Aotearoa New Zealand’s public television broadcaster TVNZ is planning significant cuts to content production, programmes and operational spending in response to commercial clients’ reduced spending on advertising.

Future projects are under review and pay rises for executives and top-earning staff have also been scrapped at the state-owned broadcaster.

Staff were informed of the changes in a memo and video address today from acting chief executive Brent McAnulty.

• READ MORE: Other TVNZ reports
• Other Mediawatch reports

The memo says senior executives have identified “all the possible cost savings opportunities we have” in recent weeks.

“Content budgets have been reduced, both for local production and international content. Remuneration reviews have been cancelled for our exec team and our other highest-earning employees,” it said.

“There have been some really tough calls to make here, but we need to live within our means,” McAnulty told staff.

“All projects are being reviewed to decide whether they should continue, be paused, or be cancelled for this financial year,” the memo said.

Digital technology overhaul
TVNZ currently has a tender out for a major overhaul of its digital technology and internet infrastructure.

“We’re also putting tighter controls on capital expenditure and we’re looking at how we can reduce casual and contractor labour costs,” the memo said.

“The TV advertising market is tough right now, and as the biggest player we are being impacted,” McAnulty told staff in today’s memo.

“Local businesses have been reducing their advertising spend because of the economic conditions, and uncertainty in the lead up to the election,” it said.

The memo urges staff to use up their leave this year.

Recruitment for vacant roles is “paused until 2024” and TVNZ is “choosing not to fill some other vacant roles” and will defer the starting dates for some roles.

TVNZ has more than 750 staff. More than 300 of them earn more than $100,000 a year.

Annual allowance dropped
An annual allowance of $350 paid to all staff — which was effectively a covid-19 relief initiative — will not be paid this year.

TVNZ has “paused” all travel for 2024 except “business-critical travel related to newsgathering, commercial clients and content negotiations”.

TVNZ will also spend less on social media and online marketing and promotion and market research, according to the memo.

“We’re pausing all internal events — though we’re still hopeful that we’ll have Christmas celebrations in our three main offices,” the memo said.

TVNZ reported revenue of $180.3 million in the six months to December 2022, but forecast a loss of $15.6m in the 2023/24 financial year.

The broadcaster has previously signalled that it may need to respond to financial difficulties in the near future.

TVNZ’s most recent Statement of Intent (pdf) says alignment of revenues and costs was under “increasing pressure”.

A ‘dynamic approach’
“We’ll adopt a dynamic approach to the allocation of business resources between investing to sustain our core TV business and accelerating the growth of our future online business. The stronger the commercial performance of our core business, the more actively we’ll be able to invest in shaping our future,” the document says.

Brent McAnulty assured TVNZ staff in today’s memo that TVNZ still had a strong share of television audience and revenue and its online platform TVNZ+ had an “impressive growth trajectory.”

Previous CEO Kevin Kenrick persuaded the government in 2019 to allow TVNZ to effectively forgo dividends to the Crown to allow it to invest in programmes and digital services.

This angered rival commercial media rivals who could expect no such backstop, while also competing with offshore-owned streaming services as well other broadcasters for audience and revenue.

TVNZ has invested heavily in TVNZ+ and recently launched live sport on the platform after securing rights held by Spark Sport until it ceased in July.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Addressing the training development deficit in the Fiji media industry can stem journalist attrition and improve coverage of election reporting in the country, says University of the South Pacific journalism coordinator Dr Shailendra Singh.

Speaking during last week’s launch of the National Media Reporting of the 2018 Fijian General Elections study in Suva, Dr Singh said media watch groups regarded Fiji’s controversial media law as having a “chilling effect on journalism” and “fostered a culture of media self-censorship”.

Dr Singh, who co-authored the report with Dialogue Fiji executive director Nilesh Lal, said scrapping or reforming the 2010 Media Industry Development Authority Act was crucial to “professionalising journalism”.

• READ MORE: Scrap or reform Fiji’s media law, says new elections report
• Other Fiji media reports

“The Act does nothing for training and development or journalist attrition. In fact, the Act may have exacerbated attrition,” he said.

This situation, Dr Singh said, highlighted the importance of training and development and staff retention, which were longstanding structural problems in Fiji and Pacific media.

“This underlines the role of financial viability and newsroom professional capacity in news coverage.”

He said two core media responsibilities in elections were creating a level playing field and acting as a public watchdog.

“It seems doubtful that these functions were adequately fulfilled by all media during reporting of the 2018 Fijian general elections.”

Advertising spread
Dr Singh said the research also recommended the even distribution of state advertising among media organisations as well as the allocation of public service broadcasting grants fairly among broadcasters to minimise financial incentives to report overly positively on any government.

According to the report, the FijiFirst Party received the most media coverage during the 2018 Fiji general elections and this was expected given its ruling party status.

However, variance in coverage tone and quantity appeared too high.

“The largely positive coverage of the ruling FijiFirst party could be deemed irregular. It questions certain media’s ability to hold power to account,” Dr Singh said.

“Under a stronger watchdog mandate, ruling parties face greater scrutiny, especially in election time. Instead, media coverage put challenger parties more on the defensive which is curious.”

He said challenger parties were forced to respond to allegations in news stories and were grilled more than the incumbent during debates.

“It should be other way around. In such situations the natural conclusion is journalist bias but only to a certain extent,” he said.

Direct political alignment
While the report found that certain media outlets in Fiji seemed to privilege some political parties and issues over others, distinguished political sociologist and Pacific scholar Professor Steven Ratuva said this could be due to several reasons such as direct political and ideological alignment of the media company to a political party or conscious and subconscious bias of journalists and editors.

“Bias is part of human consciousness and sometimes it is explicit and sometimes it is implicit and unconscious. This deeper sociological exploration is beyond the mandate of this report,” Professor Ratuva said in the foreword to the report.

“Election stories sell, especially when spiced with intrigue, scandals, mysteries, conspiracies and warring narratives.

“The more sensational the story the more sellable it is. The media can feed into election frenzies, inflame passion and at times encourage boisterous political behaviour and prejudice which can be socially destructive.

“The media can also be used as a means of sensible, intellectual and calm engagement to enlighten the ignorant and unite people across cultures, religions and political ideologies.”

He said keeping an eye on what the media did required an open, analytical and independent approach and this was what the report attempted to do.

Research findings
The research found that after FijiFirst, the larger and more established opposition parties SODELPA and NFP, were next in terms of the quantity of coverage, but were more likely to receive a lesser amount of positive coverage and at times found themselves on the defensive in responding to FijiFirst allegations, rather than being principles in the stories.

The smaller, newer parties had to content themselves with marginal news attention and this was generally consistent across four of the five national media that were surveyed — the Fiji Sun, FBC (TV and radio), Fiji Television Limited and Fiji Village.

“The only exception was The Fiji Times, whose coverage could be deemed to be comparatively less approving of the ruling party and also less critical of the challenger parties,” the report found.

“Besides comparatively extensive and favourable coverage in the Fiji Sun, FijiFirst made more appearances on the major national television stations, FBC and Fiji One, as well as on the CFL radio stations and news website.”

The report noted that even in special information programmes where news media allowed candidates extended time/space to have their say, the FijiFirst representatives enjoyed a distinct advantage over their opposition counterparts in the two national debates, with regards to the number of questions asked, the nature of the questions, and the opportunity to respond.

“When the two major opposition parties were in the media, it was often in order to respond to allegations by the ruling party, or to defend themselves against negative questions,” the report noted.

“The results could explain why the government accuses The Fiji Times of anti-government bias, and the opposition blame the Fiji Sun and FBC TV of favouring the government.”

However, there were other factors other than media/journalist bias that could be attributed to the lack of critical reporting.

“These could range from the news organisation’s and/or newsroom’s partiality towards the ruling party politicians and its policies. The reporting could also be affected by the inexperience in the national journalists corps to report the elections in a critical manner.”

This observation, the report highlighted, was supported by “issues balance” results indicating that key national issues, such as the economy, were understated.

The focus was instead on election processes, procedures and conduct. Another factor in the reporting could be news media’s financial links to the government.

Election reporting
As Fiji prepares for its next general election, Dialogue Fiji’s Nilesh Lal said it was important to put the spotlight on factors that impinged on an even electoral playing field.

“Given the importance of news media in disseminating electoral information and shaping public opinion, it can profoundly influence electoral outcomes, and therefore needs to come under scrutiny,” he said.

“There may also be imperatives to consider safeguards against the negative impacts of unequal coverage of electoral contestants through legislating as other countries, like the US, for instance, have done.

“Alternatively, media organisations can self-regulate by instituting internal guidelines for election reporting. A good example is the BBC’s Guidelines on election coverage. Another alternate could be the formation of an independent commission/committee made up of media organisation representatives and political parties representatives that can set rules and quotas for election coverage.

“For example, in the UK, a committee of broadcasters and political parties reviews the formula for allocation of broadcasting time, at every election.”

Lal said the purpose of the report was not to accuse any media organisation of having biases but rather to show that inequitable coverage of electoral contestants was a problem in Fiji that required redress at some level if “we are sincere about improving the quality of democracy in Fiji”.

He said the co-authors hoped the report would initiate some much-needed public discourse on the issue of equitable coverage of elections by media organisations.

Wansolwara is the student journalist newspaper of the University of the South Pacific. It collaborates with Asia Pacific Report, which prioritises student journalism.

The Fiji Times is challenging the selection of the Fiji Sun as the government’s exclusive carrier of newspaper advertisements for the 2016 year.

Opinion by Professor Wadan Narsey in Suva

There should have been institutional protests a few weeks ago when the Bainimarama government announced that it had awarded the sole government (and public enterprise) advertising rights to the Fiji Sun.

The protests should have been even louder given that the government had called for expressions of interest according to an extensive list of criteria, which if followed, ought to have resulted in a decision in favour of The Fiji Times.

While I declare my interest as a regular columnist for this newspaper, I explain below that it would not be in the public interest to award sole advertising rights to The Fiji Times either and that the Fiji Sun should also be included.

Given the clear evidence (total dollar values of commercial advertising) that the private sector advertisers, on the basis of reach and cost effectiveness alone, favour The Fiji Times, then the Bainimarama government decision to select the Fiji Sun as sole print advertiser, amounts to gross misuse of taxpayers’ advertising money, which is not in the public interest.

The first protests at the government decision should therefore have come from the institutions which have been set up under the Fiji Constitution precisely to prevent the misuse of taxpayers’ money, ie the Office of the Auditor-General and the Public Accounts Committee of Parliament.

At the next level of constitutional responsibility, there should have been protests from institutions like the Commerce Commission, the Media Industry Development Authority, and the Consumer Council of Fiji.

Sadly, there has been total silence from all these institutions.

Dismaying silence
This silence utterly dismaying for good governance, given that the Bainimarama government decision is striking at the heart of a “level playing field” and fair competition for media organisations, and the constitutional basic human right of citizens of Fiji to have free access to all public interest information that a government disseminates using taxpayer funds.

It is totally abhorrent that there are a large number of public enterprises whose advertising decisions ought to be totally independent of the government of the day and based purely on commercial grounds alone, are also following the Government, indicating the utter spinelessness of their boards.

Advertised criteria

The Bainimarama government claimed it would be assessing tenders on the basis of stated criteria which included the following:

* evidence of circulation;

* evidence of national reach;

* commitment to educate and inform all Fijians with respect to development and government issues in an unbiased and responsible manner; and

* ability to accept urgent and last minute requests.

These four criteria would seem reasonable and commercially oriented.

But the advertisement also asked for evidence of commitment to:

* quality;

* national unity, national identity development and nation building;

* the development of the Fiji economy; and

* the welfare of all Fijians.

By no stretch of the imagination can criteria 5 to 8 be important considerations for any government to get its messages out to the people on matters that concern them, given that the actual vehicle for the advertisement is surely irrelevant.

Any media which had a solid commercial track record of reaching the largest set of citizens in Fiji, ought to have been selected as an avenue for government advertising, purely from the point of view of outreach of advertisements.

Common sense
While a good high school mathematics student could show the following arguments with a “Venn diagram”, common sense indicates the same.

* Only a small number of readers read both the Fiji Sun and The Fiji Times.

* The largest number read only The Fiji Times or only the Fiji Sun.

* Hence to reach the maximum number, government ought to advertise in both newspapers.

* As the largest customer, government could even demand the lowest fees compatible with reasonable profits for the newspapers.

Note that even if it is implied by the government’s call for tenders, The Fiji Times should also not be given sole rights to advertise, as there are many members of the public who, for whatever reason, read only the Fiji Sun, and they also should not be deprived of easy access to government advertisements.

But of course, the arguments could be couched in more technical language relevant to the formal responsibilities of the institutions.

Institutional duties
The Auditor-General (backed by the Public Accounts Committee) is duty bound to examine whether the Bainimarama gbovernment’s decision is on commercial grounds and, if not, whether it amounts to a gross misuse of taxpayer’s money. They are entitled to demand an immediate explanation from the Minister of Finance.

A principled Consumer Council of Fiji, whose executive is never reticent about appearing in the media on behalf of small groups of consumers, could have passionately informed the media that by giving ads only to one newspaper, government was depriving readers of the other more popular newspaper legitimate access to public information, as a basic human right as citizens and consumers of government services.

A principled MIDA chairman could have proactively pronounced (and he has done quite frequently on other matters of less national importance) that government was undermining fair competition in the media, which was against the public interest.

A principled Commerce Commission, which has often acted against private sector companies who are perceived to have exercised monopoly power, ought to have proactively explained to the Bainimarama government that it was against the public interest, to bestow by contract, monopoly power on the Fiji Sun as the “sole retailer” of government advertisements.

A principled Commerce Commission ought to also point out that the Fiji Sun was thereby also unfairly obtaining newspaper sales revenues because members of the public interested in government advertisements were being forced to buy the Fiji Sun, and thereby also giving Fiji Sun unfair advertising revenue from commercial advertisers attracted by the artificially added circulation.

A principled CEO of Transparency International could have reminded the Bainimarama government that it was not good governance to be unfairly granting subsidies to a media owner whose newspaper was not a good watchdog on Government.

But unfortunately, when it comes to contentious Bainimarama government policies or misdemeanours by companies close to them (such as a mobile company), it seems that these organisations have become institutional lambs, afraid to do their duty, for fear of slaughter.

Solution is easy
The Commerce Commission has been ever ready to set controlled prices for thousands of products and services in the Fiji economy, ranging from drugs, hardware items and even the rents charged for accommodation, wherever there is a hint of lack of competition.

The current government decision to award sole advertising rights to the Fiji Sun is a blatant example of creation of monopoly which is against the public interest, and which the Commerce Commission is duty bound to combat.

The Commerce Commission could quite legitimately and easily, with the support of the Consumer Council and MIDA, following the proper investigation, establish a regime of advertising charges system for government advertisements, fair to both taxpayers and the media companies, with both companies being asked to run all important advertisements.

What is so difficult about this solution?

The people of this country are ever ready to write Letters to the Editor (the people’s parliament) on rugby sevens, same sex marriages, Bollywood and Hollywood, the bad state of the roads, or the blunders in the education system.

I call on the “people’s parliament” to express their opinions on the Bainimarama government’s decision to advertise solely in the Fiji Sun.

Dr Wadan Narsey is a an independent economist and writer and also a former professor of economics at the University of the South Pacific.