The day the news axe fell: Presenters, insiders fear ‘huge blow for democracy’
The future of New Zealand’s media landscape is becoming clearer by the day, with confirmation that it will no longer feature one of the country’s big two TV news networks.
Warner Bros. Discovery has revealed that all of Newshub’s operations will be shut down, effective July 5. That includes the flagship 6pm bulletin, The AM Show, and the Newshub website.
294 staff are set to lose their jobs.
It’s also been confirmed that TVNZ’s programme Sunday will be cancelled, following yesterday’s announcement that Fair Go, as well as both 1 News at Midday and 1 News Tonight, are being canned in their current format.
The NZ Media industry has been rocked by the bleeding obvious which is that their failed ratings system for legacy media was always more art than science.
The NZ radio ratings system is a diary that you fill in every 15 minutes – which no one ever fills in properly.
The NZ Newspaper ratings are opinion polls and the NZ TV ratings system is a magical 180 boxes that limits choice to whoever had the TV remote.
When the sales rep told the advertiser that 300 000 people would read, see, hear their advert, it was based on ratings systems that were flattering but not real.
With the ruthlessness of online audience measurement, advertisers could see exactly how many people were actually seeing their adverts, and the legacy media never adapted never adapted to this new reality.
What we see now is hollowed out journalism competing against social media hate algorithms designed to generate emotional responses rather than fourth estate accountability.
NZ has NEVER had the audience size to make advertising based broadcasting feasible, that’s why it’s always required a state broadcaster – with no fourth estate who will hold this hard right racist climate denying beneficiary bashing Government to account?
Broadcasting Minister Melissa Lee has refused to support the Fair Digital News Bargaining Bill Willie Jackson put forward that would at least force Google and Facebook to pay for the journalism they take for free!
Lee has been utterly hopeless and missing in action here – If t ‘Democracy dies in darkness’, National are pulling the plug!
This Government doesn’t want accountability does it!
Instagram this year switched on a new filter to smother political debate and we know actual journalism has been smothered by the social media algorithms. I don’t think that most people who get their information from their social media feeds understand they aren’t seeing the most important journalism but are in fact seeing the most inflammatory rhetoric to keep people outrage addicted to doom scrolling!
When Winston does his big lie that the entire mainstream media were bribed because of a funding note by NZ on Air in regards to coverage of Māori issues for the Public Interest Journalism fund – (which by the way was quickly clarified by NZ on Air as not an editorial demand) – when Winston conflates and maliciously spins that as a bribe – NZ’s Democracy suffers!
TVNZ has always come across like a buggers muddle. It aspires to be BBC Public Broadcasting yet has the commercial imperatives of any Crown Owned Enterprise. If Labour had merged TVNZ and RNZ and made TVNZ 1 commercial free so that the advertising revenue could cross over to Newshub it would have rebuilt the importance of Public broadcasting while actually regulating the broken free market – when will we get a Labour Party that actually gives a shit about public broadcasting rather than pay lip service to it?
Ultimately Newshubs demise is a story of ruthless Trans National interests and geopolitical cultural hegemony.
Corporate Hollywood soft power wants to continue its cultural dominance as the South Pacific friction continues between US & China.
New Zealand is an important plank for American hegemony in the South Pacific and as China and American competition heats up, Warners Bros suddenly buying a large stake in our media was always a geopolitical calculation over a commercial one.
Cultural dominance doesn’t require nor want an active journalism, so they will keep the channel open purely as a means of dominating domestic culture without any of the Fourth Estate Obligations.
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.
That feeling of rage you have watching a multibillion Trans National vandalise our environment is going to be repeated the millisecond you see the American mining interests lining up to mine Conservation land with all their promises to repair anything they break.
Remember – the Trans National ain’t your friend regardless of its pronouns!
That prick they rolled in with the soft glazed CEO face to do the sad sad crying is disingenuous and condescending.
Now Warner Bros has killed Newshub off, we have no option as Kiwis but to boycott whatever is left of TV3 and water down Warner Bros remaining interests altogether!
They’ve burnt their bridges with us by walking away from their social contract, we should have no troubles returning the favour!
The only winners here are Right wing Politicians who don’t want their counterproductive and corrupt decisions to be scrutinised.
We are a poorer and weaker democracy after these News cuts!
Why bother having a Minister of Broadcasting if all they do is fiddle while the industry burns?
Welcome to your new media future…
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I’m 75 and haven’t watched TV news since the 1980s. When I noticed that they had a story about some guy who broke his leg on a fishing boat and had to be rescued by helicopter – a story which took a good three or four minutes of the news, and was only included because the helicopter looked good on screen. On the other hand, I do tend to stick to the mainstream media rather than get my news through Facebook and the like. It really is time that these companies started paying for news. They don’t employ the journalists but they make a lot of money out of the product which they get for free. I’m surprised that a Conservative party doesn’t recognise that this isn’t capitalism. Or if it is, it’s predatory capitalism. And bludging.
I can’t help feeling that we are missing a big opportunity to provide real news at an affordable cost.
Good example, we took to watching the Radio NZ news at 5pm with Lisa Owen. The cameras were on the newsroom, no make up, no flash clothes, just people doing their job. That’s now been covered over by banner news across the screen ruining the format.
Another opportunity exists in the diversity of news commentary across the Web. When Tucker Carlson got fired he started his own channel which eclipsed his former employers overnight. There are multiple independents such as those heterodox members of the “intellectual dark Web” with huge followings. The opportunity is to cleverly harvest and relay in the manner of the best Web aggregators.
Not all is lost, played correctly the big losers are the corporate government propaganda machine aka MSM.
Warner Bros? Never mind, with a bit of luck we’ll get more Roadrunner and Bugs Bunny cartoons.
So now that this government have dismantled our democracy following the slicing and dicing of Television media and with Winston now pulling the strings( and we all know his distaste for being held to account by journalists) we are now the equivalent of North Korea.
It appears Mr. 6% is holding the apron strings for our news broadcasts. How can this be in a democracy. The only person who has stated this is Tova O’Brien. There is something wrong with this picture. There he is swanning over the globe soon to be joined by his do nothing mate pretending to be a PM. Wake up someone on the left our democracy is fast disappearing if a politician can make such life changing decisions related to our democracy with only 6% of the vote . We are seriously fucked
@NMG. Yes. We are. But it’s nothing new. We’ve been seriously fucked for 88 years. The national party came into being in 1936 then began ripping off farmers and that’s why we’re where we are 88 years later. (That seismic activity you can feel is caused by farmer eye-rolling.) What’s that psychological anomaly called when one becomes adoring of one’s abusers? Trauma bonding. That’s it. https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/trauma-bonding
I’m a great believer in coming to know the enemy.
All they need to do now is destroy TVNZ and replace it with a Fox News like channel and all the ducks will be in a row .
Sounds good Fred.
Yeah and that hideous sanctimonious gremlin portentously telling us he has to wait for his rangatira to return before anything can be decided. Wow what dungeons and dragons shit has taken over government. I guess Peter the Great really wasn’t kidding when he threatened Jack Tame with his wait and see what happens to you when I am back in govt comment.
Let me ask, why did Labour reneg on that public broadcasting merger again?
Ah well. We still have Māori TV. If NZers need a new home for their nightly news, and local documentary (plus an awesome ongoing exposure to truely international film and TV culture – as opposed to the relentlessly anglophone viewscapes, and syndicated pop trash about sad people in Missouri or whatever) viewing they should get the best out of their tax dollar and emigrate there. This channel is the best of us – a little lumpy production wise, but don’t we kinda like that about ourselves? Don’t we historically shrink from too much razzamatazz? Just say what ya mean, I’ll hear you out, you hear me out, an’ we’ll say what shakes out shall we?
“Ah well. We still have Māori TV”
And what a battle to get there that was. There were a whole heap of naysayers (many in the Colonial Office -TPK) in muddle and senior management – the cost accountants. They seemed to think because a previous attempt ended in expensive undies they’d be as obstructive as they possibly could. One of them even went on to work for Queensland Health where certain supposed Hawaiian Princes were busy ripping the place off right under Her nose.
In reality, it started on a bloody shoe string – even with TPK technical support staff doing things voluntarily (or at least with a bit of koha in the form of petrol vouchers). The establishment board – under the aegis of the Colonial Office wouldn’t even give shitty old Acer 486’s and printers to them – preferring to keep them in storage where they were eventually trashed.
Sure there were ego-driven little spats between foxes and Pauls, but people got their shit together and got it up and running.
I credit two people in particular for its success – especially in the early days. Craig Soper and Mark Bullen (now with RNZ). And even Daren Ponter of WRC fame despite a policy analyst or two learning on the job. Not unlike Daran has had to do with public transport in the greater Wellington area.
We need to take care MTS is not losing its way though – it’s in danger.
No news is good news…not even owww!
No news is not good news.
No news means one won’t will not know if there is good news to spread around.
No news means no political accountability.
No in depth journalism means the kind of stories that Miriama Kamo and company bring to our screens are gone.
No news means no competition between whatever is left of the 4th Estate.
This is not something to be celebrated.
Labour could have implemented a google facebook news media code at the same time as Australia, three years ago.
The Google etc ad revenue leaves the country without paying income tax because you know Google is an ‘Irish Company’. That is something some which could be technically stopped with a few tax law and regulatory adjustments.
Simple tax on their gross revenue or the quantity in the data flow.
The loony conspiracy theorists, the anti vaxers, the racists, bigots homophobes and Winston have won, they’ve managed to shut down the Media by spreading misinformation, distrust and lies.This is exactly what Winston threatened he would do and he’s done it. This is what a dictatorship looks like, with no Governments being called out for anything for fear of being silenced. We have our own
Putin Government. Oh well at least we still have Mike Hosking around to give his balanced unbiased opinions!
100% Jules. Winston will control the media like Kim Jong Un
Maybe the problem was letting Discovery buy TV3 in the first place.
Willy made a mess if it when he was broadcasting minster.
Much like your comment.
No, he tried to fix things. He just got too much push back from the fat cats who just wanted our TV channels to screen reality TV all the time,
Ditching in depth current affairs and news slightly worrying for some but, if they fiddle with Country Calendar it could spark civil war.