New Zealand to merge public radio and television to create one giant government agency | Society

The New Zealand government on Thursday announced plans to join forces with Radio New Zealand and the TVNZ television network to create a single media system by mid-2023 in response to changes in audience and consumption habits. age

“The new public media agency will be built on RNZ (Radio New Zealand) and TVNZ, which will initially be subsidiaries of the new entity,” New Zealand Media and Broadcasting Minister Kris Faafoi said in a statement.

To defend the relevance of state media, Faafoi stressed that in difficult contexts such as the Covid-19 pandemic, they must provide “high-quality, independent, timely and relevant” content, as well as include the views of all social actors. The Maori minority in their country.

The new body, which will have an independent board responsible for its creation next month, will be funded with government funding and advertising, as well as maintain editorial independence in its decisions, the minister’s statement said. Cuts in actionable jobs.

Fully publicly funded RNZ and TVNZ derive 90 per cent of its revenue from advertising, competing with various private media companies, some of which are part of powerful conglomerates such as NZME or Stuff.

Upon learning of the announcement, Stuff CEO Sinead Boucher said her company wanted to ensure that “government intervention in the market does not undermine the commercial viability of its newsrooms and operations in every region across the country”. Directs.

The NGO Reporters Without Borders (RSF), which ranks New Zealand eighth in its ranking of countries that respect press freedom, condemned four years ago that the diversity and independence of journalists in the maritime nation was often affected by the logic of private media. Trying to cut costs.

RSF also recalled the Trade Commission’s opposition in 2017 to the merger of NZME and Stuff (formerly Fairfax), the New Zealand Herald newspaper.