MEDIAWATCH: Warner Bros trash their social licence obligations, Newshub Schadenfreude, Melissa Lee is hopeless, Seymour’s in for a TVNZ shock & how to actually save Newshub

Rightwing Politicians say Newshub collapsing is a 'sad day for democracy' but they won't do a fucking thing to save it - so 'thoughts and prayers' level sad for democracy then?

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That bitter angry feeling you have watching Warner Bros destroy our Fourth Estate is righteous.

They bought a media outlet that has a 35 year history of being a structural part of our media environment and dumping it trashes their social licence in this country.

If they go ahead with killing Newshub off, we have no option as Kiwis but to boycott whatever is left of TV3 and kill off Warner Bros remaining interests altogether!

This is what Trans Nationals do, remember this as National sign up new Trans National mining interests.

That prick they rolled in with the soft glazed CEO face to do the sad sad crying is  disingenuous and condescending.

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The Newshub Schadenfreude by some is disgraceful and deeply ignorant.

I never thought I could despise someone more than IO despise Chantelle. Normally evangelical Christians should be mocked for daring to think they can enter the debate, but this one takes arrogance and self delusion to extraordinary new levels.  Chattel isn’t the only one, lots of cooker antivaxxers who believe the mainstream media aren’t focused on their quack science or racist garbage.

Newshub imploding because they didn’t platform your Qanon claims of a shadowy one world Government ‘plandemic’ is like a book burner angry their poem didn’t get published.

Newshub is infrastructure! It’s like the Cook Straits Ferry, or the fucking Harbour Bridge, you can’t just leave Newshub to implode! Ignoring the enormous impact they have for journalism because your redneck ignorance isn’t being broadcast is simply fascism and that is where much of the Alt-Right are moving towards right now, fascism.

Well, Fascism, ZB Plus, The Platform and Reality Check Radio. There’s a lot of places the reactionary right can go these days.

For those who hate Jacinda for saving 20 000 from Covid, they will laugh and dance while the libraries burn.

This is what we is now, these are the redneck fuckwits we have become.

Melissa Lee is a hopeless Broadcasting Minister.

Her shrug and claim that this is the market working misunderstands the enormity of what is happening here! Here argument that no one watches TV misunderstands that all of Newshub’s journalism features online and influences well beyond the tV screen in the line room!

We all thought Melissa Lee was really stupid but her comments towards Newshub’s demise and her total inability to understand their place in the NZ media environment prove she’s a bloody moron!

The problem is we have a Government that wants you to be dumb and fractured and arguing amongst yourselves rather than holding them to account.

If Newshub was a Gun or Tobacco lobbyist the Government would have bailed them out!

David Seymour’s weird wide eyed desire to punch TVNZ for existing is so far right in its thinking that it trips over the edge. His argument is that it was TVNZs fault that Newshub failed and as such he was going to punish TVNZ by demanding a larger dividend.

The problem for David is that rumours are TVNZ has had a massive drop in revenue (alongside rumours that Stuff are out begging second tier lenders for more money because their top their lenders won’t any more), so demanding more money from them when they are about to tell him they’ve blown out will be a lot of fun to watch.

We have an obligation to try and save Newshub the way we would have an obligation to repair the Cook Strait Ferries or the Harbour Bridge.

The way we do that is:

1 – Dump the Korda transmission fees.

2 – Make TV1 advert free and allow that revenue source to transfer to Newshub.

3 – Get NZ on Air to fund ‘Read between the Flag’ Kiwi Journalism that can get funding by following NZ Journalism standards.

There are ways to protect and save our Fourth Estate even if we don’t agree with their editorial approaches.

Fighting for Newshub is a fight for the institutions that hold the powerful to account, we all have an interest as citizens to ensure it doesn’t shut.

 

 

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32 COMMENTS

  1. Martyn – TDB is far better than Newshub in terms of insight, and context…Newshub deserves to go away

  2. I’ve gotten more news & been better informed from the bearded guys on the BHN, a YouTube Show you regularly appear on Martyn, than anything learned from Newshub, BHN’s expose of David Seymour, a born & bred CANADIAN, with a phoney Canuck accent & who appeared on Canadian TV as a mop topped boy, years ago, pushing his Neoliberal ideas to privatise their Public Transport was revealing, who knew that this weasel is not even a NZer, Newshub would never do deep dives into finding stuff out like this, to me thats true journalism, like what Mihi Forbes does? TV3 is a shallow, headline seeking Old school legacy Media Dinosaur that’s all style & no substance, so they have breathless Reporters running around everywhere & overpaid Ron burgundy News readers, this model is becoming obsolete today because the information they provide can be easily disproven by Alt media & Citizen journalists like the bearded guys on the Net, Newshub caters to the uninformed masses & supports the Western Rules based Order narratives & US Hegemony, people are done with these groupthink propaganda & lies? And throw in the fact that Newshub regularly loses $30-$50 million a year, it’s a no brainer to axe this Media channel? It’s unfortunate that 300 people will lose their jobs & that is the tragedy in this because people’s livelihood are being affected & gone but every cloud has a silver lining & these people will find work in their Industry or further afield, Talent always finds a home?

    • ant before you let your bigotry run free…the question is he a citizen? I came here 25 yrs ago and got citizenship as soon as I could (commiting to my new country) and if you don’t like that you can talk to my arse because my face ain’t listening

  3. 35 year history?! I first heard of newshub maybe a year ago?

    And the ads, urgh. “I’m emotional. I’m going to tell you what to think. Being a twat journalist is fun.” Good riddance.

  4. It’s a market
    The left, woke part is full. The right part still has profitable gaps.
    A company that meets the market will survive

    • a freely manipulated market where those with capital get to set the price and the agenda. go lick your lord barons boots and suck on his wet nurse’s teat.

  5. While I believe your information regarding the financial problems within the commercial news industry and can understand how expensive it is to have nation wide news coverage I am not keen on the idea of giving them a blank cheque (figure of speech since we don’t have cheques now) although I agree that we would be better served by having Newshub (or another news option) still available. When Wellington council wants to buy the land under a theatre to enable it to be rebuilt to benefit a relatively small number of theatre goers and surrounding business’s that rely on their presence you can see how misguided the market actually is. If religious groups can support a free to air tv channel then why can’t news watchers find a way to support a local news provider?

  6. If you lefties had watched NewsHub and bought from their sponsors then they wouldn’t be in this mess.

    I’m not tasked to keep them afloat, this is all on you guys, don’t pin this on me.

    • another fuckin feudalist – this picking sides shit is the way we used to play bullrush in the school playground – did you always get picked last? You wouldn’t know the right is if you fell over a trench full of academics down the back of your lord barons estate.

  7. A natural death spurred on by tone deaf woke virtue signalling from millennials to boomers.
    Surprising it lasted this long.

  8. I was always very suspicious of right-wing, one-time Nat Cabinet Minister Simon Power, taking over as CEO of TVNZ for a few years.
    Was he setting TVNZ up to eventually be privatised, even if via a torturous strategy?
    A cunning fellow, Simon, but is he really that smart and machiavellian?

  9. Well, you get what you voted for, and Aucklanders wanted change and that is what they are getting the problem is the rest of us have to suffer to.

  10. This was only possible because the Prebble gave the sole private license in every television market to one company (back when N.B.C. were the main shareholder). And, as we now discovered, there was no legal requirement for a local news bulletin to be produced in each one.

    There were individual local stations that made bids in each market (who could have become affiliates of N.B.C. or another network), but Prebble refused to grant any of them licenses

    There was another way, of course. The N.Z.B.C. could have started new owned-and-operated stations, and turned them into publicly-owned affiliates of any other network — thus ensuring all broadcasters remained under the control of elected officials. A future government could still use Kordia/T.V.N.Z assets to do this with relative ease, and thereby smash the power of the media moguls.

    • Inventive initiative. Glad you can get your head around it. Sounds possible, but the kindergarten pollies haven’t progressed to examining pros and cons I think; the admins have to see what this type of action would do to their CV in Canada or some other fertile country to plough.

  11. The thought of taxpayers bailing out a business that is owned by a multi billion dollar corporate entity is ridiculous. Lucky Labour is not in power, because they would have done it for sure.

    • Oh you are so wrong jack off, the mark.
      It was National and Joyce who bailed them out to the tune of 40 million. You must be new to the country. Next time do some research on National bailing out private companies.

      • I didnt deny the Mediaworks ‘deferred loan’ from National. I just said the Last Labour government would have bailed them out.

    • I agree that it’s ridiculous, but the practise is generally associated with right wing crony capitalism.
      Mind you, usually they first steal (or pay peanuts to the dollar for) the publicly owned enterprise/infrastructure from the public, then pocket any profits it generates, and then, should it make a loss, go back to the taxpayer for bailouts.

      • yep – this is Seymours wet dream for TVNZ and a captive market – and Luxon will be the horse he rides in on

    • ” The thought of taxpayers bailing out a business that is owned by a multi billion dollar corporate entity is ridiculous ”

      Check your facts before you post !

      The Key regime got into bed with Warner’s who then proceeded to blackmail New Zealanders for tax concessions and changes to our sovereign laws so the Hobbit could be continued to be made here.

      Key also funded a bailout of TV3 early on in his first term.

      Corporate welfare is always condoned while the politicians talk about austerity and the current ” tough love ” is applied to everyone else.

      Key and his cronies financially raped our country and more than once for corporate maggots like Warners.

      Key and his colleagues would sell human babies for a profit if there was not a law against it.

  12. I won’t mourn for Newshub.

    Pre 1980s NZ had only public television, a good case can be made to claim that the standard of public discourse was far higher then, before ratings-driven media chased the lowest common denominator and fought for eyeballs with ever shorter soundbite-length content and targeted feelings over intellect.

    No huge smorgasbord of drivel compensates for the degradation of quality that the competitive model brought to the television news environment.

    • Yes indeed I concur and not too heartbroken Ryan Ridge lost a platform to support his three causes and denigrate anyone without a job. And this is what happens when foreign companies own crucial national infrastructure like media. What was that German company again that owned practically all the print media and then bailed out. Yeah they couldn’t care less, well well well…. whaddya know.

  13. There is such an elitist undertone from Melissa Lee and others who say the market has changed blah blah blah. Many people don’t have Sky TV subscriptions, or wifi or access to an iPhone or on-line media because they can’t fucking afford it, or to have to pay for on-line “premium” content from our National newspapers. Quite a while ago, we made a break through with free to air TV and did away with having to pay for TV licences. I hardly ever watch TV these days, but it is rare for homes not to have a TV. But many don’t have computers, or affordable smart phones. I can afford access to other mediums, but what we can’t afford it is the loss of the journalists. And by that I mean people who are paid (often shit money) to research, write a story, try to get headlines so people notice, stay up at night to get the story out, actually go visit real people, and fundamentally, do the job of what we call the fourth estate. So many stories, blogs and critiques (including this one) are built on the work journalists do. We may disagree, haven’t we always? But the comments of Melissa Lee leave me wondering what kind of “Broadcasting” portfolio she will be presiding over?

    • “what we can’t afford it is the loss of the journalists. And by that I mean people who are paid (often shit money) to research, write a story, try to get headlines so people notice, stay up at night to get the story out, actually go visit real people, and fundamentally, do the job of what we call the fourth estate.”

      Three cheers for that if that is what we’ll lose. But you’ll have to go back decades to have found those standards regularly presented on NZ’s free to air television. No friend, it’s been a diet of mostly drivel for a very long time. I won’t miss it as it was dysfunctional and ghastly. In fact, it was actively harmful.

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