How the RNZ/TVNZ merger went from its first reading in Parliament to the legislative extinction list is an example of why New Zealand actually needs more public media and not less. Let me explain.

It has been labelled a grenade, a dog and a monolithic, monopolistic monster. Yet it is actually a reasonable policy that would bring New Zealand public media in line with most other developed countries.

No other developed country has separate national television and radio networks. They have seen how it fails us and said, “no thanks”.

• READ MORE: Other RNZ/TVNZ merger reports

Most other developed countries spend quite a bit more on their public media platforms too. Brits pay $81 each, Norwegians $110, Germans $142, but Kiwis just $27 each year to fund RNZ, TVNZ and NZ On Air.

Even with the government’s funding increase over the next three years, we’ll still be spending less per person than Australia, Ireland or any other country we like to compare ourselves to.

A big part of our public media underspend is successive governments’ policy that TVNZ pay its own way and rely on advertising dollars.

Other countries subsidise their public media because they realise that a reliable source of news and information is too important to be left in the hands of marketers and advertising departments.

Other end of the spectrum
At the other end of the spectrum is the US spending just $3 per person on public media. You have to wonder how different US politics might be if it had fully-funded public media.

It is true that TVNZ does receive funding for programmes through NZ On Air but those shows still have to be simple and entertaining because TVNZ sells adverts around them. Only Sunday mornings have programmes for minorities or long-form political interviews, and of course, that is when there is no advertising.

That is the big difference between public media and commercial media. Public media doesn’t rely on advertising so it isn’t so desperate to get your attention and blast adverts at you.

Public media has time to examine public issues in-depth.

Commercial media needs to make money and with advertising dollars drifting to Google and Facebook, they work even harder to make content as eye-catching, entertaining and easy to understand as possible.

You may have noticed it on TVNZ, Newshub, Stuff or at the New Zealand Herald. These days there are more articles about crime, car crashes and weather bombs because they catch people’s attention.

Political reporting also wants to catch your attention. While public media can spend half an hour discussing a policy in-depth, commercial media want eyeballs so they go for the fun stuff — who’s up and who’s down in the pugilistic soap opera of daily politics. It is entertaining and it’s quick and easy to explain.

Complicated issues
Unlike this opinion piece I’m writing for you now — I’m already halfway through my allotted word count, yet I’ve spent all of them just explaining the background. Complicated issues take more time to explain. I had better get on with it.

It was in this commercial political reporting soap opera that the media merger lost its way. Like many politicians, opposition broadcasting spokesperson Melissa Lee exploited commercial media’s focus on simplification and pugilism to attack the government. She repeatedly claimed the government could not explain why we need the merger, but the government had tried to explain it, only the public hadn’t heard because it is too complicated to explain quickly and simply on commercial media (as I’m trying to do here).

Political reporting fixated on Willie Jackson’s various stumbles as though this reflected the policy, rather than analysing the policy itself.

National Party leader Christopher Luxon also exploited commercial media’s lack of examination. He criticised the merger for being “ideological”, claiming it would destroy TVNZ’s business model, and saying he would demerge it if National win the election.

But none of the interviewers asked Luxon to explain his figures or why the destruction of TVNZ’s business model would be a bad thing. None asked him if demerging would also be “ideological” and none asked if he would get a cost-benefit analysis done before demerging.

Lee and Luxon’s criticism worked. A Taxpayers Union poll in November claimed 54 percent opposed the merger and 22 percent supported it.

Different polling outcome
My organisation, Better Public Media Trust, also polled on the subject but we added some information about the merger, its costs and benefits. We got quite different results with just 29 percent opposing and 44 percent supporting the merger.

That shows what a little bit of information can do to public opinion. It also shows that reliance on commercial media for political discussion is prone to being style over substance, posturing over policy, soap operas over documentaries.

That is why the merger should go ahead. People would see it’s not a dog, grenade or monster, but intelligent, diverse and informative public media. Just in time for the election.

Myles Thomas is chair of the Better Public Media Trust (BPM). He is a television producer and director of various forms of “factual” programming, and in 2012 he established established the Save TVNZ 7 campaign. This article was first published in the New Zealand Herald and is republished here with the author’s permission.

Dear Minister,

Congratulations on assuming the Broadcasting and Media role.

The announcement of your new portfolio put me in mind of Hercules as King Eurystheus told him there were a dozen small jobs he would like done.

Like Hercules, you will find that the tasks ahead are challenging. Some will seem insurmountable. Yet, the underlying message of that particular piece of Greek mythology is that nothing is impossible.

• READ MORE: RNZ-TVNZ mega-entity named ‘Aotearoa New Zealand Public Media’ in draft law
• Public media: new name, new law, new minister, old questions
• Other public media reports

I would hesitate to suggest that success will lead to immortality, but you will certainly make an enduring name for yourself if you are able to ensure that New Zealand’s media ecosystem is fit for purpose.

In order for that to happen you must undertake, if I may be so bold, the Twelve Labours of Willie Jackson.

Here are the tasks you should address:

1. The new public media entity — ensure it is an entirely new approach to a digital future and not merely a TVNZ/RNZ merger, and enshrine independent governance.
2. Media content review – act as the coordinator for a project to determine how we should address harmful media content, which spans a multitude of issues and ministries.
3. Social media platforms — make them pay for plundering our media and our audiences, and make them accountable for content.
4. Public Interest Journalism Fund – restore public confidence in the fund (by removing requirements seen as linked to government policy) and continue to fund the scheme.
5. Regulatory structures – facilitate the replacement of the Media Council and the Broadcasting Standards Authority by a single, demonstrably independent, body.
6. Private sector survival — investigate alternative mechanisms that replace declining revenue, and incentivise plurality.
7. Māori media — Have a stern talk with yourself, as the Minister for Māori Development, to finally bring something concrete out of the Māori Media Sector Shift that has already been three years in the making.
8. Ethnic media — recognise and support media that directly address often hard to reach communities.
9. Media law — review statutes that were predicated on media structures and methodologies that have long been superseded.
10. Media training — resurrect the Journalism Training Organisation with a mandate to devise curricula standards and assess their implementation by tertiary institutions.
11. Policy balance – work to ensure that the legitimate Te Tiriti initiatives being pursued by the Labour Government do not inadvertently ignore the broader needs of the media sector and its audiences (plural).
12. Technology watch — set up a monitoring group to alert government to technological changes (in areas such as artificial intelligence) that will affect media production, impact and oversight.

I realise that it is no more than 18 months to the next election and, even if you expect another term in government, you will need to prioritise.

Three broad rubrics
The tasks fall under three broad rubrics that are inter-related: Media sustainability, media governance, and social cohesion. Admittedly, they involve some activities that currently sit outside your portfolio but there is a crying need for a coordinator. That can, and should, be you.

The most pressing task is the New Public Media Entity, which both Television New Zealand and RNZ openly call “the merger”. You have inherited a project in the second of its three phases, and I am sure the easiest approach would be to leave it to take its (predetermined) course.

That would be both a lost opportunity and, I respectfully suggest, an abrogation of your responsibility to oversee the establishment of an organisation that is truly fit for purpose.

Your predecessor, Kris Faafoi, is admirably well-meaning and I have no doubt the initiative started under his watch had sound core purposes. However, he tended to lead from behind and the outcomes to date suggest the results will be less than the sum of their parts.

There is a golden opportunity to establish an entirely new organisation, born for a digital future that can accommodate but not be led by its legacy technologies and cultures. Its impact on the overall media landscape will be so significant that it must have a unique multi-tiered independent governance structure to insulate it from government control and to contain its own power.

I see neither of these imperatives in any of the material that has so far entered the public domain and I fear the introduction of draft legislation in the next week or two will confirm my misgivings on both fronts. My hope is that you will intervene to ensure the final form of the bill addresses both opportunities and threats, and your discussions with the Establishment Board gives it the courage to think a significant distance beyond the square.

The Content Review, led by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, also demands your attention. While extremely useful work has already been undertaken on harmful content in various forms of media, there is a real need for strong coordination with your portfolio. My fear is that mainstream media could suffer because, when it comes to policing content, they are low hanging fruit. The real danger with harmful content lies with digital platforms.

Absence of strong government direction
Those social media platforms also demand your attention in other ways. The absence of strong government direction (the antithesis of what is evident in Australia and the European Union) has allowed them to apply a cynical cherry-picking approach to compensating New Zealand media for the material they appropriate.

Unless they are forced to act responsibly, they will continue to serve only their own pecuniary interests and to minimise their responsibilities for content. You have an opportunity to align New Zealand internationally.

Your predecessor performed a real service to media and the public in setting up the Public Interest Journalism Fund. I have to declare an interest here: I have been involved in evaluating applications for PIJF on behalf of NZ on Air. That involvement has allowed me to witness at first hand the determination to pursue journalism that is squarely in the public interest and to see successful applications for projects that hold government — and other forms of power — to account.

Blackened the name
However, oppositions forces (both political and more malign) have blackened the name of the fund. It has been characterised as a bribe that has muted criticism of the Labour government.

It may be a hard ask, given that you represent the very people accused of doing the bribing, but you need to restore the fund’s reputation…and commit to its continuation.

You may feel those tasks will be more than sufficient to keep you occupied for the rest of the current term, but you cannot ignore the other Labours of Willie Jackson. I suggest you coalesce them into a single project: Futureproofing New Zealand Media. It could provide the blueprint for your next term as Minister of Communication and Media.

It may also embrace the idea of my long-advocated Bretton Woods #2 and bring together the many elements that make up our media and their audiences to map a collective future. That would make this old man very happy.

I wish you well with your new portfolio. You bring to the role many years of media experience. Complete these 12 labours and, like Hercules, you will be a hero.

Dr Gavin Ellis ONZM MA PhD

Dr Gavin Ellis holds a PhD in political studies. He is a media consultant and researcher. A former editor-in-chief of The New Zealand Herald, he has a background in journalism and communications — covering both editorial and management roles — that spans more than half a century. Dr Ellis publishes a website called Knightly Views where this commentary was first published and it is republished by Asia Pacific Report with permission.

The announcement of the government’s decision to merge RNZ and TVNZ into a non-profit “public media entity” was long anticipated but, coming in the second year of Labour’s second term, underwhelming in its lack of detail.

Cabinet had discussed the proposal back in 2019, and yesterday’s announcement was expected to be the culmination of extensive planning, consulting, expert committees and corporate accounting reports.

The protracted process was intended to give shape to the broadcasting minister’s vision of a multi-platform public service provider capable of fulfilling its cultural and civil remit into the 21st century.

• READ MORE: BBC funding: licence fee debate risks overlooking value of UK’s public broadcasters
• Closures, cuts, revival and rebirth: how covid-19 reshaped the NZ media landscape in 2020
• Crisis, disintegration and hope: only urgent intervention can save New Zealand’s media

And while it’s significant that the government recognises the importance of strong public media across all platforms in New Zealand, and is committed to its strategic vision, in many respects the announcement raises more questions than it answers.

Video: NZ Herald

Commercial tension
Firstly, how will the organisational and governance structures across radio, television and online services function? Minister Kris Faafoi has indicated that these details will now be delegated to a new “establishment committee”, although the Strong Public Media governance group had delivered a business case to cabinet last year.

Complications arise because TVNZ is a commercial entity, which competes directly with other commercial media for (slowly declining) audiences and advertising revenues, while RNZ is a fully funded public service provider with a charter.

The minister has affirmed that the current non-commercial radio services will be retained. But aligning the commercial television arm and future online services — for example, the integration of the RNZ and TVNZ news operations — entails potentially contradictory priorities, even under the broad directives of a public charter.

Plans unveiled for #NZ‘s new mega public media –
it will operate under a #charter, with “trustworthy #news” as a core service #AsiaPacificReport #RNZnews #RNZPacific #publicmedia #publicbroadcasting #KrisFaafoi @shrek45 @EveningReportNZ #communitymediahttps://t.co/Wf6sLWKP7p pic.twitter.com/5dpefe2XCc

— David Robie (@DavidRobie) March 10, 2022

Secondly, what funding arrangements will support the new public media entity? The ratio of public to commercial revenues and the mechanisms for ensuring its adequacy across future changes of government are critical, but have not been specified — although some redacted figures in related cabinet papers suggest these have been estimated.

The minister suggests these will be determined through forthcoming budget deliberations. If this implies that the level of funding depends on annual budget wrangling with other cabinet portfolios, then there is little hope of gaining substantial and sustainable commitment over the demands of health, education, housing and other policy priorities.

NZME and Stuff voice unease over merger of TVNZ and RNZ, but TV3 owner says ‘so far, so good’. https://t.co/NV9ji1mMJ0

— Stuff (@NZStuff) March 10, 2022

Budget uncertainty
Faafoi’s predecessor, Clare Curran, ran into this problem in 2018. Having announced an anticipated investment of NZ$38 million to develop RNZ’s services, the budget delivered only $15 million.

Prior to that, Labour’s attempt to restructure TVNZ with a dual-remit charter was compromised by cabinet disagreements. The Ministry for Culture and Heritage allocated $95 million of public funding only for Treasury to extract $142 million in dividends.

Crucially, balancing public service and commercial expectations requires the organisational structure and funding arrangements to be in sync. But this is unlikely to happen if one is determined by a committee and the other is left to the uncertainties of the budget.

There are successful public service operators, such as RTE in Ireland or CBC in Canada, which have mixed commercial and public funding. In both cases, though, the public ratio is more than 50 percent. It would be wishful thinking to suppose cabinet would provide 50 percent public funding to align TVNZ’s services with a public charter remit.

That would cost at least $150 million per year — triple the current allocation to RNZ and TVNZ. When reliance on commercial revenue predominates, commissioning and scheduling decisions inevitably reflect the imperative to optimise eyeballs and advertising dollars.

Time is tight
Even with base-line funding assured for the non-commercial RNZ services, without any mechanism to ensure adequate ratios are maintained, there is a risk that future revenue increases will come to depend increasingly on developing commercial spin-offs online.

This would inevitably affect the new entity’s capacity to use the expansion of its online services to deliver more diverse content to a full range of audiences.

The minister has suggested the new entity will be established by 2023. Given the legislation has yet to be drafted, that time-line is already tight. Any further delays or announcements of bold intentions without concrete substance will risk pushing Labour’s public media plans further toward the 2023 election.

If the new entity has not been established before then, and with Labour slipping in the polls, all bets on the future of public media in Aotearoa New Zealand are off.

Dr Peter Thompson is associate professor of media studies, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) is extremely concerned about pluralism and respect for editorial independence in the new Australian media conglomerate created from last week’s merger between the Fairfax Media newspaper chain and Nine Entertainment, a national television network.

“Commercial synergy has endangered journalistic independence and media pluralism in what is, to say the least, an incongruous marriage,” the Paris-based RSF global media freedom watchdog said in a statement today.

“On the one hand, Fairfax has provided quality investigative journalism via a network of representative regional print publications throughout the country since 1831.

READ MORE: Nine-Fairfax merger warning for investigative journalism – and democracy

“On the other, Nine is primarily a sports and entertainment broadcaster and its management is regarded as much more concerned about profits and cost-cutting than journalistic ethics.”

Nine, which will have control of the new entity, has already announced A$50 million (32 million euros) in budget cuts, to the alarm of news staff at Fairfax’s publications.

They include The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald flagship newspapers, whose editorial freedom from political or economic interference was summed up in the slogan printed under each newspaper’s name: “Independent. Always.”

Takeover
The Fairfax brand will disappear in the new media group, in what is a clear sign that this “marriage of reason” is an outright takeover.

Aside from a loss of editorial independence, Fairfax’s journalists fear that newsrooms will be merged and many of the group’s rural and suburban publications will be closed. Although not very profitable, they have until now played a vital role in providing Australians with local news of a diverse nature.

Kept a close secret until announced on July 26  and valued at A$4 billion (2.5 billion euros), the merger still has to be approved by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC).

“The freedom and independence of Fairfax’s journalists is clearly in danger,” said Daniel Bastard, head of RSF’s Asia-Pacific desk.

“We therefore urge the ACCC to block this merger until the new entity managed by Nine has adopted the Fairfax Charter of Editorial Independence in writing, in its statutes.

“Fairfax’s takeover is the end of a journalistic institution in Australia. Quality journalism must not be reduced to a variable dependent on commercial and advertising imperatives.

“This takeover is all the more worrying for journalistic pluralism and democracy because the level of media ownership concentration in Australia is already one of the highest in the world.”

Media monsters
Like Australia’s other media and advertisement giant, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, the future entity controlled by Nine will include national and regional newspapers radio, stations, traditional TV channels and online ones, and a string of news websites.

This is now permitted in Australia after the decision by Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s government a few months ago to repeal 30-year-old legislation restricting simultaneous ownership of both print and broadcast media.

Observers fear that the Fairfax takeover will open the way to even more ownership concentration.

Australia is ranked 19th out of 180 countries in RSF’s 2018 World Press Freedom Index. The chronic lack of journalistic pluralism is one of the reasons why it is not ranked any higher.

New Zealand’s Commerce Commission has denied a move which would have seen two of the country’s largest media outlets merge.

Commerce Commission chairman Dr Mark Berry, in a statement, described the merger as harmful to democracy because it would have seen NZME and Fairfax collectively own 90 per cent of the daily newspaper circulation and a majority of traffic to online sources.

“This merger would concentrate media ownership and influence to an unprecedented extent for a well-established modern liberal democracy. The news audience reach that the applicants have provide the merged entity with the scope to control a large share of the news consumed by a majority of New Zealanders.

“This level of influence over the news and political agenda by a single media organisation creates a risk of causing harm to New Zealand’s democracy and to the New Zealand public,” Dr Berry said.

Media plurality, diversity
More importantly, the merger would have spelled the end of media plurality and diversity in the country, the commission warned.

“Our primary concerns remain that this merger would be likely to reduce both the quality of news produced and the diversity of voices (plurality) available for New Zealanders to consume.”

This is due to the fact current, healthy competition between the media outlets would have come to an end.

“In our view, the merged entity’s competitors would not be able to constrain it in any real way from making cost-cutting decisions that reduce quality and plurality.”

The commission did, however, acknowledge that their decision left NZME and Fairfax in a precarious position. The media outlets currently face a challenging commercial environment as they seek to transition from traditional print products to a sustainable online model, the commission noted.

Job cuts looming
“In our view, without the merger NZME and Fairfax will be increasingly focused on their online businesses as their print products diminish in number and comprehensiveness over time,” Dr Berry said.

“We accept there is a real chance the merger could extend the lifespan of some newspapers and lead to significant cost savings anywhere between $40 million to around $200 million over five years. However these benefits do not, in our view, outweigh the detriments we consider would occur if it was to proceed.”

Several hours after the Commerce Commission’s decision, Fairfax’s stuff.co.nz reported job cuts with the owner’s regional papers were likely.

Fairfax’s acting managing director Andrew Boyle stated the no decision on the merger brought into stark reality the need to address what publishing model was sustainable for the company. He was quoted as saying: “Tough decisions will have to be made in terms on ensuring that ongoing viability.”

Declined decision welcome
The Commerce Commission’s decision to reject the merger has been welcomed by Auckland University of Technology’s Centre for Journalism, Media and Democracy (JMAD).

“I think the decision is in the public’s interest if you think that there’s now no single company which controls most of the online and print news assets in New Zealand. So I welcome that decision,” said Merja Myllylahti, JMAD’s project manager.

“I congratulate the Commerce Commission on keeping their head cool and do the best available decision at the time.”

Myllylahti warned however that the decision was not entirely something to be celebrated.

“We should actually remember that there is no winner in this situation. We really shouldn’t gloat and celebrate this because the future of the New Zealand media is actually very gloomy.”

She explained this is because the industry is likely to face “drastic changes” namely in the form of job cuts and closures.

If the merger had gone ahead, Myllylahti said it would have affected media freedom.

“We would have had less competition, less voices, less diversity, less plurality in the market.”

More importantly, the merger would have meant “more junk food news”, Myllylahti added.

Dr Peter Thompson, a senior lecturer in media at Victoria University, shared Myllylahti’s views.

“I think it was absolutely the right ruling, so I congratulate the Commerce Commission in having the courage to uphold its draft determination.

“Ultimately the Commerce Commission has done the right thing in prioritising the interests of the New Zealand public over the interests of Australian shareholders.”

However, Thompson said the commission’s decision highlights that the media in New Zealand is in crisis.

Media in crisis
This was not only down to the fact regional and local papers were under threat from the decision, but also because of weaknesses in current legislation.

The rejected merger therefore represents the opportunity for the government to rethink its regulatory framework, Thompson said.

“This decision makes the Commerce Commission incumbent upon the current government to recognise that our news media are in crisis and they need to look at the regulatory levers available to remedy that.”

Thompson, who is also part of the Coalition for Better Broadcasting, added the controversy over the merger – an “absolutely ridiculous, completely unthinkable scenario” – speaks to the weakness of the Commerce Act.

Both Fairfax and NZME have 20 working days to appeal the ruling and if this happens, Thompson said, a virtual monopoly in the print media sector will be created.

“If it goes to court and the unthinkable happens and the ruling gets overturned, then it’s going to be a very dark day for our news media and it’s going to be a very dark day for democracy in New Zealand and it will underline the urgent need, regardless of the current decision, to revise and review the Commerce Act and to revise and review the overall media regulation settings in New Zealand.”

• Academics warn NZME, Fairfax merger would ‘spell disaster’ for NZ media

Academics have warned a merger of NZME and Fairfax will spell disaster for the media ecosystem at a conference on the future of the New Zealand media.

The two-day Agenda 2020: NZ Media Futures Symposium kicked off today at Auckland  University of Technology, ahead of the Commerce Commission’s final decision on the merger on Tuesday — the eve of World Press Freedom Day in Jakarta.

There have already been two delays to the final decision, which has been awaited since submissions closed in December.

Victoria University media senior lecturer Dr Peter Thompson said the proposed merger was “nuts” and the plurality it pledged would be an impossible promise to keep.

“This would be thrown out in any other country, this would be thrown out in Australia.”

Both Dr Thompson and former New Zealand Herald editor-in-chief Dr Gavin Ellis said the Commerce Act needed to be overhauled, given it had left the window open for the merger to go through.

Merja Myllylahti, manager of AUT’s Centre for Journalism, Media and Democracy (JMAD), said even outside the merger there were “tactical and structural convergences” taking place that would drastically shift the mediascape.

“Everything is audience-first or digital-first these days — at least that’s how [media companies] behave.”

Changes on way
Myllylahti authored a report in December on media ownership in New Zealand, which concluded that no matter what the outcome of the merger would be, changes were on the way.

“Media moguls and media corporations, including News Corp, have pulled out and sold all their shares in New Zealand media companies,” according to the report.

This was echoed by JMAD co-director Professor Wayne Hope: “A short process has led all major media outlets in New Zealand to be owned by financial institutions.”

Previously, said Dr Hope, media moguls and family businesses dominated the media industry but had since lost out to the corporatisation of the private sector under neoliberalism.

The symposium concludes tomorrow, including a presentation by the People’s Commission on Public Broadcasting and Media and a political panel with representatives from Labour, New Zealand First and the Green Party.

As it was pointed out in the symposium’s opening address, the National Party had declined to send anyone to the panel, including the last Minister for Broadcasting, Amy Adams.

• Fairfax, NZME merger proposal decision due May 2