The future of news on Three
Stuff will provide a news service for Warner Brothers Discovery on Three, but commentators and Stuff say it will look very different
Mōrena, and welcome to The Bulletin for Wednesday, April 17.
In today’s edition: Luxon lands in Thailand as questions keep coming about our foreign affairs policy; Shane Jones says Waitangi Tribunal is ‘overstepping its brief’; job cuts at Ministry of Education may affect school lunch and the period products in schools programmes; but first, there will be news at 6pm on Three after a deal was struck but what will it look like?
News to continue but job losses likely to be significant
News will continue at 6pm on Three after a deal was reached between Stuff and Three’s owners, Warner Brothers Discovery. Stuff will run one-hour bulletins on weekdays and a half-hour bulletin on weekends. If you happen to have exactly 14 questions (!) about this, Duncan Greive has most of the answers this morning on The Spinoff.
As Greive notes, the deal is unlikely to save many jobs, but the continuation of a news service on Three has been welcomed. Stuff’s owner, Sinead Boucher, and Warner Brothers Discovery’s (WBD) Glen Kyne confirmed at a press conference yesterday that the number of jobs created by the new deal will be “less than 40”. While Stuff has reported that it will “leave the Newshub name and brand behind”, that was contradicted to an extent by Kyne. “It’s not out of the question,” Kyne told The Spinoff, pointing to legal machinations behind the scenes.
What will the new news look like?
As Boucher said yesterday, the Stuff-produced news will not be a traditional news hour. “We’re not going into linear television. We’re not even going into broadcasting – that’s for Warner Bros Discovery – we are producing the news,” she said. Greive suggests it’s unlikely to have a significant impact on the number of fresh stories created. Former head of news at Three and Newsroom founder Mark Jennings agrees that what audiences see will be very different to the current 6pm news bulletin, telling Newshub that if Stuff were going to do a full-on TV news bulletin, they’d be hiring most of Newshub’s staff. “Clearly they're not going to do that - so we're going to see a very 'news-lite' product,” he said. Jennings writes this morning that the deal is another step in the stuttering rationalisation of New Zealand’s news media.
Preparation of government response to sector-wide issues still ongoing
Minister for media and communications Melissa Lee told Newshub’s Zane Small that she was “really, really happy” to hear about the deal between the two media companies. Lee once again indicated that work on dealing with ongoing issues that affect all media in New Zealand was underway, including possible amendments to the 1989 Broadcasting Act with Lee saying, “There are regulations in there where certain segments of the broadcasting system are not regulated while local New Zealand broadcasters are regulated.” Small indicates this may suggest regulation for online streaming platforms could be on the cards. The Post’s Tom Pullar-Strecker reported yesterday that the government has been considering offering Warner Bros Discovery and other broadcasters a break on television transmission fees that would normally be paid to state-owned enterprise Kordia on the condition that they continued to offer television news bulletins, He notes that provides an incentive worth about $5.2m a year for WBD to retain news bulletins in some form on Three.
The political pull power and dominance of social media
Prime minister Christopher Luxon, currently in Thailand, welcomed the news, saying, “To see a commercial solution like that, it’s fantastic.” While in Singapore, Luxon ate mildly spicey noodles with social media influencer Aiken Chia. Last night, Newshub’s Jenna Lynch reported that National has seven staffers working on social media. Lynch highlights that’s more people than most media outlets have in their political reporting teams. Former prime minister Dame Jacinda Ardern was a prolific user of Instagram and Facebook Live as PM, while Luxon is better known for his use of TikTok. While the US might be threatening to ban TikTok amid concerns about foreign interference and misinformation, the appeal of fishing where the fish are, without the disintermediation of mainstream media, grows larger by the day. It’s estimated that 1.4m New Zealanders use TikTok. As Matt Dagher-Margosian outlines in The Diplomat, banning TikTok in the US probably won’t do much to curb the avalanche of misinformation on social media because it’s everywhere, including on platforms owned by Americans. For a recent example of just how munted Facebook is, read Ryan Broderick’s latest about the bizarre trend currently going gangbusters featuring AI-generated images of flight attendants posing with AI-generated images of Jesus.
Right now, we need your support more than ever
The Spinoff recently estimated that the number of full-time journalists in New Zealand may have halved since 2018 Census data was published. As the media landscape continues to change, numbers continue to decrease. The Spinoff is not immune to the drastic advertising slowdown impacting the sector. That’s why we’re immensely grateful to our audience for their support. To those who already support us, thank you. If you don’t and are able, we’d be very grateful if you’d consider becoming a Spinoff member or donating today.
Duncan Greive
Founder
Luxon lands in Thailand as questions keep coming about foreign affairs policy
Prime minister Christopher Luxon wrapped up his visit to Singapore and is now in Thailand. As well as the noodle eating, Luxon was present at the signing of a deal between Massey University and education provider PSB Academy to open a Massey campus in Singapore. Just after a visit with Luxon, Singapore prime minister Lee Hsien Loong announced he was stepping down after 20 years. There’s been a long-running bit about what happens to prime ministers in the UK after a visit from a New Zealand prime minister, but sadly for fans of political curse lore, Loong’s resignation is part of a long-planned succession, and he will hand over to his deputy, Lawrence Wong.
Luxon’s trip and foreign minister Winston Peters’ recent travels naturally shine a light on questions about our foreign policy and AUKUS. Politik’s Richard Harman asks (paywalled) who is running New Zealand’s foreign policy in a piece that suggests the National’s pre-election support for an independent foreign policy has been superseded by the harder foreign policy line long preferred by NZ First. Writing for The Conversation, foreign policy academics Marco de Jong and Robert Patman explore issues around the AUKUS security pact, asking if New Zealanders have “really been ‘misled’ about AUKUS, or is involvement now a foregone conclusion?”
Jones accuses the Waitangi Tribunal of over-stepping
As Waatea News reports, NZ First’s Shane Jones has accused the Waitangi Tribunal of over-stepping its mandate. It follows the Tribunal’s rare move to subpoena the children's minister, Act’s Karen Chhour, for its urgent hearing on the Oranga Tamariki claim currently before the Tribunal. The challenge is in response to the government's plan to remove legislation (Section 7AA) that compels Oranga Tamariki to give effect to the Treaty of Waitangi, which is underway in Wellington. Season-Mary Downs, a claimant lawyer, said the legislation was crucial. “By removing that section, [the Government is] essentially removing protections that are in place for Māori, to have things done in a way that is cognisent of their te tiriti rights.” Jones says, “The Waitangi Tribunal has no business running its operations as some sort of star chamber delivering preemptory summons for ministers to rock up and be cross examined or grilled in some kind of wannabe American star chamber pulp fiction gig.”
Watch: The last days of motorsport at Pukekohe Park Raceway
Since opening in 1962, the Pukekohe Park Raceway has hosted the New Zealand Grand Prix, the Tasman Series, and the Supercar Championships, as well as local racing and drifting competitions. But in April 2023, circuit manager Gary Stirling closed its gates for the last time. Checkered Flag follows Stirling and his daughter Natalie as they prepare for the course’s closure.
Checkered Flag was made with the support of NZ On Air
Click and Collect
Substancial job cuts proposed at Ministry of Education and Oranga Tamariki
Cuts at MoE may affect school lunch and the period products in schools programmes
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Feeling clever? Click here to play 1Q, Aotearoa’s newest, shortest daily quiz.
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Sporting snippets
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