RNZ set to change tunes
Radio NZ has brushed off concerns that a radical overhaul of its music services will take it into a turf war with commercial radio stations.
The state-owned broadcaster began consulting staff yesterday on a proposal that would include 18 redundancies and axe almost all jobs at RNZ Concert. It plans to create 17 new jobs at a new youthoriented music channel based in Auckland that it plans to launch during the second half of this year.
But sources suggested only a few existing staff were being given the opportunity to transfer.
‘‘There will be a whole lot of new jobs doing some quite new things,’’ chief executive Paul Thompson said.
Public Service Association national secretary Glenn Barclay said RNZ staff were ‘‘shocked and upset’’. ‘‘They knew change was coming but nobody expected it would be this far-reaching or aggressive in terms of timeframes.’’ Concert FM had been part of New Zealand households for generations, and its ‘‘skilled and hard-working staff’’ did exemplary work every day, he said. ‘‘PSA members will meet in the days ahead to discuss this proposal with colleagues, and they will decide on an appropriate response.’’
RNZ head of music Willy Macalister said the new music service would feature a higher proportion of New Zealand music and ‘‘talk content’’ than commercial radio stations. But it would also play international hits in order to provide ‘‘something that is palatable to a broader audience’’, he said. ‘‘You can’t ‘niche yourself’ out of relevance.’’
The new commercial-free service, which has yet to be named, will be carried on FM and made available online, both in a streaming format and ‘‘on demand’’. RNZ Concert would lose its FM slot and all its presenters but would broadcast classical music around the clock on AM, online and on Sky.
Staff have criticised the moves as a step towards replacing RNZ’s music division with ‘‘Spotify’’, sources said.
But Thompson said it needed to create the new brand. ‘‘While RNZ is doing really well, we just don’t have enough connection with younger New Zealanders.’’
Commercial radio broadcasters NZME and MediaWorks are understood to have had discussions with the Radio Broadcasters Association about RNZ’s new direction.
Its chief executive, Jana Rangooni, gave a guarded response to RNZ’s plans. ‘‘If the public service media principle of delivering content to New Zealand audiences that are not currently catered for is applied to RNZ’s youth music strategy, this could deliver benefits for all sectors of our industry and for
New Zealanders,’’ she said.
But she said the association would have ‘‘serious concerns’’ if a taxpayer-funded broadcaster launched products and platforms that targeted audiences ‘‘already well served by commercial radio broadcasters’’.
‘‘We note there are already many networks operating in New Zealand that service youth music audiences,’’ she said.
‘‘While it is true RNZ is noncommercial, the networks it operates with taxpayer funding compete for audiences which has an impact on New Zealand’s commercial networks.’’
Macalister downplayed that concern saying a lot of thought had gone into avoiding a clash.
‘‘We are going to be offering something that is different.
‘‘There is a section of the audience that is not consuming radio at the moment and we really do hope we can appeal to them.’’
Commercial radio businesses might ‘‘talk a bit loud at the start but I think everybody will be OK and we will all get along’’, he said.