New Radio New Zealand chair Brent Impey has told every journalist who has interviewed him about his new role that he will not interfere in operational matters. He does not need to meddle because he has now made it abundantly clear where changes have to be made.
He told Colin Peacock on RNZ’s Mediawatch that there were four priorities. Audience numbers on RNZ National and Concert must improve. So, too, must the state-owned organisation’s level of trust, and the size of its various digital audiences. Finally, it needs to become country’s most popular digital news platform.
Earlier in the week he threw down the gauntlet to a principal target. He told the New Zealand Herald’s Shayne Currie that RNZ was “coming after” the Herald’s NZME stablemate NewstalkZB. He also highlighted a point of difference between RNZ and the commercial network – 18 minutes of advertising to which RNZ audiences did not have to listen. That may have sounded odd coming from a man whose background was in leading a company that had fought hard for every advertising dollar it could earn. However, Impey’s experience as chief executive of MediaWorks for a decade taught him more about audiences than advertising.
That was clear from what Stewart Sowman-Lund reported in The Post. Impey told him young people were not interested in radio, which was the province of people over 50. And he acknowledged that the habits of this older audience were harder to shift. He told The Post that adding 28,000 to the listenership of RNZ National by the end of the year (a goal the broadcaster had set itself) was “actually quite a challenge”.
The over-50s may be harder to shift but they have already moved…away from RNZ. Continue reading “Chair’s subtext contains key to RNZ audience revival”
