There is no better clobbering machine for a government than the money mallet. So should RNZ prepare itself for another hammering from the coalition government when the 2026 Budget is announced in six weeks time?
In its Budget last year, the coalition gave the state-owned broadcaster a whack by announcing it would receive $18 million less funding over the next four years – an annual reduction of $4.6 million.
The government’s letter of expectation to RNZ last month criticised it for running up a $0.5 million deficit in 2024/5, increasing operating costs by 16 per cent, and employing more staff. Media and Communications Minister Paul Goldsmith went on to say, in a tut-tutting tone, that there was “a vital, ongoing expectation that RNZ deliver improved performance”.
There was no recognition of the fact that the 2024/5 year ended only a month after the 2025 Budget cuts were announced and, since then, RNZ had cut its own budgets in line with its reduced funding, and had reduced staff by 5.3 per cent.
That makes Goldsmith’s letter curious to say the least and invites some reading between the lines.
What I see is a further tightening of the screws. His failure to recognise the moves that have been made since the 2025 budget cuts paints a picture of an organisation that has been profligate when, in fact, it has responded to the 2025 budget as it needed to do.
It is fair to say that before the 2025 budget blow, RNZ had been spending up large while other media organisations had been tightening their belts. Its total expenditure in the year to June 2025 was $76.8 million. A year earlier it had been $67.6 million and in 2023 it was $57.7 million. The budget clawback over four years nominally takes it back to the 2023 level.
However, that calculation takes no account of inflation, which in 2025/6 may be eye-watering. In reality, the budget cuts are likely to effectively take it back to the turn of the decade, or earlier. That smacks of the Key and English Governments’ freezing of the RNZ budget from 2008 to 2017.
And the tone of Goldsmith’s letter suggests this year’s Budget may expect even more. Could the 18 per cent over four years become 20 per cent or even a quarter?
The problem for RNZ is that it has no friends in Cabinet. ACT is ideologically opposed to the concept of state ownership of media and sees RNZ populated with ‘lefties’. New Zealand First sees the broadcaster only in terms of any potential threat it might pose to its leaders’ images and sees it populated with ‘lefties’. National sees it populated with ‘lefties’, and has a reputation for starving it of funds as a result.
Only New Zealand First’s Jenny Marcroft, who is Under-Secretary for Media and Communications, understands the need for media to be seen as a pluralistic system. She knows how the pieces fit together, but must struggle to be heard when the media portfolio receives minimal attention from the government.
A halt to RNZ’s escalating annual spend was justified. Inside the organisation, upping expenditure by $10 million a year may have seemed no more than making up for the arctic decade under John Key and Bill English. In the real world it was unjustifiable. There is a world of difference, however, between calling a halt and imposing a punitive sentence.
If the Coalition had really only wanted to save money, it would have re-started the merger between RNZ and TVNZ that had been halted by Chris Hipkins when he assumed the prime ministership on Jacinda Ardern’s resignation. The merger made sense in principle and only the mean of achieving it was an expensive failure. It could still be done, with significant savings in operating costs, so long as it is done pragmatically, and ensures a combined news service is insulated from commercial pressures.
But, no, this is not only about money. Too many people in the three governing parties perceive RNZ as ‘Thuh Enimee’ for doing the job it is chartered to do. The broadcaster is required to “provide comprehensive, independent, accurate, impartial, and balanced regional, national, and international news and current affairs”. Sadly, too many judge “accurate, impartial, and balanced” on the basis of how closely it resembles their own views and supports their causes.
Deeming RNZ to be full of ‘lefties’ is simplistic and convenient. We have no right to do so (and, if it were me, I’d refuse to answer) but, if we asked every member of its staff how they voted in the last election, I’m sure the mix would be no different to the population at large. And no different to any other general newsroom in the country.
What does set RNZ apart from those other newsrooms is that charter. It places responsibilities on the broadcaster that are not required of other media. These are requirements, not voluntary actions, and that is what accounts for the different flavour of RNZ.
The burden of being all things to all people is a heavy one and it doesn’t work for all of the people all of the time. There are programmes on RNZ I no longer follow for that reason. I have confessed that ‘sin’ in previous columns.
Many of the factors contributing to listeners turning away from RNZ were summed up in the extremely frank review by its former news chief Richard Sutherland last year. In his letter Goldsmith noted some steps that had been taken since that review but he wants more detail.
One of the consequences of the Sutherland Report happened yesterday – John Campbell replaced Corin Dann as one of the anchors on Morning Report. When details in Sutherland’s report were made public, I wrote a column headed ‘RNZ needs new fighter ace to face Mike Hosking’. John Campbell is that fighter ace.
Campbell has been labelled OOTL (one of those ‘lefties’) before, and I have no doubt there have been knowing looks and ‘told you so’ among his detractors since the announcement of his new role. Again, that is a simplistic and convenient view. I see him as a humanist (in a non-spiritual way). He puts people before institutions or beliefs. Yes, sometimes his empathetic attitudes drive me nuts, but that’s just this grumpy old man expressing himself. He is both thoughtful and sometimes introspective.. Take a listen to this interview with Jessie Mulligan. He also has an excellent knowledge of the jugular vein and when it should be penetrated by a sharp question or two.
Several years ago, RNZ scored an enormously expensive own goal when it forgot that news and current affairs programmes must have light and shade. Its flagship Morning Report no longer had that, and paid a massive price. It lost its audience lead over NewstalkZB’s Mike Hosking Show in 2021 and has never regained it.
Neither Corin Dann nor Ingrid Hipkiss have been a match for Hosking’s wells-structured and incisive questioning (albeit weighted by his own worldview). And they were too similar to each other: Both fine journalists, but inclined toward politeness and disinclined to spill blood. Nowadays, ‘shade’ means someone who knows the location of the jugular and when to open it. Both Hosking and Campbell possess that sixth sense.
That may be why Paul Goldsmith took an inordinate interest in Morning Report in his letter. He clearly wants to know how effective John Campbell will be in recapturing audience. But why? Is it no more than a responsible minister having regard for the fortunes of his charge, or is he looking for another weapon with which to beat an institution that does not enjoy strong support from the government? Time will tell.
