Jodi O’Donnell: TVNZ Chief Executive on a profitable first half for the company

It has been a profitable first half performance for TVNZ, as the state-owned broadcaster has returned to profit.

The company has announced a total Net Profit After Tax of $53.1 million, as well as operational earnings of more than $11 million, for the six-month period ending December 31st.

Despite this, TVNZ can’t predict whether the full year result will deliver the same good news.  

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
TVNZ has returned to profit. Sot Own Broadcasters posted a
net profit after tax fifty three point one million bucks
for This is for the six months to December. That
includes a forty one million dollar non cash adjustment to
remove costs. The operational earnings eleven point eight million dollars.
It's not all good news though for TVNZ it isn't

(00:20):
sure whether the full year result will be a profit
or loss. Jody O'Donnell is the tvn Z CEO. Jody
good evening, ran Hi, how are you very well? Thank you?
You must be pleased with this result.

Speaker 2 (00:32):
I am really pleased. It's encouraging, not just from what
we've seen in the last six months, but what the
next six months looks like, which is most encouraging. A
lot of people forget that TVZ isn't funded by the taxpayer,
so we are a commercial business. Ninety seven percent of
our revenue comes from advertising, so to be amongst a
lot of businesses that have been challenged over the last

(00:53):
couple of months, we've had to live within our means.
So I'm really encouraged with the result today.

Speaker 1 (00:57):
How much of this is to do with the fall
of news Hub and TV three's advertising.

Speaker 2 (01:03):
Revenue, I would say a very small amount, and that
is because obviously the overall market has been down. So yes,
we have enjoyed some increased viewership, but actually the overall
market has been down. So I would say small returns
which have come from those additional audiences.

Speaker 1 (01:21):
Have those additional audiences resulted in extra revenue or are
you saying that that you've got more viewers but you
haven't got more money.

Speaker 2 (01:28):
What I'd say is that with platform TVNS Plus, we've
introduced a newstab and within that we're now producing more news.
So two hundred thousand keiws are now watching news every
single week on TVs plus with news clips, and so
I would say that would be additional audiences and therefore
additional revenue.

Speaker 1 (01:47):
You mentioned in your release that half of your revenue,
your revenue now comes from digital. Is that is that correct?

Speaker 2 (01:54):
Twenty five percent our revenue is coming from digital. Our
ambition is for it to.

Speaker 1 (01:57):
Be half a soive at the moment, how quickly is
your your terrestrial dropping off?

Speaker 2 (02:06):
Yeah, So we've got a five year strategy and at
the end of the five years, we expect that at
least fifty percent of our revenue will be from digital
and the other fifty percent will be from broadcasts, So
there will be a point where they cross, and it
could be twenty eight, twenty nine anywhere between there.

Speaker 1 (02:22):
And how much is an AD on tallyworth versus an
AD on digital? The cost must be completely different.

Speaker 2 (02:29):
It's a really different cost s base and I think
that's what's contributed to our digital revenue growth. We can
now engage with small New Zealand businesses who previously had
thought they couldn't afford to advertise on TV. But on
TVZ Plus you can spend as little as one thousand
dollars advertising with us and still reach a large audience.
So it's really open to the opportunities for us to

(02:50):
talk to lots of small businesses as well as the bigger,
more corporate businesses which have tended to invest more on television.

Speaker 1 (02:57):
How much longer will you have free to air television
on it?

Speaker 2 (03:01):
I've said that by twenty thirty, and that's our digital strategy.
We'll have the ability to turn off DTT. But that's
a conversation that we would need to have obviously in
line with our shareholder, the government. Yeah, that's right to
make sure that all New Zealanders can still access television.
That's a really important part of our mandate.

Speaker 1 (03:19):
How many of your viewers are currently watching your content
on TV versus your TVNZ plus?

Speaker 2 (03:26):
Yeah, good question. Every night about two million New Zealanders
are watching on our broadcast channels, our TV channels, and
every week one point sixty five New Zealanders are streaming
our content on TVs plus.

Speaker 1 (03:37):
How do you shift them over?

Speaker 2 (03:39):
Well, they're actually doing a bit of both at the moment.
So yes, there will always be an audience that still
watches terrestrial TV so the way they have always watched it,
and that audience is getting older. But actually you've still
got a really broad audience across TV. So bringing in
new shows such as David Jackal dropping it for first

(04:00):
on our streaming platform TVs plus means that viewers can
switch between the two options, either watching it as live
on broadcast TV or streaming it on tv Z plus
when they want to. And that's what we've been experimenting
with is dropping different pieces of content at different times,
either on our broadcast channels or on tv Z Plus
to allow viewers to use both options. Because at some

(04:23):
stage we will need to say guess what. There's a
better way to watch and it's called TVNZ plus.

Speaker 1 (04:27):
You mentioned Dave the Jackal. That's a British TV series,
isn't it? When will you be investing more in New
Zealand content.

Speaker 2 (04:35):
We've still got over one hundred local shows that are
in production or in development over the next twelve months.

Speaker 1 (04:40):
And you haven't cut any of that back.

Speaker 2 (04:42):
So we're still investing hugely into our local content. So
we've said about so we haven't this year. We did
last year on FY twenty four, but this year I
have a fifty percent of our content investment will still
be across local That includes news, sport and local productions.

Speaker 1 (04:59):
News is bloody experts, isn't it?

Speaker 2 (05:03):
No comment?

Speaker 1 (05:06):
And it's The thing about news is that it's it's
you need it, it's important, but it's annoyingly expensive to produce.
I mean that's Look, I've just come from a place
where that was that was proved true.

Speaker 2 (05:17):
Look, news and sport are the two pieces of content
that bring people into our platform every single day. So
whilst it's expensive, it's really important. It's important for the
daily usage of our channels and of our streaming platform,
and so we certainly look looking for more efficiencies that
we can get out of our news product. And like

(05:39):
I said earlier, having us the news tab on TVND
plus allows us to renew, reuse that news so that
it doesn't just get used once at six o'clock and
then it's on the cutting room floor. It's reused and
therefore able to be monetized. So I think we just
need to think of it differently around how actually we
do distribute news. It's not just a one time once

(06:00):
on anymore.

Speaker 1 (06:01):
All Right, Jody, thank you very much for being with me.
Jodyo o'donald, TVNZ's chief executive on the half year result
thirteen minutes after six Now their full year result. They're
expecting operational earnings of between five and negative five million
dollars for the full year. For more from Heather Duplessy
Allen Drive, listen live to news Talks. It'd be from
four pm weekdays, or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.