RNZ needs new fighter ace to face Mike Hosking in aerial combat

More rides on the replacement of Morning Report host Corin Dann than filling a vacant seat.

It will be a litmus test of how well Radio New Zealand executives can address the challenges facing the state broadcaster, many of which were set out in stark relief in an uncompromising review by former RNZ news chief Richard Sutherland that I addressed in an earlier commentary [add link].

Last Friday RNZ announced that Dann – co-host of its flagship programme since 2019 – would take over the role of Business Editor next year when incumbent Gyles Beckford moves to a part-time role. That means Dann will remain in place while his replacement is sought, and Morning Report will resume after its summer hiatus with a new voice behind the microphone.

That all sounds neat and tidy.

It is anything but straight-forward. Enmeshed in the replacement are a series of strategic threads that Sutherland said the broadcaster must address if it is to arrest audience decline. He said that, overall, RNZ “suffers from a lack of audience clarity, internal cohesion, and urgency”. He also noted its failure to cater fully for the demographic that represented its largest potential broadcast audience – those aged over 50 – and the fact that there was a distinct Wellington focus to Morning Report.

Dann’s replacement will be scrutinised to see how many of those strands have been addressed in the appointment. And once the new host is behind the microphone there will be further scrutiny to determine what changed have been made to the programme over the summer break to attract bigger audiences.

In the spotlight will be RNZ chief executive Paul Thompson and the person he appointed to spearhead a change in RNZ’s fortunes. Yesterday, Pip Keane assumed the new role of Chief Audio Officer. She has an excellent pedigree: A decade on RNZ current affairs programmes and before that working with the likes of John Campbell and the late Sir Paul Holmes.

Both Keane and Thompson will play key roles in the new appointment. It will be a clear pointer to the direction in which Keane wants to push content. And, although it will not be Thompson’s last roll of the dice, it will have an impact on how long he stays in his role.

The RNZ board, and particularly its recent addition Andrew Szusterman, will be watching carefully. Szusterman spent 17 years at MediaWorks before becoming managing director at South Pacific Pictures. He has a strong commercial focus and is audience orientated. He was appointed last month to the RNZ board, which has become increasingly ‘commercial’ under Media and Communications Minister Paul Goldsmith.

In my earlier column I confessed to being a fallen listener: “I was a loyal wake-up-to-it Monday-to-Friday fan of RNZ’s Morning Report. I no longer am.” So, I am hoping to see more than just a new bum on the seat in the RNZ studio. The programme needs a reset.

‘Reset’ might not be quite the right word, given the very short-term meaning Te Pāti Māori gave to the word last week (three minutes and 43 seconds by Stuff’s count) as its leadership reverted to type after committing to change to the party’s processes. If I reach for my thesaurus I might find a better word. ‘Transformation’ would do.

Morning report needs to be transformed if it is to recover its once-dominant position and deliver the changes that Sutherland says RNZ must institute to ensure its immediate future.

It must go head-to-head with the currently unchallenged king of breakfast radio – Mike Hosking on NewstalkZB. RNZ might think it does so now, but its ratings show that it is far from achieving that mission.

Head-to-head, in my book, means pitting a single host against Hosking. It would be unfair to expect Dann’s co-host Ingrid Hipkiss to engage in singlehanded aerial combat against such a foe. It requires a new combatant in the pilot’s seat. Hipkiss is a talented broadcaster and, like Dann, can be redeployed very effectively.

Aerial warfare does not, however, require RNZ to fly the same aircraft as NewstalkZB or equip it with the same weapons.

Hosking’s persona is writ large on his breakfast show (too large for my liking). His own worldview is allowed free rein. It may not be my cup of tea, but I concede he is a very talented broadcaster. His approach obviously works because 433,000 people listen to his show, and that is 100,000 more than Morning Report can claim.

RNZ needs to find someone who can beat Hosking, but not at his own game. We do not simply need an opinionated left-leaning RNZ host pitted against Newstalk ZB’s right-leaning breakfast host in some sort of balancing act. New Zealand deserves better than that.

The transformation requires RNZ to appoint a Morning Report anchor who projects a hard-hitting, interrogatory current affairs style that leaves listeners with an understanding of what has gone before and what is likely to occur during the day. It requires someone with knowledge, credibility, personality, and a heavy dose of Hosking’s quick-wittedness. It requires a new direction for Morning report to give it greater focus and clearer understanding of what its audience needs to know.

This latter need requires RNZ to recognise that its radio audience – and particularly its early morning audience – is in the older demographic. The 15 to 49 age groups do not want to start their day with news and current affairs. Even NewstalkZB is not a must-listen for younger audiences. Sixty per cent of its cumulative audience across the day is aged over 55 and only nine per cent of under 25s listen to it at any time of the day.

While I concur with Victoria University of Wellington academic Peter Thompson that RNZ’s overall audience (streaming, social media, third party content sharing) is trending younger, the same cannot be said of the broadcast breakfast show. If RNZ is to return its flagship broadcast programme to a point where it is effectively competing with Hosking, it must better identify with its audience and meet its needs.

Who could assume the mantle and carry the burden of achieving that?

The New Zealand Herald’s Media Insider Shayne Currie had some fun on Friday speculating over who might be in the running. His musings were on the assumption that Dann’s replacement would be joining Hipkiss on the show. However, there is no golden rule that Morning report should be co-hosted. In fact, when it started half a century ago it had a single host (Canadian Joe Coté) and has had several solo pilots since his departure.

At the top of Currie’s list were (unsurprisingly) John Campbell and Patrick Gower. He then ran through a dozen other names. Another obvious contender, Jack Tame, was discounted by Currie on the basis that, like Hosking and Heather Du Plessis-Allan, he was tied to a multi-year contract with NZME (we can assume Currie was in the know). RNZ stalwarts Lisa Owen and Emile Donovan were on the list.

Hosting Morning Report is not an easy ask. It is on air at 6 am and requires getting out of bed at a time that nature never intended. There would have to be an almighty incentive to get the likes of Campbell or Owen to commit to that highly disrupted lifestyle. My old workmate Paddy Gower might be up for the job (he did a fill-in for a couple of weeks last year) but, again, it would be asking a lot of him. And RNZ does not have cash to play with.

Perhaps it is time to pull a new name out of the hat: Pick someone for their journalistic skills and ability to appeal to an older demographic and use the time before a relaunch in the new year to teach them to be a radio broadcaster. That person will need to be someone who can regain RNZ’s thousands of lost listeners.

Whatever way it is played, the replacement of Corin Dann and the revitalising of Morning Report in 2026 will be pivotal in determining whether RNZ is still in the radio game.