TVNZ/RNZ merger killed – Winners, Losers, Predictions
After launching a hate campaign that made the social media abuse Jacinda faced look tame, the private media alongside TVNZ management have killed the TVNZ/RNZ merger because they feared losing NZ on Air money.
Despite this being the anniversary of the Parliament Lawn protests and the clear evidence of what happens when you have a population led down conspiracy rabbit holes. The merger was supposed to build a platform of news that was respected and trusted so that the Parliament Lawn radicalism doesn’t happens again, unfortunately corporate media interests have trumped that.
WINNERS
Bread & Butter Politics: Bread and Butter Politics does two things, it puts delivery over ideology and because most middle class woke activists are gluten free vegans, they run a mile from Bread and Butter. So Chippy can redesign policy to delivery while freaking the woke to run away and stop alienating voters. Bread and Butter politics in the merger context means providing the content with extra NZ on Air funding while dumping the ideology which was the merger.
Fuck Boy Island: The crass clickbait shit TVNZ vomits up will continue to be vomited up.
Corporate Media: They will be delighted they’ve killed off any public broadcasting merger that was a threat to their networks.
NZ on Air Woke Clique: The woke clique who get NZ on Air funding will jump with joy at their ongoing ability to get millions to produce shit no one cares about. The Working Group that hits number 1 in the weekly political podcast charts doesn’t get a cent from NZ on Air.
Chippy back on ZB: Mike Hosking is an arsehole, but he’s the best arsehole in the game and the Prime mM minister of the Day has to front weekly on his show, Chippy is back doing that and did a strong debut performance.
LOSERS:
Democracy: The radicalisation that demented the Parliament Lawn protests should have demanded the merger but Labour didn’t have the courage to make TVOne commercial free so NZ Democracy is ultimately weaker today.
Public Broadcasting: Is now a joke looking for a punchline.
Thomas Coughlan: Who described the Willie Jackson Q+A interview as a train wreck but didn’t call the Wayne Brown interview a train wreck. Most likely to never talk to another Labour Minister for the rest of the election.
Labour planning: Another big project they’ve dumped because they couldn’t articulate an argument. The Left’s reliance of deplatfoming and cancellation means we’ve lost the skill to actually argue our position anymore.
PREDICTIONS:
If Simon Power isn’t replaced right after the election for all his attempts to screw the scrum on this, I’ll be very surprised.
The NZ on Air Clique consisting of The Spinoff, RNZ and Stuff will continue to produce woke identity politics box ticking rather than journalism.
Our Democracy is a weaker place this week and our Fourth Estate are only guard dogs to their interests and lap dogs to the truly powerful.
Chippy better be cooking up something magnificent back there because we are all eating lots of dead rats out here.
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A disastrously right-wing decision, but probably a victory for the Right Faction and the corporate political donors.
Bread and butter politics on the Left should revolve around public utilities and other state owned enterprises, so this is not a good sign at all.
The idea that getting the merger ball rolling was going to cost hundreds of millions of dollars seems ridiculous to me. He could have taken two existing executives at RNZ, and put them in ultimate control of both TVNZ/RNZ programming and news. You’ve spent nothing — and yet he could still claim that “the merger is now progressing”, and that the signwriter will be around next year to change the name back to NZBC.
(And even that could simply be a name change of two separate companies, rather than an actual merger — still costing virtually nothing!)
The only winners from the cancellation of the merger, are those who benefit from the media status quo. The losers will be the audiences who will continue to be served reality dreck.
“because most middle class woke activists are gluten free vegans, they run a mile from Bread and Butter.”
Gold amongst the bombast- that quote wins Best Internet of the day and why I keep coming back to TDB.
“If Simon Power isn’t replaced right after the election for all his attempts to screw the scrum on this, I’ll be very surprised.”
How the hell did he ever get the job in the first place is a question that Chippy should be asking. Sure, the commitment to ‘the revolving door’, and possibly wanting to appear fair and balanced by appointing gNat. They could have at least got someone like Chris Finlayson if they really did think they had to adhere to the now standard procedure
This reflects on Jackson’s inability to sell the concept of improved broadcasting without bring race into it .The same could be said for Mahuta on 3 Waters. Race should not be involved in running public facilities
Totally agree Martyn. I think there should be a re-introduction of a charter for TVNZ. Perhaps the charter could eliminate programming choices such as FB Island!
Chippy isn’t about bread and butter issues. He was there all the way when labour brought in their woke bullshit policies. Chippy s just doing this to win. Surely any fool can see through this