October 7, 2024 • 5 mins
A media commentator says TVNZ appears to be doubling down on what it's good at.
The state broadcaster's latest business proposal will see its website shut down in February while more investment will be put towards news on its streaming platform TVNZ+.
The company is hoping to save $30 million.
Spinoff founder Duncan Grieve told Ryan Bridge it could work, but it’s not guaranteed by any means.
He said that individual clips from the news can already be accessed from the TVNZ+ homepage, and it’s clearly where they’ll be focusing their energy in terms of digitising their news offering.
The plan will go through two weeks of consultation before a final decision is made.
LISTEN ABOVE
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
TVs is One News website is set to be cut
from February next year as part of the state broadcasters
news proposal to head a thirty million dollar savings target.
Staff have also been told there's a proposal to consolidate
some business areas to align with its new strategy, et cetera,
et cetera. Dunk and Grieve spin off founder and media
commentator joins us this morning, Dunk and good morning. Good
(00:22):
to have you on the show. Tell me what happens
to the website. How important is the website to one News?
Speaker 2 (00:30):
I mean, it's a Brital thing to say, but I
don't think it's particularly important to One News. You know,
the core business of them has always been built around
that six pm bulletin, which still has such a large audience,
and the news room is rightly or wrongly driven around
creating video the news. So the one News website never
(00:52):
got the scale of audience to compete with the bigger
of text driven websites, and as a result, it's it's
always set a bit off the side of my opinion.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
You can tell me that costs thirty million dollars to
run the website, right, So where else are the saving
is going to come from.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
I mean, that's a really good point, you know. I'd
say there's probably maybe a couple of million, maybe a
bit more in savings associated the website across you know,
the editors, writers, specialized journalists, development and so on. But
(01:29):
thirty million dollars is just an enormous sum for an
or slight TV. It represents roughly ten percent of revenues.
But remember they've got a lot of money that goes
straight out the door on buying overseas content or local production.
So if they're looking to find that within the house,
you know, suddenly that starts to look like a very
large proportion of their spend and a lot more staff
(01:52):
than just a website.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
This idea of putting video content on their news video
content on there, it sounds like a good one to me.
They'll be competing with I guess the likes of YouTube.
Maybe it's more of a local flavor. Do you think
it could work.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
I think it could work. I don't think it's guaranteed
by any means. It's unfortunate in a way that TVMs plus,
which you know, in its predecessor of TV in said
or demand, has been running for the second of ten years,
and news has never felt like a priority for it
not certainly not the way it does on the linear stream.
So they're coming from behind to an extent. But even
(02:33):
if you go and look at the app now, you
know they've got this new John Campbell true crime series
prominently place. You can now access individual clips of the
news from the home page. You know, it's it's a
bit of a sort of stop gap compared to what
a fully kind of you know, realized vision of news
(02:54):
within TV and Z plus would look like. But it's
a start, and that's clearly where they're going to put
all the energy now into the digitation when news offering.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
It does sound like it, doesn't it. Hey, this aut report,
I know we've only just sent it to you this
morning and it's only just come out, but it's it's
essentially saying that the funding that was given to the
media during the COVID pandemic, you know, the Public Interest
Journalism Fund, et cetera, had some unintended negative consequences, which
I'm I kind of thought was obvious, but they're saying,
(03:21):
you know, it didn't stop the redundancies. It was paid
at a time where private companies were paying dividends and
making profits, and it also led to perception problems. You
think it's valid.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
Not really. I mean like I sort of looked at
the study when it arrived yesterday and I was like, yeah,
a lot of it's captain obvious and essentially duplicative of
a U two researcher already exists around the sort of
trust issue. But the idea that you that it went
to private companies that are paying dividends, you know, if
(03:54):
if the government's kind of participation in new means that
private companty to stop paying dividends that it can only
anticipate in basically not for profit, so therefore only are
and Z, So that just seems like a weird thing
to single out. And the whole structure of the PIGF
(04:14):
was here is some money for you to do something
new that you wouldn't ordinarily do, which meant that it
was kind of cost neutral. But it did its job
on that front. But unfortunately, because of the timing of
it and because of you know, the sort of world canvas,
you know, ways that it approached particular areas, it led
(04:35):
to a perception of politicization. But again, this is all
sort of quite well known, so I didn't really see
what the function of that research was.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
I've got to study something, don't they aut.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
Well, the thing that's interesting right is like we have
these journalism schools kind of creating journalists, but we also
have an industry that is, you know, where this time
in February of next year, we'll have two fewer of
our five biggest news sites, you know, And so what
is the pipeline for, Like, why are we educating journalists
(05:08):
because right now it looks like this is an industry
that is running to shut down. So, you know, it's
weird that they're doing these kind of semi esoteric research
projects when the big question is why are we training
people at all?
Speaker 1 (05:21):
Don't agree with a great start to your morning. Thank
you very much for your time. It's been our founder
and media commentator on one News and the State of
the Media more genuinely. For more from News Talks EDB
listen live on air or online, and keep our shows
with you wherever you go with our podcasts on IAR Radio.
TVs is One News website is set to be cut
from February next year as part of the state broadcasters
news proposal to head a thirty million dollar savings target.
Staff have also been told there's a proposal to consolidate
some business areas to align with its new strategy, et cetera,
et cetera. Dunk and Grieve spin off founder and media
commentator joins us this morning, Dunk and good morning. Good
(00:22):
to have you on the show. Tell me what happens
to the website. How important is the website to one News?
Speaker 2 (00:30):
I mean, it's a Brital thing to say, but I
don't think it's particularly important to One News. You know,
the core business of them has always been built around
that six pm bulletin, which still has such a large audience,
and the news room is rightly or wrongly driven around
creating video the news. So the one News website never
(00:52):
got the scale of audience to compete with the bigger
of text driven websites, and as a result, it's it's
always set a bit off the side of my opinion.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
You can tell me that costs thirty million dollars to
run the website, right, So where else are the saving
is going to come from.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
I mean, that's a really good point, you know. I'd
say there's probably maybe a couple of million, maybe a
bit more in savings associated the website across you know,
the editors, writers, specialized journalists, development and so on. But
(01:29):
thirty million dollars is just an enormous sum for an
or slight TV. It represents roughly ten percent of revenues.
But remember they've got a lot of money that goes
straight out the door on buying overseas content or local production.
So if they're looking to find that within the house,
you know, suddenly that starts to look like a very
large proportion of their spend and a lot more staff
(01:52):
than just a website.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
This idea of putting video content on their news video
content on there, it sounds like a good one to me.
They'll be competing with I guess the likes of YouTube.
Maybe it's more of a local flavor. Do you think
it could work.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
I think it could work. I don't think it's guaranteed
by any means. It's unfortunate in a way that TVMs plus,
which you know, in its predecessor of TV in said
or demand, has been running for the second of ten years,
and news has never felt like a priority for it
not certainly not the way it does on the linear stream.
So they're coming from behind to an extent. But even
(02:33):
if you go and look at the app now, you
know they've got this new John Campbell true crime series
prominently place. You can now access individual clips of the
news from the home page. You know, it's it's a
bit of a sort of stop gap compared to what
a fully kind of you know, realized vision of news
(02:54):
within TV and Z plus would look like. But it's
a start, and that's clearly where they're going to put
all the energy now into the digitation when news offering.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
It does sound like it, doesn't it. Hey, this aut report,
I know we've only just sent it to you this
morning and it's only just come out, but it's it's
essentially saying that the funding that was given to the
media during the COVID pandemic, you know, the Public Interest
Journalism Fund, et cetera, had some unintended negative consequences, which
I'm I kind of thought was obvious, but they're saying,
(03:21):
you know, it didn't stop the redundancies. It was paid
at a time where private companies were paying dividends and
making profits, and it also led to perception problems. You
think it's valid.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
Not really. I mean like I sort of looked at
the study when it arrived yesterday and I was like, yeah,
a lot of it's captain obvious and essentially duplicative of
a U two researcher already exists around the sort of
trust issue. But the idea that you that it went
to private companies that are paying dividends, you know, if
(03:54):
if the government's kind of participation in new means that
private companty to stop paying dividends that it can only
anticipate in basically not for profit, so therefore only are
and Z, So that just seems like a weird thing
to single out. And the whole structure of the PIGF
(04:14):
was here is some money for you to do something
new that you wouldn't ordinarily do, which meant that it
was kind of cost neutral. But it did its job
on that front. But unfortunately, because of the timing of
it and because of you know, the sort of world canvas,
you know, ways that it approached particular areas, it led
(04:35):
to a perception of politicization. But again, this is all
sort of quite well known, so I didn't really see
what the function of that research was.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
I've got to study something, don't they aut.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
Well, the thing that's interesting right is like we have
these journalism schools kind of creating journalists, but we also
have an industry that is, you know, where this time
in February of next year, we'll have two fewer of
our five biggest news sites, you know, And so what
is the pipeline for, Like, why are we educating journalists
(05:08):
because right now it looks like this is an industry
that is running to shut down. So, you know, it's
weird that they're doing these kind of semi esoteric research
projects when the big question is why are we training
people at all?
Speaker 1 (05:21):
Don't agree with a great start to your morning. Thank
you very much for your time. It's been our founder
and media commentator on one News and the State of
the Media more genuinely. For more from News Talks EDB
listen live on air or online, and keep our shows
with you wherever you go with our podcasts on IAR Radio.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, And Charlamagne Tha God!