Less than a decade ago, Māni Dunlop was censured by RNZ for using Auckland’s Māori name on air. Today, she’s leading the public broadcaster’s coverage of Waitangi Day as its Māori news director. She talks to Michelle Langstone about how she got there. Māni Dunlop sweeps round the corner of the recording studios in Radio … Read more
The country’s biggest bulk wine supplier has begun turning gigantic flexibags into plastic fenceposts. But the fencepost manufacturer protests that a lack of government funding is barring the way from doing so much more, reports Phil Pennington for RNZ. Multinational giant Hillebrand spent months trying to find a recycler to complete the lifecycle: to take … Read more
It’s normal to feature two different perspectives discussing a major US political set piece. Yet this morning RNZ’s flagship Morning Report hosted two unabashed Trump acolytes ahead of the final debate. At 2pm New Zealand time, the final debate between president Donald Trump and his challenger, Joe Biden, takes place in Nashville, Tennessee. It’s Trump’s … Read more
Covid-19 lockdown and alert level settings are being assessed today by cabinet. What decisions are they making, and when will those decisions be announced? This piece was first published on RNZ. Cabinet ministers will meet this morning to review the Covid-19 lockdown settings, but are not expected to make a definitive decision on whether to … Read more
One month since the country’s newest upmarket shopping mall opened its doors, Commercial Bay is giving some of its tenants a rent holiday to help soften Covid-19’s economic blow, reports Amy Williams for RNZ. Commercial Bay – a $1 billion development with more than 120 shops – occupies a city block in downtown Auckland. It … Read more
It’s a podcast almost four years in the making on a topic ‘shrouded in silence’. Emily Writes speaks to Susie Ferguson about The Unthinkable. Susie Ferguson is talking about something I desperately don’t want to talk about. Baby death or stillbirth is a heart-breaking subject that many of us instinctively turn away from. Ferguson didn’t … Read more
Under Cover is a new series that brings musicians together via video link to bond, chat and play each other’s songs. The fifth episode features Troy Kingi and Warren Maxwell. Troy Kingi and Warren Maxwell have shared stages and many musical memories together. Kingi still cites opening for Maxwell’s band Trinity Roots at the Leigh … Read more
Sacked cabinet minister Clare Curran speaks for the first time about the brutal end to her political career – and what she calls the toxicity and bullying that marked her years in parliament. By Donna Chisholm. Of all the humiliations – often self-inflicted – that Clare Curran endured during her 12-year parliamentary career, the one … Read more
For years, Work and Income has been telling New Zealanders they couldn’t get the benefit until their redundancy payments ran out. Turns out, it was wrong. What’s all this then? Work and Income has long told New Zealanders receiving redundancy payments that they weren’t eligible for the benefit until their redundancy money ran out. However, … Read more
Robbie Nicol, aka White Man Behind a Desk, has just launched The Citizen’s Handbook, a webseries dedicated to teaching New Zealanders how their country actually works. Here’s five things he learned while making it. It’s probably a failing of our education system that I left high school without knowing how New Zealand’s political system works. … Read more
The proposed merger of RNZ and TVNZ has one clear international precedent – Irish national broadcaster RTÉ. Michael Andrew asks what New Zealand can learn from the Irish model. There’s a touch of comedy in the idea of a merger between RNZ and TNVZ, almost as if the two organisations were unfamiliar step siblings forced … Read more
Advertising doesn’t have to ruin a radio station, says former bFM programme director Bill Kerton. In fact, it can make it stronger. In the mid 1990s I found myself programme director at Auckland’s 95bFM. You couldn’t have found a more intense, dedicated group of creative, free thinking, anti-establishment wankers if you tried – yet we … Read more
Senior news executives have reacted with disappointment and anger to a new taxpayer-funded RNZ ad campaign attacking their work and business models, writes Duncan Greive. RNZ has launched a new brand campaign which takes explicit aim at its commercial competition, attacking both advertising-funded and paywalled news sites. The campaign is running on out-of-home media and … Read more
If RNZ hopes to court the youth audience with its new brand it should take some cues from the ones who’ve had that audience all along: student radio. RNZ has had a month from hell. News the state-run broadcaster was considering scaling back its long-running RNZ Concert network to make room for a new youth-focused … Read more
Host Duncan Greive is joined by The Spinoff editor Toby Manhire to discuss the dramatic events surrounding RNZ this month on The Spinoff’s media podcast, The Fold. It’s an institution whose major point-of-difference is its stability – while the rest of media is slashing and pivoting, RNZ has shows which run for decades without major … Read more
The Spinoff editor Toby Manhire joins Duncan Greive to discuss the RNZ Concert saga, the potential merger with TVNZ and Winston Peters’ new photography hobby on this month’s episode of The Fold. Subscribe via Apple Podcasts, RSS or via your favourite podcast provider.
RNZ management wants to grow a youth audience without having to build a costly new platform. Anna Dean offers a bunch – none of which involves scrapping RNZ Concert. Over the next few weeks RNZ National Concert staff are set to take part in strategy workshops focused on “growth in audience reach, size, strength, diversity” with … Read more
An extraordinary week at the national broadcaster ends with a complete backdown on plans to downgrade RNZ Concert and make music staff redundant. Toby Manhire speaks to staff and Helen Clark, and asks: has RNZ’s embarrassment translated into RNZ getting a budget boost? Last Wednesday RNZ music staff were summoned to a meeting to hear … Read more
The merger of TVNZ and RNZ is a huge boost for government-controlled media. Duncan Greive asks what that means for the rest of the sector. Last year, NZ on Air convened a meeting of senior executives from almost all the main news organisations in New Zealand. Around 20 surrounded a large table at the Heritage … Read more
Concert FM is to be stripped down in favour of a new station for youth, even as the government prepares bigger plans for restructure. Toby Manhire on the mood inside and outside the national broadcaster. No one seriously thought things could stay as they were. RNZ’s music outputs had been subject to reviews, personnel changes, … Read more
Radio competitions are won by impulsive decision-makers. A giveaway on RNZ taught one woman to never hesitate. About a decade ago, on a lazy hot afternoon in early January, I was at home listening to Matinee Idle, Radio NZ’s summer programme. I was a big fan of the programme. That afternoon they were running a … Read more
Louise Mensch is set to hit New Zealand airwaves this evening. Who is this conspiracy theorist and what could she possibly be saying to Lisa Owen? Who is Louise Mensch? She’s a former Tory MP, founder of the Rupert Murdoch-funded “no safe spaces” website Heat Street, a romance novelist, and a conspiracy theorist. She’s considered … Read more
An untimely leak to RNZ brought some clarity to the government’s plans for its media assets – yet left many questions unanswered. Duncan Greive analyses the latest revelations. RNZ’s flagship Morning Report programme today led its prime 7.10am slot with a bombshell about Radio New Zealand itself. Political editor Jane Patterson had the scoop on … Read more
The trial of the man accused of Grace Millane’s murder is unlike any other in New Zealand history, recounted in micro-beats, each one tweeted and push-notified. Anna Connell asks what it’s doing to justice. It was a story that horrified New Zealand. In December last year, the news of the death of Grace Millane, a … Read more
A new documentary by Mihingarangi Forbes and Great Southern Television for RNZ tells of the first conflicts over the fertile lands of Taranaki. A re-enactment shouldn’t be this touching. In the opening scenes of NZ Wars: The Stories of Waitara, a young wahine methodically plants her kūmara crops in the fertile Taranaki soil, unaware of … Read more
He Kākano Ahau is a podcast by writer and activist Kahu Kutia (Ngāi Tūhoe) that explores stories of Māori in the city. In episode two: rangatahi making connections in Ōtautahi Christchurch. What defines the current generation of rangatahi Māori? Some might call us millennials, the first generation to be born fluent in digital technology. Some … Read more
He Kākano Ahau is a podcast by writer and activist Kahu Kutia (Ngāi Tūhoe) that explores stories of Māori in the city, and weaves together strands of connection. In episode one: the legacy of urban marae Tapu te Ranga. I grew up where the tarseal on the road crumbles away into loose rock and dust. … Read more
In the wake of the shocking revelations about Three, Duncan Greive assesses the health of New Zealand’s six big media companies. Winston Peters has studied the cold, pitiless heart of a certain strand of New Zealander for four decades now, and has become our foremost expert on both expressing its feelings and trolling it into … Read more
Could a new hybrid of all the government’s major media holdings solve multiple media and government problems? The media industry, despite what some of us might like to believe, really doesn’t matter all that much economically. Doesn’t employ all that many people. Relatively low wage. Provides a vital service that keeps your democracy vaguely upright … Read more