TVNZ is considering a range of options – including more job and content cuts and possibly big website changes by the end of the year – as it seeks to find $30 million in savings and revenue growth, according to an internal email from its chief executive to staff.
Chief executive Jodi O’Donnell, who has previously stated there are no “sacred cows” as TVNZ embarks on new cost-cutting moves to address a big drop in revenue and a vital new digital-first strategy, has outlined eight areas under review for possible change, including “content and websites that aren’t profitable”.
After the closure of Sunday and Fair Go earlier this year, it is understood that other shows, production and staff, including leaders, are among the cost lines under scrutiny.
“I know that going through strategic change is challenging and that the uncertainty about job security is unsettling,” O’Donnell told staff in the internal email obtained by the Herald.
One source told the Herald: “The digital team are very distressed … given the wording of ‘content and websites that aren’t profitable’.”
If you look at how hell bent this Government is on user pays and privatisation…
Bishop talks up value-capture & congestion charging
Bishop talks up value capture and congestion charging
Infrastructure, Housing and RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop gave a major speech about infrastructure to Local Government New Zealand in Wellington on Friday, including:
talking up the use of value capture, congestion charging, water meters, tolling, and Public Private Partnerships (PPPs);
…the question has to be asked how soon Paul Goldsmith will start pushing for paywalls for TVNZ.
Paywalls are increasingly being used from the Democracy Project to all Newspapers and many media outlets meaning poor people don’t get access to public information which adds to their reliance on misinformation and disinformation.
TVNZ using Paywalls would be a means for National to argue people are showing their trust in TVNZ while providing a revenue stream.
National wants user pays to replace public funding, so why wouldn’t they try Paywalls on as a means to undermine accountability and do it cheaper.
The Daily Blog will never, ever, ever be behind a Paywall.
We believe passionately that Paywalls create two classes of information citizen, those with the money to read what is going on and those who don’t have the money and so don’t see it.
At The Daily Blog we believe passionately that you the citizen should have access to Fourth Estate Journalism that isn’t locked behind a Paywall, what is the point of a Guard Dog for Democracy if it’s only locked behind a gated community?
We stand with the ordinary average citizen who doesn’t have the money for weekly Paywall subscriptions. We will never be behind a paywall, but we will occasionally pass the plate around to keep us doing what we do.
Our pledge to you as New Zealanders and our pledge to Fourth Estate Journalism is that we will never go behind a Paywall.
You as Citizens in a liberal progressive Democracy deserve better than a User Pays Fourth Estate.

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i stopped watching TV news /reading news papers in 1974 as they only promoted majority prejudice.
Infomercials and junk TV has flooded the dying TV market as TV news and TV itself is going obsolete
as most people are cutting the cord/cable and switching to their prefered niche marketer of movies/sports/news or whatever. Pre the digital age you had to accept what you were given.
Now you can create your own “reality” by choosing what suits your prefered value system.
We may very well be becoming a world of individuals surrounded by strangers we
only see passing in the super market aisles. We will “talk” to people hundreds and thousands
of miles away onlne but never talk to people across the road.
Paywalls… maybe around some sport. Highly doubtful they would put a paywall on news.
I am glad TDB will remain “free but everyone used to pay for a newspaper.
Remember this. “If you don’t pay for the product, you are the product.”
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