bargaining Bill. Read about it on RNZ here.

It does seem, though, that our current Government isn’t operating on much more than a hope and a prayer for the screen sector—just like the last one to be honest—that things will get better all by themselves.

Pain is a relative word in our business, as we are all into an element of figurative self-flagellation anyway in pursuit of our passion to create stories for screen.

Look for that uncomfortable feeling to continue for the near future without divine intervention.

Tui Ruwhiu
Executive Director

Last updated on 10 October 2024