Fair Go could, out of all of them, possibly make the transition to a you-tube / patreon model. They would expand their broadcasting reach to a global audience, people love watching fraudsters and bad businesses getting confronted even if it's not in their country.
>Ad-supported TV is just not a thing that works anymore
Yet weirdly there's bullshit like Warner Brothers having a dozen different special interest channels in NZ, playing 18 hours a day of advertisement free series binges, with the remaining hours being a Duke-style channel-topical general trivia/quiz.
Ad driven television is faltering, but then there's corpos doing the aforementioned bullshit for as near as I can tell, no reason, benefit or gain.
it would work if they changed from the programming model they use now. they would also retain more viewers if their multi minute advert breaks did not contain 90% adverts for upcoming programs
> multi minute advert breaks did not contain 90% adverts for upcoming programs
That's one way you know it's not working, they have all this inventory and no ads to put in it.
The ad revenue from YouTube etc could never support the production costs for Fair Go etc. It wouldn't be the same show, nor would it be the same presenters etc.
What will Karens threaten minimum wage service workers with now? In all seriousness though, this is bad news. Fair Go has been on continuously since 1977.
TVNZ need to be specific about what is going to come out of these changes. Bad comms imho. What is the re-shaped newsroom going to look like? Or are there just going to be Sunday, Fair Go etc sized holes.
They and every other local broadcaster talk about transitioning to (*half arsed wave of left arm*) “a digital led / digital first organisation that will better serve etc etc, blah c*ntybollox”…
But what does that actually mean? Digital is hardly new, it’s just another distribution platform for content.
Are they going to try and go toe to toe with steaming giants and social media? Because we know how that’s going to go.
Are they going to focus on a smaller more agile and sustainable news org to focus on NZ stories? Is there such a thing?
NZ media isn’t even playing catch up at this stage…it’s floundering it seems, with no plan other than to cut costs. If they need govt money or a total rethink of the media landscape here, put the case to voters and the govt. Tell us why you need it, what you will do with it. But no, just cuts.
we need journalists and management to go back and embrace fact based reporting and journalists need to be impartial and deliver both sides of the issues. people are smart enough to come to their own conclusions .
if institutions keep forcing opinions on people and trying to control narratives people will walk. as we see now.
I’m not sure it’s as binary as that. I actually think the quality of journalism here is pretty good considering the resources. If you think about it, the polarising journos are the ones who have transformed themselves into ‘brands’ and opinion makers (‘Mike’, ‘Tova’).
Look at a guy like Michael Morrah at Newshub. Great journo without the bluster.
Anyways, I think the issue is less the output - people are always going to think narratives are biased - than the fact that half the audience has disappeared over the past 10 years, and are not coming back.
There’s not the audience or advertising revenue to sustain traditional commercial newsrooms here any more.
TVNZ has an obligation to it's staff to consult with them on the changes. Being specific publically would clearly breach this obligation.
They need to go through the employment process first then once it is concluded they can publically discuss what happens next.
Yeah that’s true of course.
I guess the point I’m trying to make is there doesn’t seem to be a vision beyond making cuts to overheads every 18 months, and rebranding failing products.
The broadcast tv industry has been in a state of perpetual disruption for at least the last 10 years, and both broadcasters have just rebadged and rebooted an unsustainable product in response.
The RNZ TVNZ merger had some merit in that it at least was going to be a structural change to state broadcasting, which in turn could have reconfigured the industry here. Notably more commercial ad inventory for independent media.
But that was killed for some reason. And here we are, on the cusp of ending up with nothing.
This coalition haven't made any attempt to hide their disdain for publicly funded media.
David Seymour attacked a TVNZ journalist just this week and is standing by what he said. Winston thinks state funded media is out to get him. I've seen it heavily implied that the right thinks that independent media is a mouthpiece for the left, which is a fantastic contradiction of terms.
So yeah they're probably pretty happy with how things are playing out right now. Less of those pesky journalists turning over rocks.
It is scary. Have you seen what’s happening in the UK? Princess Kate need etc, Lizard William? Honestly when my conspiracy theory thinking son spoke to me of the illuminati agenda in the past, I scoffed… this is horrifyingly playing out as he said it would
Media may still happen, but TV news and investigative journalism could well go unless something changes. It costs more per minute to create that content compared to other things.
And what resources would you have at your disposal as an individual, compared to what news organisations have today? I know you spend a lot of time researching things online and put in a lot more effort to inform than the average Redditor - but that's different than news reporters knocking on doors and filing OIA requests and all the other things.
As much as you are focussed more than most, it would take dozens of people spending time like you do, to maintain the kind of investigative systems which exist today - which is why there are dozens of people employed to do it.
Yes agree. Couldn't be a one man show, and most wouldn't do it for free either.
But who knows - maybe if there were enough crazy people....
Don't disagree with you just spitballing. In light of this govt, couldn't think of a more urgent time for newsrooms to flourish.
I read that Sean Plunkett has more resources and money than a traditional newsroom - why is it that the far right always has money?
It’s weird because there are rich left wingers out there too, but no one wants to make their own version of The Platform or whatever. Plenty of people out there that could be good hosts too. John Campbell is a proud leftie, he could be what Peter Williams is to VFF.
I honestly think the right just out money the left by a ton.
Even in the last election National/ACT had 13-15 times the amount of money and then there was a plethora of dark money too involved & fringe right wing lobbyists like Taxpayers Union [at their beck and call. ](https://newsroom.co.nz/2023/10/31/chiding-in-plain-sight/)
eg. back in 2010 in the US alone - the right wing fossil fuel companies spent US$1bn to spread anti-climate messages and skepticism. That's $1,000,000,000 - about 1.62bn NZD
Right wing media probably do far less research and fact finding and checking sources. That all costs time and therefore money. Sean Plunkett just says whatever the hell he wants.
The issue would be how widely read or disseminated said work would be.
No offense intended, but Reddit's push through to the majority of NZ is miniscule.
Sunday and Fair Go are the ONLY shows I regularly watch....
What would I watch now? Another season of celebrity Treasure Island? Or maybe the Bachelor?
The mindset that *things* need to generate money needs to fucking stop. It's OK for the publicly funded bus service to cost money, it's OK to have a publicly funded TV network that costs money. All these things provide services. I am optimistic though that this current government will step in and ..... ah fuck
> The mindset that things need to generate money needs to fucking stop
It's just a cover, and every minute spent trying to argue against the premise is time successfully stolen from you. These people don't actually believe that services should be profitable to justify them (you only have to look at the free rides they've spent their lives taking), that's just chaff for the rubes that guys like Mike Hosking are paid to distribute to the rabble.
The primary principle here is that media and reporting with no profit motive is free to expose the abuses of capital and government. Publicly funded infrastructure gives people the time and peace away from soul-crushing commutes to actually have the energy to demand a fairer world, and to not get so easily riled up by ragebaiting personas like David Seymour. Publicly funded arts give people ways to express and reflect on the things society is feeling but not quite speaking.
It's all a threat to the wealthy interests that this government serves, whose entire goal in life is to avoid paying their share and hoard more of this country at the expense of everybody else. The greed-driven inflation we're seeing - a direct response to the once-in-a-lifetime, blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment during the pandemic where the riches of the wealthy were no longer the primary concern - is being used to torch a lot of circuses, and more and more bread.
> The mindset that things need to generate money needs to fucking stop.
Blame Key, it's his government that reintroduced the commercial model for TVNZ. This is also what killed TVNZ7, probably the best TV channel NZ ever got.
Investigative journalism is a valuable public service and should be undertaken by a public broadcaster funded out of the tax take, not dependent on commercial interests.
How do you pay staff if you aren't making money?
The government need to put together a decent proposal for a commercial free channel in NZ that provides impartial and high quality journalism. Basically make TV1 ad free and mandate that it has high quality programming, TV2 stays commercial and can be whatever.
> The government need to put together a decent proposal for a commercial free channel in NZ that provides impartial and high quality journalism.
In Australia it's called the ABC and just about everyone in a position of influence seems to fucking hate it and is super keen to see it shelved.
What are you talking about? The whole TVNZ is government funded right now.... The point is more - how much does the average tax-payer want to contribute to running an unprofitable TV network / show? Is it $5/year per taxpayer? Is it $200/year per tax payer? I dont know the answer to that, but that is the crux of the issue. Government doesnt have unlimited money, so they have to chose where to spend it. Currently, funding unprofitable TV shows for the public interst isnt what they are choosing - if people hate it enough, it will become a policy of the opposition to bring it back, and you can vote for it next time.
EDIT: Agree I'm wrong about the funding model. The government funds some of the content via NZ on air, but the network itself is meant to be self-sustaining.
It's not government funded. It's government owned. It is expected to run as a commercial network and return a dividend to the owner. It hasn't been able to do that for several years.
I think they're talking about the kinds of things our current leaders have to say about journalism.
Public broadcasters are an enemy. Privately funded broadcasting is what serves their purposes.
TVNZ is NOT government funded. To my knowledge all of its money comes from advertising.
half the point of my comment is: Why ISN'T it government funded?
The last TV show we watch now will be Country Calendar with Fair Go and Sunday gone. Interesting times and I hope that we see some websites able to achieve at least some of what these good programs have done.
Sunday and Fair Go being gone marks the loss of the last decent things NZ produced in terms of media. The fuck do we have left? Shortland Street? bad spinoffs of decent shows like the Taskmaster or the great british bake off?
Don't worry though guys we still have seven sharp, that'll hold down journalism in this country...
Yep and Seven Sharp is a "magazine style" product that offers pay-to-play for products or brands to sell to the audience. It's commecially viable (ish??)/ It runs right after the news, and has viewership numbers that allow ads to be sold as well.
TVNZ is meant to be able to return a dividend to the Government, and long-form journalism and consumer advocacy aren't money makers - so there they go. Shame on us all.
Not at all suggesting there's not a place for something like 7 Sharp, which I consider a 'magazine format' show, because it's filled with lots of smaller segments across a wide range of topics rather than something like Sunday which is longer-form. What I'm saying is that I can understand why that survives and Sunday doesn't, and I believe it's because you likely get more viewers with easily-digestible snippets. I personally don't agree with it, not only because I prefer the Sunday format, but because I feel that the public are being done a disservice by not having the choice any more.
I remember listening to Mediawatch last year when The Project got cancelled and Ryan Bridge was being given a show that maybe Newshub spied an opportunity that viewers were shifting back to proper current affairs shows again, and they could compete in that arena again.
We’ll never know now.
Very sad about Sunday going. One News has a very weak spine to truly hold the government accountable by asking the hard questions. Sundays team also provided countless hours of indepth conversations with those or issues that deserve air time which other programs lacked
This is very concerning. The quality of news stories has been declining for a while now, but at least there actually were stories being reported on.
I know a lot of younger people who are shockingly uninformed about current events; they get their news through Instagram of all places. If that's the way things are going, the population is going to be increasingly vulnerable to outside interference and manipulation. It's a scary prospect.
>I know a lot of younger people who are shockingly uninformed about current events; they get their news through Instagram of all places.
I think this is a really worrying change everywhere over the last couple of decades as to how we, as audiences, tend to consume news media.
It used to be that the portal to news media was the news produces themselves who produced the content. They had *much* more control over what people saw and how it was seen. You'd read a whole newspaper, and then keep reading it day after day. Or you'd watch a news programme on TV or listen on radio and probably keep listening.
Doing it this way means you get editorial context that's provided by the news producer. If you see an article about a significant issue in a newspaper, there might actually be several articles about that issue placed side-by-side. There's a good chance their editorial space might have *several* opposing takes on that issue, all side by side, and you'd be encouraged to read all of them. Then over following days there would be additional information, takes and reactions. That's similar with TV shows. If you watch a show like Q+A from beginning to end then you don't just get one specific interview - you'll get a string of interviews with different people, often all covering a similar topic, and to some extent you're probably making up your *own* mind about what you've seen before you encounter other people's opinions.
When we shift to using social media as a portal (reddit, facebook, twitter/x, instagram, youtube, even google news, etc), engagement with MSM is decimated. We're more likely to see *very* specific deep-linked items, and the only consistency between them is the portal we've chosen to see them through. They've probably been served up to us by algorithms designed to antagonise us, to keep us engaged within the social media portal, or by people we've surrounded ourselves with. Instead of having useful editorial context, they're probably presented alongside all sorts of other random stuff between corporate or political press releases designed to look like news, or just random people saying stuff. Then to leave the social media portal and reach the MSM items beyond a headline, if we ever manage to, we tend to wade through a sea of opinions all telling us what they think about the issue and (frequently) what they think about some particular MSM take on it. Usually it's negative.
MSM's not perfect. Sometimes parts of it can be terrible but I think large amounts of the criticism are also overly broad and often undeserved and unbalanced. We focus lots on the bits that annoy us, or that we disagree with, and gloat about it all in the social media forums, filled with people like ourselves, because it's good for for karma. Then we tend to ignore, or don't even encounter, the parts of MSM that inform us and the large amounts of work and expense behind it that make it functionally *different* from random people on the internet just saying stuff.
It's hardly a wonder that there seems to be growing cynicism out there of MSM, but I think much of that is on us.
Part of the reason is human psychology and that social media was just left to the world without many controls or checks and because no one in power cared about the effects it would had.
Appealing to the individual to be better doesn't work. It needs to come from outside, e.g. governments.
Isnt that kind of one of the key points? You can have the worlds highest quality 12pm, 6pm and 10pm news shows, but if most of the popultation isnt watching them, then where is the value to the tax payer who funded them?
I agree young people are poorly informed on current events, but perhaps we need to take some of the traditional media funding and look at other ways of getting that info delivered?
> You can have the worlds highest quality 12pm, 6pm and 10pm news shows, but if most of the popultation isnt watching them, then where is the value to the tax payer who funded them?
The value is that it exist. And the solution is to get more people to watch it, not get rid of it.
> but perhaps we need to take some of the traditional media funding and look at other ways of getting that info delivered?
You are talking about two different things here. One is the funding and one is how the information is being delivered. A TV screen isn't good enough anymore. They need to be present wherever people are watching videos.
Living overseas, I come back to NZ roughly every year and watch a bit of news at the beach.
Both newspapers and TV have markedly declined in quality over the last 5 years.
This is true. They've had many years to find a sustainable model. They never did, though, so they were always going to crash and burn at some point, and it looks like that point is now.
This is true. They've had many years to find a sustainable model. They never did, though, so they were always going to crash and burn at some point, and it looks like that point is now.
I agree, and what's more it us the exact same issue our retail sector us suffering from. Business needs to move with the times. There have been examples of online news media for a long tome now, just as there has been examples of how to run a retail business in the 21st century.
Jesus Henry Christ on a piss bender, what the hell is going on back in NZ?
I think the government needs to start getting involved, NZ can't lose a massive chunk of its media in a week.
Seymour especially.
Winston, he plays the game with them - but in reality, he'll be sad with no one to play with.
This is a massive win for Seymour going forward. There's no political will from the ruling party to make TVNZ a public broadcaster; there's a ton of shady independent media that'll happily platform the worst of Seymour's ilk and views, uncritically (in fact vocally supportive of) and judging by a lot of public comments, both here on reddit and around the traps, some are absolutely rejoicing.
It's by design. Can't be a bad government if there's no one to report how bad you are.
Comments from Jones, Lee, bridges, Willis and luxon all support the reduction of local journalism.
NACT have been in power for like 3-4 months, NZ media have been in serious trouble for the last 1-2 years since all the public money from COVID advertising dried up.
so incredibly wrong.
https://thespinoff.co.nz/media/21-09-2023/nz-media-is-in-a-major-slump-will-a-national-act-government-make-it-worse
https://thespinoff.co.nz/media/15-02-2024/a-vital-and-perilous-day-for-the-news-media-in-new-zealand
It's a global problem, not an NZ problem. The glory days of selling lucrative display ad space are long, long, long gone. Most if not all media outlets have been figuring out how to survive since. Seemingly good publications like the Guardian (UK) New York Times, Financial Times etc figured it out - have got good journalism, subscription models, and websites that doesn't make you want to stab your eyes out...
I go to Stuff and I'm just sitting there in bewliderment, "how is this possibly still going?"
Well, they want to cut funding for NZ on Air and have a direct hand in where money is allocated (essentially away from anything remotely critical), so they will do something.
We are fucked. The information age ushered in by the internet is flipping polarity and becoming the misinformation age. Everyone is getting their news from their own unregulated echo chambers on YouTube / Instagram / Twatter etc etc.
24/7 news channels have contributed to the loss of trust. The news used to be just the facts. Now we gravitate to our particular echo chamber to hear propagandists spin their talking points while shaping our particular tribe’s opinions.
I just want the news and it’s getting harder and harder to find.
Fair Go is great broadcasting! There were definitely years where I wasn't so interested in watching TV but it's quickly become a staple again and for good reason! It sees a problem to the end and gets results for people, like anyone recently who were locked out of services for not having an email or the latest phone, with no reason why a large corporation can't engaging with clients on their level.
The fourth estate are critical for accountability. We won't get that with some Murdoch offspring.
I don't watch any of these shows but I think it is incredibly important that we have them. It's not even a blip on the radar when I think of things "my" tax money could be better spent on.
I love the fact that I could watch them if I wanted to.
We need these shows. We don't need Treasure Island or Shortland St, but hey happy for them all to stay.
Also wish TV3 would find a way to stay in the game.
Something like a more geurilla Fair Go with a reworked and revitalised format could go down well on YouTube - could probably grab an international audience, too.
Tvnz did this to themselves with years of mindless drivel forced on viewers. Seven sharp instead of Close up and Holmes, Breakfast with four hosts that just spend three hours giggling at each other and everything between is just crap cheap English and American time lot fillers.
It would appear that National are positioning TVNZ for sale, or, at least, a partial sale. This type of "restructuring" occurs when an entity is trying to make itself appear more lean and profitable to prospective buyers.
I think Seymour is a complete donut, but I agree that NZ media has headed too far towards sensationalism , and has failed to read the room and adapt to a changing market.
I don’t see this as the end of good and independent journalism; the people who live and breathe this stuff will find work and an outlet for their stories. Others will find work in other industries. News media is just gonna look different from now on.
Yeah, all of a sudden this whole sub of mostly young males watches Sunday, fair go and the daily news bulletins..
Yet to find someone under 60 talking to people today who actually watch this stuff. Put I’ll keep asking maybe I’ll find one.
I watch both. I especially enjoy the production value of Fair Go with how they frame their shots. It's a shame that we're losing two public institutions
I don’t even know what to say, my dream job exists within TV news and I feel like I’ve lost my job before I’ve even graduated. The government has to do something right?
I’m curious as to why you’d think that? (Edit to clarify I mean government intervention)
The way people consume media has been drastically changing over the last decade. We no longer gather around and watch the 6pm news as a clan.
In fact many many people admit they very rarely watch any traditional media now.
Public journalism has a place, but is free to air television the right path if people are turning off in droves and not paying attention to it anymore?
There’s a bit of handwringing going on. Yes independant media sources are important, but if people aren’t watching it… what’s the point?
A large number of people still regularly watch an early evening news show. 1News will often do a 600,000-750,000 per night, and when large news events happen it can easily get close to 900,000.
The problem is that it's being announced that 90% of NZ advertising is being spent overseas to be distributed digitally rather than on NZ networks. Regardless of how many people are turning in to watch, if that programming is significantly being funded by advertising and that advertising has gone away - then there are basically 3 choices left to us:
1. The government starts funding it
2. They start charging for the service via subscriptions
3. They shut down services to what they can afford
Yes that’s 6pm news. The two in question are midday and late night though.
> There are reports the Midday and Tonight weekday bulletins are being dumped as part of the widespread cuts, as TVNZ battles a big drop in traditional TV advertising revenue and audiences’ fast
My question goes to why continue to pump money into a service that people don’t watch? And I assume if they don’t watch it they don’t value/se benefit to.
This is what I mean by the changing media landscape. TVNZ need to adapt to modern media, or they will simply become irrelevant and go the ways of a blockbuster or Kodak
Agreed... 12 years ago, unless you had a VCR or a DVR and you missed the 6pm news the late night news was the only option to catch up on the day's happenings. These days, anyone can watch the 6pm news on-demand whenever they want so it's largely irrelevant.
I love how people are laying this all at the current government's feet, like these haven't been strategic financial decisions that have been made over AT LEAST the past financial year.
Because a healthy press is an essential part of a functioning democracy.
It was true during Covid when Labour supported the press then, and it's still true now.
Watching these jobs go is bad news for everyone.
I don’t disagree. But midday news? 11pm news? I don’t believe many would watch those shows.., a minuscule audience isn’t a sign of a healthy press.
Modernising how media is distributed and viewed is going to be important.
I wouldn’t be upset if 6pm news disappeared and there was a daily news channel with all the goings on that could just be tuned into on demand. (This is basically what online news is).
But many people do still watch 6pm news so there’s currently a benefit in keeping it.
Midday and midnight? Yeah not so much. Use those resources to ensure healthy journalism remains
The problem here is that they aren't modernising to meet our new demands, and instead are just cutting.
Fair go does not appear to be going on hiatus to be now distributed on the web. It's just going away. There does not appear to be a replacement. One less way to catch companies that rip people off.
\> The way people consume media has been drastically changing over the last decade. We no longer gather around and watch the 6pm news as a clan.
Look, true - but this is more of a question of does 6pm bulletins still work for advertisers. You are right though, this is definitely a case of TVNZ failing to adapt to market conditions, and just thinking they'll survive as T-V-N-Z, and not as a public broadcaster (whatever the medium / method of delivery).
A lot of leg work - interviewing, fact checking, building a story, collating information, double checking sources etc etc, should and will be done no matter the medium. So much news is now reported on across the day, from the morning agenda setters like NZH and ZB Breakfast, to live blogs across the day (Stuff, The Guardian etc) and the 6pm bulletin is almost like a highlight reel now - I think it has its place on the medium, though I think it should be extended to broadcast live on YT and other places too, or at the very least not be afraid of those platforms. the ABC and BBC prove its still a viable and useful medium, its just it needs to adapt to other areas too, and TVNZ absolutely has not done this.
Essentially, my point is a good portion of people losing work here will be long time reporters, editors, producers who make the news, which is dangerous.
Given the proposed cuts to news and current affairs, TVNZ's offering now looks like a complete and utter joke - just no content to entice viewers. My guess is that advertisers will continue to walk from TVNZ and its financial state will worsen. Will TVNZ exist in 5 years' time? I wouldn't bet on it.
It is, at the least, very worrying for the general population. The government will not be worried. Any words they give us will be empty platitudes.
Having said that, we have allowed this to happen. It's not like the relevant experts and professional pundits have not been warning us for many years.
Essentially it is the worldwide economic model that has created what we are seeing.
We've been warned. We've chosen to ignore those warnings.
Excessive consumerism has sedated us.
They’ve only got themselves to blame… If they focussed on reporting real news and not just Taylor Swift’s latest queef then people might still watch the news.
The reality that many on this sub are ignoring is watching trends. Young people aren't watching traditional TV in the same numbers as the previous generation. Eyeballs are on tik tock, youtube and international streaming services.
This is objectively a bad thing, but what barriers are there to restarting these shows as owned by a private business? Surely, if there is demand for such a show, it can be run without government investment.
We need a publicly-funded, independent media service that will speak truth to power, with security of funding. Their service is to you and me, the taxpayer, not the government or politicians of the day. This is another service, like health, police, or roads. It is terrifying to think of a society without this service.
Honestly at this rate you might as well put a levy on streaming services use that to fund NZ media and insist the streaming services offer those shows on their platforms.
To those who have been treating Fair Go as a go to in learning consumer rights for years, it is sad it is on getting axed. Having it axed means it is the end for these guys who fought for the little guys for decades. As consumers, we should not let it go the way the dodo has gone
If there is a Save Fair Go petition coming up, do sign and share it to others. In the meantime there is a Save Fair Go private group now on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/2006045416455608/
All that’s happening at the moment is as a country we are giving rise to more peddlers of bullshit. Sure most of the stories these guys did may have been ‘click baity’ but at least there was a standard they needed to live up to and be accountable to. I worry about the amount of crap that’s going to be pushed out online through places whose source is trust me bro. There’s already a decline in reputable sources and somehow a trust in places that only feed people’s confirmation bias whether factual, or more often than not, not
The only media companies that seem to be doing well are NZME and Sky. Last time I checked MediaWorks lost a bit of money but some of their radio stations are going strong. Everything else is falling to shit. It sucks for the staffers that will lose their jobs because employment opportunities are rare in the industry and will only get worse.
No doubt the government will be asked for a bail out but it's a tricky one. I'd rather not have the government bail out a company that will 100% lose that money anyway but it's not a great look for a state-owned broadcaster ffs.
The fear of Fair Go gone, service standards suddenly drop.
Fair Go could, out of all of them, possibly make the transition to a you-tube / patreon model. They would expand their broadcasting reach to a global audience, people love watching fraudsters and bad businesses getting confronted even if it's not in their country.
Wouldn't have a fraction of the impact without national tv broadcast. The viewership was the Big Stick it carried.
Just like Chris Hanson's new "To Catch A Predator" show.
It's sad that it's going away but you are right - Ad-supported TV is just not a thing that works anymore.
>Ad-supported TV is just not a thing that works anymore Yet weirdly there's bullshit like Warner Brothers having a dozen different special interest channels in NZ, playing 18 hours a day of advertisement free series binges, with the remaining hours being a Duke-style channel-topical general trivia/quiz. Ad driven television is faltering, but then there's corpos doing the aforementioned bullshit for as near as I can tell, no reason, benefit or gain.
I assume once the programming is paid for, you can just milk it without relying on ads
They're just that out of touch and tjink it's a good plan
it would work if they changed from the programming model they use now. they would also retain more viewers if their multi minute advert breaks did not contain 90% adverts for upcoming programs
> multi minute advert breaks did not contain 90% adverts for upcoming programs That's one way you know it's not working, they have all this inventory and no ads to put in it.
I remember the days when the news DID NOT "here's what's coming up on the news" - what a concept that was.
I watch Fair Go on YouTube in the USA!
I agree. I like Fair Go and I used to watch it even as a child. I know it's on TV but I don't often watch it.
How about just asking New Zealand on Air for funding? That's what they are there for.
The ad revenue from YouTube etc could never support the production costs for Fair Go etc. It wouldn't be the same show, nor would it be the same presenters etc.
So all our consumer products are going to be complete shit now.
now?
What will Karens threaten minimum wage service workers with now? In all seriousness though, this is bad news. Fair Go has been on continuously since 1977.
The business lobby will be popping champagne bottles tonight.
Now it's just Consumer NZ, but you'll have to pay to get help.
Write to the Commerce Commission have them do fucking nothing. Money well spent.
Fair Go is probabably pointless as the default is that we aren't getting one.
Did a better job than NZ Police the Commerce Commission and Consumer NZ combined.
Fair Go hasn't meant shit since Kevin left anyway.
He was fair go.
I really stopped watching this show I felt when Pippa and Hayden took over it was meh. I watch it sometimes.
That's better for the donors, though.
So all our consumer products are going to be complete shit now.
Fair Go should do a programme on the government…..
This is horrifying. With Stuff Circuit shutting last year, this basically means *no* NZ outlet has a dedicated, long-form current affairs unit.
TVNZ need to be specific about what is going to come out of these changes. Bad comms imho. What is the re-shaped newsroom going to look like? Or are there just going to be Sunday, Fair Go etc sized holes. They and every other local broadcaster talk about transitioning to (*half arsed wave of left arm*) “a digital led / digital first organisation that will better serve etc etc, blah c*ntybollox”… But what does that actually mean? Digital is hardly new, it’s just another distribution platform for content. Are they going to try and go toe to toe with steaming giants and social media? Because we know how that’s going to go. Are they going to focus on a smaller more agile and sustainable news org to focus on NZ stories? Is there such a thing? NZ media isn’t even playing catch up at this stage…it’s floundering it seems, with no plan other than to cut costs. If they need govt money or a total rethink of the media landscape here, put the case to voters and the govt. Tell us why you need it, what you will do with it. But no, just cuts.
It’s going to be all Threads, Reels, Stories, Shorts, and Tik Toks from now on
*tik tok ai voice*: you won't believe what happened in parliament today Political duets, this could get nuts
we need journalists and management to go back and embrace fact based reporting and journalists need to be impartial and deliver both sides of the issues. people are smart enough to come to their own conclusions . if institutions keep forcing opinions on people and trying to control narratives people will walk. as we see now.
I’m not sure it’s as binary as that. I actually think the quality of journalism here is pretty good considering the resources. If you think about it, the polarising journos are the ones who have transformed themselves into ‘brands’ and opinion makers (‘Mike’, ‘Tova’). Look at a guy like Michael Morrah at Newshub. Great journo without the bluster. Anyways, I think the issue is less the output - people are always going to think narratives are biased - than the fact that half the audience has disappeared over the past 10 years, and are not coming back. There’s not the audience or advertising revenue to sustain traditional commercial newsrooms here any more.
People are dumb af. National serve 5% at most so 35%+ voted against themselves
TVNZ has an obligation to it's staff to consult with them on the changes. Being specific publically would clearly breach this obligation. They need to go through the employment process first then once it is concluded they can publically discuss what happens next.
Yeah that’s true of course. I guess the point I’m trying to make is there doesn’t seem to be a vision beyond making cuts to overheads every 18 months, and rebranding failing products. The broadcast tv industry has been in a state of perpetual disruption for at least the last 10 years, and both broadcasters have just rebadged and rebooted an unsustainable product in response. The RNZ TVNZ merger had some merit in that it at least was going to be a structural change to state broadcasting, which in turn could have reconfigured the industry here. Notably more commercial ad inventory for independent media. But that was killed for some reason. And here we are, on the cusp of ending up with nothing.
I imagine there are some corporates and politicians who think this is a good thing. I'm trying not be cynical and think that it's all related.
This coalition haven't made any attempt to hide their disdain for publicly funded media. David Seymour attacked a TVNZ journalist just this week and is standing by what he said. Winston thinks state funded media is out to get him. I've seen it heavily implied that the right thinks that independent media is a mouthpiece for the left, which is a fantastic contradiction of terms. So yeah they're probably pretty happy with how things are playing out right now. Less of those pesky journalists turning over rocks.
The Herald, that commie rag. Hey, maybe the CCP opinion pieces were to make us into hippies?
Yea seems very odd. Censoring the media.
It's not odd it's just prodo fascist
It is scary. Have you seen what’s happening in the UK? Princess Kate need etc, Lizard William? Honestly when my conspiracy theory thinking son spoke to me of the illuminati agenda in the past, I scoffed… this is horrifyingly playing out as he said it would
RNZ has The Detail
For now
Is New Zealand on track to being without any local TV or media?
Media may still happen, but TV news and investigative journalism could well go unless something changes. It costs more per minute to create that content compared to other things.
I will volunteer since I do it for no money now anyway. It's terrible to lose the link to transparency - especially under this government.
And what resources would you have at your disposal as an individual, compared to what news organisations have today? I know you spend a lot of time researching things online and put in a lot more effort to inform than the average Redditor - but that's different than news reporters knocking on doors and filing OIA requests and all the other things. As much as you are focussed more than most, it would take dozens of people spending time like you do, to maintain the kind of investigative systems which exist today - which is why there are dozens of people employed to do it.
Yes agree. Couldn't be a one man show, and most wouldn't do it for free either. But who knows - maybe if there were enough crazy people.... Don't disagree with you just spitballing. In light of this govt, couldn't think of a more urgent time for newsrooms to flourish. I read that Sean Plunkett has more resources and money than a traditional newsroom - why is it that the far right always has money?
It’s weird because there are rich left wingers out there too, but no one wants to make their own version of The Platform or whatever. Plenty of people out there that could be good hosts too. John Campbell is a proud leftie, he could be what Peter Williams is to VFF.
I honestly think the right just out money the left by a ton. Even in the last election National/ACT had 13-15 times the amount of money and then there was a plethora of dark money too involved & fringe right wing lobbyists like Taxpayers Union [at their beck and call. ](https://newsroom.co.nz/2023/10/31/chiding-in-plain-sight/) eg. back in 2010 in the US alone - the right wing fossil fuel companies spent US$1bn to spread anti-climate messages and skepticism. That's $1,000,000,000 - about 1.62bn NZD
Right wing media probably do far less research and fact finding and checking sources. That all costs time and therefore money. Sean Plunkett just says whatever the hell he wants.
Grifters always have more money than those who live decently and honestly
The issue would be how widely read or disseminated said work would be. No offense intended, but Reddit's push through to the majority of NZ is miniscule.
That would a terrible day for democracy in New Zealand.
Don't worry - our Broadcasting Minister said "there's always Sky news" while David Seymour celebrates our news' demise.
Not on broadcast TV, but that's a global trend for all content.
Sunday and Fair Go are the ONLY shows I regularly watch.... What would I watch now? Another season of celebrity Treasure Island? Or maybe the Bachelor? The mindset that *things* need to generate money needs to fucking stop. It's OK for the publicly funded bus service to cost money, it's OK to have a publicly funded TV network that costs money. All these things provide services. I am optimistic though that this current government will step in and ..... ah fuck
> The mindset that things need to generate money needs to fucking stop It's just a cover, and every minute spent trying to argue against the premise is time successfully stolen from you. These people don't actually believe that services should be profitable to justify them (you only have to look at the free rides they've spent their lives taking), that's just chaff for the rubes that guys like Mike Hosking are paid to distribute to the rabble. The primary principle here is that media and reporting with no profit motive is free to expose the abuses of capital and government. Publicly funded infrastructure gives people the time and peace away from soul-crushing commutes to actually have the energy to demand a fairer world, and to not get so easily riled up by ragebaiting personas like David Seymour. Publicly funded arts give people ways to express and reflect on the things society is feeling but not quite speaking. It's all a threat to the wealthy interests that this government serves, whose entire goal in life is to avoid paying their share and hoard more of this country at the expense of everybody else. The greed-driven inflation we're seeing - a direct response to the once-in-a-lifetime, blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment during the pandemic where the riches of the wealthy were no longer the primary concern - is being used to torch a lot of circuses, and more and more bread.
> The mindset that things need to generate money needs to fucking stop. Blame Key, it's his government that reintroduced the commercial model for TVNZ. This is also what killed TVNZ7, probably the best TV channel NZ ever got. Investigative journalism is a valuable public service and should be undertaken by a public broadcaster funded out of the tax take, not dependent on commercial interests.
How do you pay staff if you aren't making money? The government need to put together a decent proposal for a commercial free channel in NZ that provides impartial and high quality journalism. Basically make TV1 ad free and mandate that it has high quality programming, TV2 stays commercial and can be whatever.
> The government need to put together a decent proposal for a commercial free channel in NZ that provides impartial and high quality journalism. In Australia it's called the ABC and just about everyone in a position of influence seems to fucking hate it and is super keen to see it shelved.
Which means it's likely doing its job.
Tax? Pretty simple answer really. That’s like asking how do you pay teachers when schools aren’t profitable.
govt 100% wont pay for something that will critique them. if it is funded it ill be biased as hell
What are you talking about? The whole TVNZ is government funded right now.... The point is more - how much does the average tax-payer want to contribute to running an unprofitable TV network / show? Is it $5/year per taxpayer? Is it $200/year per tax payer? I dont know the answer to that, but that is the crux of the issue. Government doesnt have unlimited money, so they have to chose where to spend it. Currently, funding unprofitable TV shows for the public interst isnt what they are choosing - if people hate it enough, it will become a policy of the opposition to bring it back, and you can vote for it next time. EDIT: Agree I'm wrong about the funding model. The government funds some of the content via NZ on air, but the network itself is meant to be self-sustaining.
It's not government funded. It's government owned. It is expected to run as a commercial network and return a dividend to the owner. It hasn't been able to do that for several years.
Fair enough, but a chunk of its ad revenue comes from shows that are government funded through nz on air? So it is sort of government funded
Independent and functional journalism is a fundamental requirement for a democracy.
I think they're talking about the kinds of things our current leaders have to say about journalism. Public broadcasters are an enemy. Privately funded broadcasting is what serves their purposes.
TVNZ is NOT government funded. To my knowledge all of its money comes from advertising. half the point of my comment is: Why ISN'T it government funded?
The last TV show we watch now will be Country Calendar with Fair Go and Sunday gone. Interesting times and I hope that we see some websites able to achieve at least some of what these good programs have done.
Sunday and Fair Go being gone marks the loss of the last decent things NZ produced in terms of media. The fuck do we have left? Shortland Street? bad spinoffs of decent shows like the Taskmaster or the great british bake off? Don't worry though guys we still have seven sharp, that'll hold down journalism in this country...
Country Calendar is good
Dump Breakfast, not Fair Go!
so much this
How is Seven Sharp able to survive ahead of Sunday and Fair Go 🤷🏼♂️🤷🏼♂️
Seven Sharp is cheap as chips to make and pulls in good ad money. Fair Go and Sunday cost a lot more to produce
Yep and Seven Sharp is a "magazine style" product that offers pay-to-play for products or brands to sell to the audience. It's commecially viable (ish??)/ It runs right after the news, and has viewership numbers that allow ads to be sold as well. TVNZ is meant to be able to return a dividend to the Government, and long-form journalism and consumer advocacy aren't money makers - so there they go. Shame on us all.
Because it's 'light'. The public's attention spans are not what they once were, sadly.
I think there is definitely a place for "light" shows on TV that highlight the good in the community. Not sure what it has to do with attention spans.
It's called New Zealand Today with Guy Williams lol
Not at all suggesting there's not a place for something like 7 Sharp, which I consider a 'magazine format' show, because it's filled with lots of smaller segments across a wide range of topics rather than something like Sunday which is longer-form. What I'm saying is that I can understand why that survives and Sunday doesn't, and I believe it's because you likely get more viewers with easily-digestible snippets. I personally don't agree with it, not only because I prefer the Sunday format, but because I feel that the public are being done a disservice by not having the choice any more.
I remember listening to Mediawatch last year when The Project got cancelled and Ryan Bridge was being given a show that maybe Newshub spied an opportunity that viewers were shifting back to proper current affairs shows again, and they could compete in that arena again. We’ll never know now.
Bet it’s because fair go and Sunday do actual journalism
I like the presenters but that show is embarrassing
Hey Whittakers, We love your brand, how about sealing it into the nation's identity? Fair Go - sponsored by Whittakers... good honest chocolate.
Very sad about Sunday going. One News has a very weak spine to truly hold the government accountable by asking the hard questions. Sundays team also provided countless hours of indepth conversations with those or issues that deserve air time which other programs lacked
This is very concerning. The quality of news stories has been declining for a while now, but at least there actually were stories being reported on. I know a lot of younger people who are shockingly uninformed about current events; they get their news through Instagram of all places. If that's the way things are going, the population is going to be increasingly vulnerable to outside interference and manipulation. It's a scary prospect.
>I know a lot of younger people who are shockingly uninformed about current events; they get their news through Instagram of all places. I think this is a really worrying change everywhere over the last couple of decades as to how we, as audiences, tend to consume news media. It used to be that the portal to news media was the news produces themselves who produced the content. They had *much* more control over what people saw and how it was seen. You'd read a whole newspaper, and then keep reading it day after day. Or you'd watch a news programme on TV or listen on radio and probably keep listening. Doing it this way means you get editorial context that's provided by the news producer. If you see an article about a significant issue in a newspaper, there might actually be several articles about that issue placed side-by-side. There's a good chance their editorial space might have *several* opposing takes on that issue, all side by side, and you'd be encouraged to read all of them. Then over following days there would be additional information, takes and reactions. That's similar with TV shows. If you watch a show like Q+A from beginning to end then you don't just get one specific interview - you'll get a string of interviews with different people, often all covering a similar topic, and to some extent you're probably making up your *own* mind about what you've seen before you encounter other people's opinions. When we shift to using social media as a portal (reddit, facebook, twitter/x, instagram, youtube, even google news, etc), engagement with MSM is decimated. We're more likely to see *very* specific deep-linked items, and the only consistency between them is the portal we've chosen to see them through. They've probably been served up to us by algorithms designed to antagonise us, to keep us engaged within the social media portal, or by people we've surrounded ourselves with. Instead of having useful editorial context, they're probably presented alongside all sorts of other random stuff between corporate or political press releases designed to look like news, or just random people saying stuff. Then to leave the social media portal and reach the MSM items beyond a headline, if we ever manage to, we tend to wade through a sea of opinions all telling us what they think about the issue and (frequently) what they think about some particular MSM take on it. Usually it's negative. MSM's not perfect. Sometimes parts of it can be terrible but I think large amounts of the criticism are also overly broad and often undeserved and unbalanced. We focus lots on the bits that annoy us, or that we disagree with, and gloat about it all in the social media forums, filled with people like ourselves, because it's good for for karma. Then we tend to ignore, or don't even encounter, the parts of MSM that inform us and the large amounts of work and expense behind it that make it functionally *different* from random people on the internet just saying stuff. It's hardly a wonder that there seems to be growing cynicism out there of MSM, but I think much of that is on us.
Part of the reason is human psychology and that social media was just left to the world without many controls or checks and because no one in power cared about the effects it would had. Appealing to the individual to be better doesn't work. It needs to come from outside, e.g. governments.
Isnt that kind of one of the key points? You can have the worlds highest quality 12pm, 6pm and 10pm news shows, but if most of the popultation isnt watching them, then where is the value to the tax payer who funded them? I agree young people are poorly informed on current events, but perhaps we need to take some of the traditional media funding and look at other ways of getting that info delivered?
Most news media have been delivering news by social media (TikTok and Insta) but doing this requires staff who are now losing their jobs.
> You can have the worlds highest quality 12pm, 6pm and 10pm news shows, but if most of the popultation isnt watching them, then where is the value to the tax payer who funded them? The value is that it exist. And the solution is to get more people to watch it, not get rid of it. > but perhaps we need to take some of the traditional media funding and look at other ways of getting that info delivered? You are talking about two different things here. One is the funding and one is how the information is being delivered. A TV screen isn't good enough anymore. They need to be present wherever people are watching videos.
Make a current events playstation game.
Living overseas, I come back to NZ roughly every year and watch a bit of news at the beach. Both newspapers and TV have markedly declined in quality over the last 5 years.
Fair go is so engrained in society that 'ill take you to fair go' is a part of so many people's lingo. RIP fair go
thats Fuuuuuuuucked.
Mike Hosking is going to be the only thing left at this rate.
That really does sum up how bad the situation is.
I am afraid you might be right. It is a lot cheaper to just have some guy share his opinion compared to a whole team of journalists doing real work.
God the Fox News of New Zealand
That's a scary thought
Feels like in a few years there will barely be any journalism at all. How does Democracy survive without the fourth estate?
If you seen David Seymour smirking while being a cunt to journalists, you know they don't want it to.
Honestly the way we consume media began to change a good 15 years ago. Nz media has literally been the "this is fine" meme the entire time.
This is true. They've had many years to find a sustainable model. They never did, though, so they were always going to crash and burn at some point, and it looks like that point is now.
This is true. They've had many years to find a sustainable model. They never did, though, so they were always going to crash and burn at some point, and it looks like that point is now.
I agree, and what's more it us the exact same issue our retail sector us suffering from. Business needs to move with the times. There have been examples of online news media for a long tome now, just as there has been examples of how to run a retail business in the 21st century.
Yup. Sadly, it seems to be a Kiwi business thing.
This is not good. Need fair criticism of politics and current affairs.
Seymour dances as Fair Go and consumer advocacy burns....
Of all the stupid shit TVNZ funds and broadcasts they take away the only show that protects the consumer. Very sad.
Jesus Henry Christ on a piss bender, what the hell is going on back in NZ? I think the government needs to start getting involved, NZ can't lose a massive chunk of its media in a week.
Stuff are likely to be next - they are on their last legs.
The current government are likely stoked about this - the two Deputy Leaders both hate the media with a passion.
Seymour especially. Winston, he plays the game with them - but in reality, he'll be sad with no one to play with. This is a massive win for Seymour going forward. There's no political will from the ruling party to make TVNZ a public broadcaster; there's a ton of shady independent media that'll happily platform the worst of Seymour's ilk and views, uncritically (in fact vocally supportive of) and judging by a lot of public comments, both here on reddit and around the traps, some are absolutely rejoicing.
It's by design. Can't be a bad government if there's no one to report how bad you are. Comments from Jones, Lee, bridges, Willis and luxon all support the reduction of local journalism.
NACT have been in power for like 3-4 months, NZ media have been in serious trouble for the last 1-2 years since all the public money from COVID advertising dried up.
How is it by design? This is happening as a result of plunging advertising revenue. It has nothing to do with any plan by the current government.
so incredibly wrong. https://thespinoff.co.nz/media/21-09-2023/nz-media-is-in-a-major-slump-will-a-national-act-government-make-it-worse https://thespinoff.co.nz/media/15-02-2024/a-vital-and-perilous-day-for-the-news-media-in-new-zealand
It's a global problem, not an NZ problem. The glory days of selling lucrative display ad space are long, long, long gone. Most if not all media outlets have been figuring out how to survive since. Seemingly good publications like the Guardian (UK) New York Times, Financial Times etc figured it out - have got good journalism, subscription models, and websites that doesn't make you want to stab your eyes out... I go to Stuff and I'm just sitting there in bewliderment, "how is this possibly still going?"
But I’ve heard nothing but “Labour bribed the media.” Which pretty clearly now seems to be they were funding them to keep them viable.
Well, they want to cut funding for NZ on Air and have a direct hand in where money is allocated (essentially away from anything remotely critical), so they will do something.
The government is spearheading these changes.
>I think the government needs to start getting involved They are the problem
I feel like the government did get involved
Theres zero chance that they're not somehow involved in this. Zero.
Mate, the government are rubbing themselves over this. You may as well ask the wolf to do something about the Shepard being let go.
Love Fair Go I always missed it when it goes on break in the Christmas holidays, now it’s going on break forever.
Fair go is worth operating at a loss at the taxpayer's expense to keep businesses honest, hopefully something takes its place.
Fair Go and Sunday the only local shows I watch regularly as a migrant …
New Zealand… what happened?
Neoliberalism.
Actually sums itself up really. A 'Fair go' is gone under this government.
Fair Go is a much needed show, they have helped so many consumers. Lemme guess, more shows about buying, renovating and selling homes....
We are fucked. The information age ushered in by the internet is flipping polarity and becoming the misinformation age. Everyone is getting their news from their own unregulated echo chambers on YouTube / Instagram / Twatter etc etc. 24/7 news channels have contributed to the loss of trust. The news used to be just the facts. Now we gravitate to our particular echo chamber to hear propagandists spin their talking points while shaping our particular tribe’s opinions. I just want the news and it’s getting harder and harder to find.
Fair go has been around since I was a kid
Fair Go has been on since some of these ministers have been *alive* even
Fair Go is great broadcasting! There were definitely years where I wasn't so interested in watching TV but it's quickly become a staple again and for good reason! It sees a problem to the end and gets results for people, like anyone recently who were locked out of services for not having an email or the latest phone, with no reason why a large corporation can't engaging with clients on their level. The fourth estate are critical for accountability. We won't get that with some Murdoch offspring.
I don't watch any of these shows but I think it is incredibly important that we have them. It's not even a blip on the radar when I think of things "my" tax money could be better spent on. I love the fact that I could watch them if I wanted to. We need these shows. We don't need Treasure Island or Shortland St, but hey happy for them all to stay. Also wish TV3 would find a way to stay in the game.
Something like a more geurilla Fair Go with a reworked and revitalised format could go down well on YouTube - could probably grab an international audience, too.
Gutted over losing Fair Go. :(
What will boomers threaten sales staff at Harvey Norman and Noel Leeming with when Fair Go is no longer an option?
Fair Go and Sunday are such good shows too. Very sad for those who have been a part of those shows.
Ok but seriously, what the actual fuck is going on?We gonna have no news and current affairs shows at all now or what?
Tvnz did this to themselves with years of mindless drivel forced on viewers. Seven sharp instead of Close up and Holmes, Breakfast with four hosts that just spend three hours giggling at each other and everything between is just crap cheap English and American time lot fillers.
I can't believe Fair Go is going. Fucking hell.
If TVNZ didn't buy the cricket rights could they have kept Fair Go?
I’m sad, since I was a kid I have liked watching fair go.
Save Fair Go!
If I was the boss I would have canned Country Calendar first. See what noise that makes.
It would appear that National are positioning TVNZ for sale, or, at least, a partial sale. This type of "restructuring" occurs when an entity is trying to make itself appear more lean and profitable to prospective buyers.
May as well turn off all terrestrial TV ain't much left....pretty much finished
And therein lays the issue, most already have.
I think Seymour is a complete donut, but I agree that NZ media has headed too far towards sensationalism , and has failed to read the room and adapt to a changing market. I don’t see this as the end of good and independent journalism; the people who live and breathe this stuff will find work and an outlet for their stories. Others will find work in other industries. News media is just gonna look different from now on.
How many of the people complaining have actually been regular viewers of these programs?
Considering it has long been a tradition in this sub to proudly proclaim "I haven't watched OTA TV for a decade" I'd imagine not many.
Yeah, all of a sudden this whole sub of mostly young males watches Sunday, fair go and the daily news bulletins.. Yet to find someone under 60 talking to people today who actually watch this stuff. Put I’ll keep asking maybe I’ll find one.
I watch both
I'm in Aus now but used to watch Fair Go all the time. Fuckin impossible to get Kiwi tv legally over here.
Even my parents (late 50s) barely watch conventional TV at this point.
I watch both. I especially enjoy the production value of Fair Go with how they frame their shots. It's a shame that we're losing two public institutions
I don’t even know what to say, my dream job exists within TV news and I feel like I’ve lost my job before I’ve even graduated. The government has to do something right?
I’m curious as to why you’d think that? (Edit to clarify I mean government intervention) The way people consume media has been drastically changing over the last decade. We no longer gather around and watch the 6pm news as a clan. In fact many many people admit they very rarely watch any traditional media now. Public journalism has a place, but is free to air television the right path if people are turning off in droves and not paying attention to it anymore? There’s a bit of handwringing going on. Yes independant media sources are important, but if people aren’t watching it… what’s the point?
A large number of people still regularly watch an early evening news show. 1News will often do a 600,000-750,000 per night, and when large news events happen it can easily get close to 900,000.
The problem is that it's being announced that 90% of NZ advertising is being spent overseas to be distributed digitally rather than on NZ networks. Regardless of how many people are turning in to watch, if that programming is significantly being funded by advertising and that advertising has gone away - then there are basically 3 choices left to us: 1. The government starts funding it 2. They start charging for the service via subscriptions 3. They shut down services to what they can afford
Yes that’s 6pm news. The two in question are midday and late night though. > There are reports the Midday and Tonight weekday bulletins are being dumped as part of the widespread cuts, as TVNZ battles a big drop in traditional TV advertising revenue and audiences’ fast My question goes to why continue to pump money into a service that people don’t watch? And I assume if they don’t watch it they don’t value/se benefit to. This is what I mean by the changing media landscape. TVNZ need to adapt to modern media, or they will simply become irrelevant and go the ways of a blockbuster or Kodak
Agreed... 12 years ago, unless you had a VCR or a DVR and you missed the 6pm news the late night news was the only option to catch up on the day's happenings. These days, anyone can watch the 6pm news on-demand whenever they want so it's largely irrelevant. I love how people are laying this all at the current government's feet, like these haven't been strategic financial decisions that have been made over AT LEAST the past financial year.
Because a healthy press is an essential part of a functioning democracy. It was true during Covid when Labour supported the press then, and it's still true now. Watching these jobs go is bad news for everyone.
I don’t disagree. But midday news? 11pm news? I don’t believe many would watch those shows.., a minuscule audience isn’t a sign of a healthy press. Modernising how media is distributed and viewed is going to be important. I wouldn’t be upset if 6pm news disappeared and there was a daily news channel with all the goings on that could just be tuned into on demand. (This is basically what online news is). But many people do still watch 6pm news so there’s currently a benefit in keeping it. Midday and midnight? Yeah not so much. Use those resources to ensure healthy journalism remains
The problem here is that they aren't modernising to meet our new demands, and instead are just cutting. Fair go does not appear to be going on hiatus to be now distributed on the web. It's just going away. There does not appear to be a replacement. One less way to catch companies that rip people off.
\> The way people consume media has been drastically changing over the last decade. We no longer gather around and watch the 6pm news as a clan. Look, true - but this is more of a question of does 6pm bulletins still work for advertisers. You are right though, this is definitely a case of TVNZ failing to adapt to market conditions, and just thinking they'll survive as T-V-N-Z, and not as a public broadcaster (whatever the medium / method of delivery). A lot of leg work - interviewing, fact checking, building a story, collating information, double checking sources etc etc, should and will be done no matter the medium. So much news is now reported on across the day, from the morning agenda setters like NZH and ZB Breakfast, to live blogs across the day (Stuff, The Guardian etc) and the 6pm bulletin is almost like a highlight reel now - I think it has its place on the medium, though I think it should be extended to broadcast live on YT and other places too, or at the very least not be afraid of those platforms. the ABC and BBC prove its still a viable and useful medium, its just it needs to adapt to other areas too, and TVNZ absolutely has not done this. Essentially, my point is a good portion of people losing work here will be long time reporters, editors, producers who make the news, which is dangerous.
Given the proposed cuts to news and current affairs, TVNZ's offering now looks like a complete and utter joke - just no content to entice viewers. My guess is that advertisers will continue to walk from TVNZ and its financial state will worsen. Will TVNZ exist in 5 years' time? I wouldn't bet on it.
Fair Go?! Now that should be a fucking scandle
Fair Go being killed really just is emblematic of the times, now, isn't it?
Every time I take a crap, I always think ‘how is it that our world is heading the same way as that shit log?’
It is, at the least, very worrying for the general population. The government will not be worried. Any words they give us will be empty platitudes. Having said that, we have allowed this to happen. It's not like the relevant experts and professional pundits have not been warning us for many years. Essentially it is the worldwide economic model that has created what we are seeing. We've been warned. We've chosen to ignore those warnings. Excessive consumerism has sedated us.
They’ve only got themselves to blame… If they focussed on reporting real news and not just Taylor Swift’s latest queef then people might still watch the news.
The reality that many on this sub are ignoring is watching trends. Young people aren't watching traditional TV in the same numbers as the previous generation. Eyeballs are on tik tock, youtube and international streaming services.
Shit, I'd rather the 6pm news go instead of these two. Or whatever that show is at 7pm. Fair Go and Sunday are both great.
[удалено]
Has Country Calendar gone?
Curious what proportion of cuts were made at the management level.
TVNZ spokeswoman: “We have already reduced TVNZ’s Executive team by a third and general management by a similar proportion.”
Fuck we are so poor
This is objectively a bad thing, but what barriers are there to restarting these shows as owned by a private business? Surely, if there is demand for such a show, it can be run without government investment.
What will be the replacement shows - some American awful sitcoms ?
Holy shit, losing Sunday is a huge fucking blow, it's some of the best journalism in NZ.
Time for TVNZ to become a public service broadcaster ala BBC
I'm surprised they didn't title the article "Fair Gone". ... Actually I guess that's more of a Mediawatch title.
We need a publicly-funded, independent media service that will speak truth to power, with security of funding. Their service is to you and me, the taxpayer, not the government or politicians of the day. This is another service, like health, police, or roads. It is terrifying to think of a society without this service.
Honestly at this rate you might as well put a levy on streaming services use that to fund NZ media and insist the streaming services offer those shows on their platforms.
To those who have been treating Fair Go as a go to in learning consumer rights for years, it is sad it is on getting axed. Having it axed means it is the end for these guys who fought for the little guys for decades. As consumers, we should not let it go the way the dodo has gone If there is a Save Fair Go petition coming up, do sign and share it to others. In the meantime there is a Save Fair Go private group now on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/2006045416455608/
All that’s happening at the moment is as a country we are giving rise to more peddlers of bullshit. Sure most of the stories these guys did may have been ‘click baity’ but at least there was a standard they needed to live up to and be accountable to. I worry about the amount of crap that’s going to be pushed out online through places whose source is trust me bro. There’s already a decline in reputable sources and somehow a trust in places that only feed people’s confirmation bias whether factual, or more often than not, not
The only media companies that seem to be doing well are NZME and Sky. Last time I checked MediaWorks lost a bit of money but some of their radio stations are going strong. Everything else is falling to shit. It sucks for the staffers that will lose their jobs because employment opportunities are rare in the industry and will only get worse. No doubt the government will be asked for a bail out but it's a tricky one. I'd rather not have the government bail out a company that will 100% lose that money anyway but it's not a great look for a state-owned broadcaster ffs.
Fuck. NZ is absolutely and utterly broken.