Is the criticism of Radio NZ National fair?

In April, Radio New Zealand marked 100 years of the national public radio service by launching scholarships to help future journalists train and – in a nod to how much audience preferences have changed – a podcast series. At the same time, its flagship programme on RNZ National, Morning Report,
celebrated turning 50. But what may have been a vintage year for the country’s public service broadcaster quickly turned sour, and the performance and audience-share of RNZ National is now under fierce scrutiny.

After a long-sought budget boost in 2023, the government cut RNZ’s budget this year by 7%; belt-tightening of the same magnitude is promised for the next three years.

One of the casualties of RNZ’s drive to reduce costs is Tahi.fm, its much-vaunted effort to grow a younger audience. The youth platform was closed on November 6 after its music and culture mix failed to attract listeners. Its axing is part of a series of cuts to RNZ National, including the scrapping of shows such as Sunday Sampler and the At the Movies film review segment. Veteran arts producer Mark Amery has lost his co-hosting role on Culture 101 as the Sunday afternoon show downsizes.

The air of upheaval now extends to RNZ National’s flagship Morning Report programme, with Corin Dann leaving his co-hosting role to replace the retiring Gyles Beckford as business editor.

Corin Dann is leaving Morning Report, but staying with RNZ. Photo / Supplied

Dann’s departure has fuelled much media speculation – should his replacement be in the capital or in Auckland, where RNZ apparently needs to shore up its dwindling audience? Would the choice of a more provocative or right-leaning host stem the drift of people who regard the station, particularly Morning Report, as too left wing, or too politics obsessed?

Dann’s departure follows rival media gloating over the latest radio ratings survey, released in August by ratings firm GfK. Newstalk ZB led the field with a cumulative weekly audience aged 10-plus of 620,000. RNZ National, with 475,000, trailed commercial networks The Breeze, The Edge, More FM and ZM. What the rivals didn’t mention was that RNZ National had actually gained listeners since the equivalent 2024 survey, whereas all but More FM had lost numbers. Its audience is nevertheless well shy of its 2021 Covid-era peak of 607,000.

The GfK rankings came hard on the heels of a much-trumpeted report on RNZ by former head of news Richard Sutherland, commissioned by its chief executive, Paul Thompson. Thompson’s brief was “write me a succinct report analysing the live listening decline on RNZ National, assessing the current performance of the station, its strengths and weaknesses, and proposing an actionable high-level blueprint to turn the station around. At a bare minimum, that would entail addressing audience decline and achieving cume [weekly cumulative listeners] of 500,000-plus in 12 months.”

The 12,000-word report is a cracking read, opening with the following sentence, full of drama and foreboding: “The recommendations are blunt by necessity; they reflect the seriousness of the station’s current trajectory.” Sutherland went on to create a sense of crisis, approaching disaster and terrible voices grating on the ears of the nation. The subtext: If you don’t devote the next 12 months to fixing RNZ National, don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Tough talk: CEO Paul Thompson, who commissioned the review by former head
of news Richard Sutherland, right, says the shift in audience behaviour is not going to slow down. Photos / NZME / RNZ

The report identified many possible factors contributing to RNZ National’s ratings slide since Covid: the station is insufficiently Auckland focused, the tone and quality of content is not consistent, some voices aren’t good enough, some newsreaders aren’t up to snuff, some presenters aren’t delivering, it’s not entertaining enough, staff don’t understand who the audience is and too many people are working from home.

Recommendations included at least one high-profile hire “to signal ambition”; the station should target a primary demographic of people aged 50-69; Morning Report and its presenters should be relocated to Auckland; an urgent audit of on-air staff was needed with more training for presenters and a strong focus on lifting on-air standards; slots should be refreshed “where existing presenters don’t align with the needs and preferences of the target audience”.

Sutherland described the belief that radio is a “sunset industry” as the most worrying theme from his interviews with dozens of staff across all levels of the organisation. “Stamping out this belief will require significant involvement from the board, the chief executive, and the executive team,” Sutherland wrote.

What he didn’t write was that, if staff see live radio as a sunset industry, it might be because the chief executive has been telling them that for more than a decade. In a speech shortly after taking over as RNZ CEO in 2013, Thompson said: “Our preferred method of content delivery – radio – is in long-term decline.” He went on: “You will note that I do not use the word radio once when talking about what we will look like in future.”

But if Thompson was downbeat about radio in 2014, he isn’t any more. Asked by the Listener if he thinks live radio is a sunset industry, he says: “If it is a sunset, it’s a long and glorious one that will outlast me.”

At the heart of the speculation around RNZ National are two key questions: is live radio in terminal decline? And, if it isn’t, why do so many at the organisation believe it is?

NZ On Air’s 2024 “Where are the Audiences?” survey shows the proportion of New Zealanders listening to live radio each day has declined from 67% in 2014 to 42% last year.

In September 2023, The Spinoff founder Duncan Greive described as “shocking” the statistic that almost as many people were then using Spotify every day as listening to the radio.

What these numbers mean is open to interpretation. GfK headlined the press release about its latest survey, “Radio continues to deliver stable audience and outstanding outcomes for advertisers”.

NZME’s Mike Hosking agrees. In the wake of the Sutherland report, he told his Newstalk ZB breakfast audience he was “surprised and saddened” to hear RNZ staff believe radio is dying. “Radio is robust,” he said, “and, comparatively speaking, thriving.”

To say the report made an impact is an understatement. In his Media Insider column, former NZ Herald editor Shayne Currie called it “scathing”. The Spinoff described it as “blistering” and a “bombshell”. RNZ’s own media watcher Colin Peacock described it as “stinging”. Hosking told his audience: “… the place is shot. It needs a bomb and some genuine talent.”

Until relatively recently, the fortunes of RNZ and RNZ National were essentially the same thing. The organisation was driven by, and focused on, the needs of the station. But as anyone who has watched the country’s media landscape dissolving before their eyes during the past decade knows, things ain’t what they used to be.

Under Thompson, RNZ has developed its online presence considerably, through its website, podcasts, “Video” and “Life” platforms, and a YouTube site targeting youth audiences, which boasts 229,000 subscribers. Another thrust has been content sharing with other media organisations including NZME, Stuff and Newsroom. Thompson says RNZ now reaches 83% of New Zealanders aged 18+; when he took the reins in 2014, it reached about 20%. “While radio listening is slowly falling, it remains an essential part of the media landscape and of RNZ’s DNA, he said in August.

Guyon Espiner will take over RNZ’s Midday Report show in January. Photo / Cole Eastham-Farrelly

In a “where to from here” piece posted on RNZ’s website to mark its 100th anniversary, Thompson talked of the media’s decline and audiences’ loss of trust in core institutions including the media. The solutions he identified then are similar to those he’s offered since the Sutherland report: providing “high-quality, trusted news, audio and video”; “we will be increasingly digital while continuing to do great broadcasting”; “we will train our talented staff who will reflect the diverse nation we represent”. He now adds, “Talking to people in every region as much as possible” and being “relevant to younger people as well as the older audiences who’ve traditionally been with us.”

RNZ is developing a new audio plan to “improve audience engagement” on RNZ National “while also doing more to connect with listeners through podcasting and digital audio platforms”.

Changes are already evident. Guyon Espiner, an experienced and trusted broadcaster with wide name recognition, is set to take over Midday Report from January. Morning Report has introduced head-to-head discussions with opposing MPs, a weekly chat with a business leader, a sports discussion panel – all features associated with the Mike Hosking Breakfast show. According to RNZ’s weekly Media­watch programme, some listeners have complained about a change in tone, with presenters indulging in more chit-chat in a drive to be engaging.

Peter Thompson, associate professor in media and communication at Victoria University of Wellington, tells a story about Paul Thompson coming to talk to a class of his media students about a year after its youth-oriented online magazine, The Wireless, started. He asked how many of the students had heard of The Wireless. Nobody’s hand went up. “The look on his face,” Peter Thompson says. “It was like: ‘Oh my god’.” The Wireless closed in 2018 after five years.

Peter Thompson says while RNZ has found it a real struggle to attract the under-25 audience, any media organisation that isn’t traditionally youth focused would find it difficult.

The decision to re-target RNZ National towards a demographic of 50-69 year olds is not without risk, he says. “They’ve got to be a little careful because if they go and focus only on that 60, 70-plus demographic, they’re not going to be around for 20 years or so – not all of them. It may not be a demographic they can sustain for that long before they need to refocus and think, ‘Well, what do the current 40s and 50s want?’”

Paul Thompson has also adopted other Sutherland recommendations: promoting Pip Keane, a former Holmes and Campbell Live executive producer who joined RNZ in 2015, to the new position of chief audio officer and instigating a big increase in voice training for presenters. There are plans to grow the Auckland presence, but Thompson has stopped short of freighting the Morning Report team north. He aims to boost RNZ National listener numbers to 500,000 by November next year and 520,000 by November 2027.

RNZ chief audio officer Pip Keane. Photo / RNZ

According to research by Verian, RNZ today reaches roughly three million New Zealanders aged 18+ each month. But only 31% of them are accessing RNZ content through live radio; 35% get it through rnz.co.nz or the RNZ app, 44% through social media, and 76% through one of the 40 media organisations RNZ shares content with.

Regardless of whether radio as a whole is delivering shocking declines or outstanding outcomes, RNZ National is reaching fewer people than its rivals, and its rivals have noticed. So has its shareholder. Neither appears to have been convinced – or assuaged – by arguments about trust and non-radio audience reach.

Earlier this year, Minister for Media and Communications Paul Goldsmith told Shayne Currie, “Yes, you can have an app which a lot of people read and engage with and use the material that RNZ is developing, but they should never lose sight of the fact that the core business is having live radio and doing that well in a competitive environment.”

Asked by the Listener if he feels political pressure, Thompson says no. “I certainly know that our shareholder wants us to work hard at our audio relevance and also our trust, but that’s through the formal way they set expectations for us. And we’re independent and we have that legislation, so we kind of calibrate that and respond appropriately. So, I haven’t felt it’s been political pressure, but it is useful to have clear expectations set by the crown.”

Though he says it’s necessary to adapt to meet audiences’ needs, he’s come to acknowledge the importance of “traditional services” and the things people rely on RNZ for. He says he isn’t backing away from the challenge and has both a gut instinct and good data that the shift in audience behaviour is not going to slow down.

Broadcasting Minister Paul Goldsmith: “RNZ should never lose sight of the fact that the core business is having live radio and doing that well in a competitive environment.” Photo / Getty Images

RNZ staff say morale inside the Wellington office in particular is low. Staff members were uniformly wary of speaking on the record for this article, but one insider described the Wellington newsroom post-Sutherland’s report as looking like it had been hit by a bomb.

Thompson says employee engagement is tracked carefully at RNZ and 90% of staff say they are proud to work there. “There’s no doubt when you go through times of change, there’ll always be some uncertainty for some people. I don’t have any data on that, but when we do our engagement surveys, which are really robust methodologies, we’ll certainly track that.”

Did he anticipate the Sutherland report being quite so robust? Did he realise it would land in the lap of a delighted Shayne Currie at NZME, owner of a stable of commercial radio stations including Newstalk ZB as well as the NZ Herald? Currie was soon telling Ryan Bridge on the Herald’s video channel that if RNZ didn’t fix its problems in six to 12 months, executives and board members were likely to be sacked.

“Radio ‘remains an essential part of the media landscape and RNZ’s DNA’.”

Paul Thompson

“The scrutiny’s been challenging,” Thompson says, “but I did go into it with my eyes wide open. But what it says to me is that you’re getting a lot of interest and you have a choice of getting frank advice and knowing it’s going to be open but being up for that – and it does take some courage – or being a shrinking violet and perhaps not challenging yourself and your people and our board as much as I needed to.”

He says he wasn’t surprised by the tone of the report. “That’s Richard’s style,” he says. Advice to a CEO “has to be really frank. So I got what I expected.”

He says the review is just one input into RNZ’s decision-making process. “Richard’s advice is Richard’s advice. And it’s useful and it’s challenging, but it’s not gospel.”

Other inputs he identifies include audience data from GfK, RNZ’s own “value indices” (“our very rich three-times-a-year deep dive into perceptions and value”), and bespoke research into what audiences want from presenters.

“We get a lot of direct audience feedback. Our text machine and our email feedback is very intense and very full and it provides colour.

“Obviously, we have people in the organisation with programming and audience experience who provide their view, and I’ve got a really robust and challenging board. So that’s the kind of broad span of data we’re looking at.”

Peter Thompson, from Victoria University, says RNZ isn’t failing. Photo / Supplied

After the bang that accompanied the coverage of Sutherland’s review, a quieter article appeared, telling a different story. Written by Victoria University’s Peter Thompson, it was published on The Conversation website and headlined, “A ‘scathing’ report on RNZ’s performance obscures the good news”.

He pointed to the research showing 80% of New Zealanders engage with its content every month. He also pointed to the 2025 AUT Trust in News Survey, showing RNZ to be the most trusted news brand in the country.

“None of this,” he wrote, “supports the narrative of a failing legacy operator that has lost its way.”

Of course, the article attracted far less rival media coverage than was the case with the August ratings survey and the Sutherland review.

“Maybe I was telling the story about RNZ in a way their commercial rivals didn’t like,” says Peter Thompson.

He says the narrative in recent reporting has been, “What’s happened with RNZ? It’s losing ratings, it’s being beaten by Newstalk ZB. What’s gone wrong? They’re doing a terrible job.”

But that narrative, he says, is simply not true. “It’s the most trusted medium for news in Aotearoa New Zealand, and it reaches probably the most people. So why isn’t that the headline? And I think there’s some news media that might need to ask themselves that.”

RNZ is not commercial radio; its performance is measured against its charter. Photo / Getty Images

Commercial radio is all about the ratings. Bigger ratings means more ad revenue, which means more money to pay drawcards such as Newstalk ZB’s Mike Hosking, which equals happy days.

RNZ is also chasing ratings. The company has set clear and specific targets to grow its audience for RNZ National to 520,000 by November 2027. In the latest GfK radio survey, listenership, at 475,800, was up from 467,700 on the previous year but down from 489,600 in 2023.

But RNZ is not commercial radio; it doesn’t sell ads. RNZ’s performance is measured against its charter, a document containing roughly 1000 words, none of which are “ratings” nor even near-synonyms for it. Its purpose, as outlined in the charter, is fourfold: to serve the public interest, help to exercise freedom of thought and expression, foster a sense of national identity by contributing to tolerance and understanding, and provide reliable, independent and freely accessible news and information. RNZ National is also the country’s designated civil defence radio broadcaster.

The charter lists 15 ways RNZ should deliver on its purpose, including “foster critical thought”, be “challenging, innovative, and engaging”, “provide awareness of the world and of New Zealand’s place in it”, “contribute towards intellectual and spiritual development”, and so on. Only one of these could be said to be related to ratings, and even then only tangentially: “provide programmes which balance special interest with those of wide appeal, recognising the interests of all age groups”.

Thompson describes delivering on the charter as “a big, meaty challenge” but also motivating. It’s not something RNZ’s rivals and leading critics have in their job descriptions.

“We are different. We are unique. We have to do our best to be there for all citizens, to deliver as best we can across all those different charter measures. But if you really boil it down, are we getting to a wide and growing group of New Zealanders in a way that’s relevant to them? Yes. Is trust in RNZ growing? Yes. Do we lead the market in trust? Yes. Do a growing number of people think it’s important to have a public media organisation? Yes.

“It’s not about chasing any single audience number. It’s about being trusted and being valuable.”

In the wake of Richard Sutherland’s review of RNZ National, Thompson has hammered his focus on the charter in interview after interview: charter this, charter that. You can’t fault him for trying. But charters are boring and complex and difficult to parse. Analyses of RNZ’s performance against the charter don’t make for great headlines.

Much more appealing and entertaining and likely to give your audience what they want is a nice straightforward number showing you’re winning and the losers are losing – shot, in need of a bomb and some genuine talent. Happy days indeed.

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