Warning of more TV repeats
Television companies face having to put more repeats on television as coronavirus lockdowns in New Zealand and overseas prevent the filming of new local and international shows, TVNZ chief executive Kevin Kenrick says.
‘‘Most of the productions both locally and internationally have been halted because of lockdown provisions and people are having to resort to whatever content is available historically that they have got – or things that are in a post-production phase that can be completed,’’ he said.
The longer productions were halted, the more serious the emerging production gap would become, Kenrick told Parliament’s Epidemic Response select committee, which devoted all of its public hearings yesterday to the state of media businesses.
MediaWorks, the owner of television channel Three, stopped work on many of its local entertainment productions, including Dancing with the Stars and The Block NZ, the day that the level four lockdown began.
The prospect of a dearth of fresh television programming risks adding to other gaps in the media and entertainment industries that have opened up as a result of the pandemic.
NZME managing editor Shayne Currie indicated to MPs that some of its 22 community newspapers might not return because of a reduction in advertising.
‘‘Once the restrictions are fully lifted we still have to review whether or not we can actually continue to publish all of those. That is how serious the situation is right now.’’
On Tuesday, NZME announced it had made 200 of its 1400 employees redundant and had asked those who remained on salaries of more than $50,000 a year to take a 15 per cent pay cut for 12 weeks.
Stuff Ltd’s chief executive, Sinead Boucher, said its advertising revenue had ‘‘more than halved’’ in the weeks since March, and April was looking ‘‘particularly dire’’. It has not yet cut any jobs.
Currie said NZME had seen a 50 per cent drop in advertising revenues in April and MediaWorks’ chief executive, Michael Anderson, said it had been similarly affected.
Broadcasting Minister Kris Faafoi, appearing in front of the same select committee, said the media – like the country – was in ‘‘uncharted territory’’.
But the Government was developing a ‘‘short- and longterm package of support for the media industry’’, some parts of which he hoped to announce ‘‘within the week’’.
Faafoi indicated the immediate support would not be in the form of bailouts of individual media companies. Instead, the Government was considering bringing forward purchases of advertising, and some form of assistance with broadcasters’ transmission costs.
Kenrick made an impassioned plea for the Government to spend more of its advertising dollars on local media businesses. ‘‘Every dollar that the Government spends on advertising with Google and Facebook is a dollar that is not spent supporting local media,’’ he told the committee.
‘‘Every dollar that the Government spends on advertising with Google and Facebook is a dollar that is not spent supporting local media.’’
Kevin Kenrick