Good night, and good luck to unsung heroes of the news
You’ve probably heard of Mike McRoberts, but producer Angus Gillies and hundreds of others working off-camera will also be out of a job when Newshub ends. Andre Chumko reports.
When Angus Gillies was young, it was in the days when the family would sit together and watch the TV news in appointment viewing, like huddling around a campfire.
The 6pm news producer for Newshub, based in Auckland, is one of about 300 people to lose their jobs after Warner Bros Discovery decided to axe its entire TV news division, citing plummeting advertising revenue that’s been sucked up by internet giants Meta and Google, and streamers like Netflix and Disney.
The decision came a day after 68 jobs from TVNZ’s suite of current affairs and news programmes were also confirmed to go – with the shows Sunday, Fair Go and its midday and late-night news bulletins all being abandoned, and the state news broadcaster’s Re: News team cut from 10 to six roles.
News anchor Mike McRoberts started the nightly Newshub bulletin on the day of the decision by saying it was the end of the news as we know it.
But Gillies, who has worked with Newshub and its predecessor TV3 since the 1990s, knew something bad was going to happen when all of the company’s staff were called into a meeting last week.
“We all knew that last nail in the coffin was coming. A lot of people in the newsroom ... just want to basically have it all done and move on with their lives,” he told The Post in an interview.
The majority of workers losing their jobs are people like Gillies: camera operators, editors, technicians and producers, who, while not as recognisable as on-screen journalists, are likely to feel the brunt of the mass redundancies because of the lack of viable alternative jobs and, now, a flooded market of potential employees.
The Newshub staff will work through to July 5, meaning workers have 2½ months to find something else to do, while TVNZ is stopping many of its current affairs shows before then, in mid-May.
Gillies doesn’t know what he’ll do, but he’s always loved doing the news and had planned to produce till he retired. That love is shared by everyone who is to be laid off. But Gillies also speaks about the TV news in past tense, like it’s already dead.
As newsrooms have moved towards cutting expenses to stay afloat, audiences will have noticed that reporters are expected to do the jobs of four or five people – journalist, editor, writer, camera operator, producer. This has meant a compromise in the quality of news production, and a loss of artistry in news, which the video editors and camera operators ensured.
Gillies says the news needs to find new ways to tell stories. He recently spoke to Lisette Raymer, Newshub’s Europe correspondent, who told him she spent hours crafting a story for the TV news that was watched by 100,000 people or so. She felt duty-bound also to create a quick TikTok video, finished in five minutes, which racked up millions of views.
When Mark Jennings left TV3 in 2016 and digital news was on the rise, Gillies remembers him saying there could be two or three more years of the TV news.
In that respect, it’s lasted longer than a lot of staff expected. “I have wondered if TV news might make a comeback like vinyl ... It’s a bit like the news version of the Blockbuster video stores. Maybe its time has come and gone, definitely the golden era has gone,” Gillies said.
Stuff owner Sinead Boucher this week announced that Stuff would be paid by Warner Bros to deliver a new version of the hourly 6pm TV news for Three. She wouldn’t confirm how many people Stuff would hire to help make the show, but said it would be fewer than 40, meaning most who’ve lost their jobs across both TV stations will still be without work.
Trust in the news media is also plummeting to new lows. For years, reports have said audiences increasingly distrust the news, with people saying they avoid the media because of its negativity, perceived political bias, opinions masquerading as news, and the impact it has on their mental health.
Gillies says he’s always been a fan of the curated hour of nightly TV news, and there’s a certain seriousness about the TV that can’t be replicated by digital news. When 9/11 happened, or the Haiti earthquake of 2010, for example, the visuals and sound helped show and tell the stories in ways a newspaper and words alone could not. “There’s something about using pictures. There’s a real art to it.”
For Tony Meinen, the closure is particularly brutal. He’s a Wellington-based freelance camera operator who’s worked for Newshub for two decades. TV is his bread and butter, making up about 90% of his income in a year.
Because he’s a contractor, not a fulltime employee, he doesn’t get any payout. After years of sacrificing other jobs to be available for the news, he has nothing to show for it. “To get nothing at the end of the length of time ... It is what it is.”
Despite working for Newshub for nearly 20 years as a contractor, he couldn’t even access the Zoom meeting where staff were told they were out of a job. He says Warner Bros had invested in new cars, new cameras and recently refurbished its office and the decision took him by surprise. “It was just a sledgehammer of like, whoa, what just happened?”
With much corporate video work having been moved in-house, and huge cuts in the public sector meaning job prospects there are unlikely too, Meinen worries about what he’ll do once the news shuts down and he has to compete against his colleagues to get contracts.
Because of the lack of opportunities, many are looking towards other industries, or moving cities or even country.
Meinen lives on the Kāpiti Coast and says the prospects there are limited to positions like a security guard at Mitre 10. “It’s pretty scary ... Maybe real estate photography, or video/drone work. Then I have other little bits and pieces, but not enough to actually make a living out of it.”
Meinen says during the Covid-19 pandemic he noticed a change in attitudes to the news, with some people being hostile or aggressive to him on jobs, accusing him of being complicit in spreading fear and misinformation, and being unwilling to engage in any civil dialogue.
Research shows young people aren’t watching the news, and are getting their information about the world from social media. Meinen says people don’t know what the facts are any more, which has led to increased paranoia and conspiracy theories about the media.
He’s worried young people will have seen TV news’ demise and not want to enter the industry. But James Hollings, an associate professor at Massey University’s journalism school in Wellington, says the university has good teaching numbers and people are still keen.
Advertising spending, Hollings says, is not get any better, and so the Government must act on getting Meta and Facebook to pay news organisations fairly for hosting stories on their platforms.
It’s been reported that $74 million of broadcast TV advertising disappeared in New Zealand in 2023. Apart from the year after the global financial crisis, that 14.3% decline was the largest year-on-year drop in three decades, Warner Bros Discovery’s Asia Pacific president, James Gibbons, has said.
The Fair Digital News Bargaining Bill which would help news organisations in their fight to get fair pay from the tech giants, still has not become law.
Hollings wants TVNZ funded better and made into a non-commercial entity like Radio NZ to make sure overseas powers can’t affect it detrimentally.
He says journalism will continue to evolve and be delivered in new formats. “Before there was public funding, there were journalists.”
Marcel Pfister, a senior video editor for Newshub in Wellington who’s been laid off, and has worked at the TV station since 2003, says he’s not holding his breath for a job “in any way” now that Stuff will produce Warner Bros’ 6pm bulletin.
In 2018, Pfister could see the writing on the wall and got his driving instructor licence, and began contracting for a driving school on weekends. Now, he’s looking at building up clients so by July he’ll have enough business to keep the lights on and food on the table for him and his two teenage children.
He says Facebook, Google and YouTube came along but the TV news never really changed a lot. “I don’t really have much faith in the TV industry any more to carry on. Most people watch Netflix, and the news on Facebook and online sites. Being a TV news editor is definitely a very fastdying career ... ”
Pfister is excited about teaching people to drive, even though he’s enjoyed doing the news. “I feel for the ones that haven’t got a backup plan yet. I think a lot of people will be going overseas.”
While journalists were creative, innovative and resilient, it will be more difficult for off-camera workers to reinvent themselves, he says.
Meinen says the worst part is the loss of talent across so many fields, people who are all motivated by holding power to account, and exposing those who rip others off. “There’s going to be nobody sticking up for people.”
Asked how she is doing, Irene Gardiner, president of the NZ Screen Producers’ Guild, says: “My industry is falling apart around me.”
She’s worried most of the news workers won’t be absorbed into general local production roles because money is tight in that world, too. And just because someone loved broadcast journalism doesn’t mean they’ll want to move into general screen production. “It’s not like everyone coming out won’t get a job, but it does mean certainly some of the younger people in our industry will start looking offshore.”
Gardiner renewed calls for the Govern-ment to urgently introduce a levy for the big streaming companies like Disney and Netflix, but says even in a best case scenario it’ll be a while till that money comes through.
Until then, to tide the sector over, the Government should provide a financial lifeline to make sure more companies and shows don’t shut down, such as considering waiving Kordia’s transmission fees. “If everything gets too small and too tight, it becomes difficult to keep the industry sustainable, and you actually start to lose the ability to contribute to the New Zealand economy.”
That wasn’t even to mention the cultural argument in losing so many positions from local production.
The Government has said it doesn’t have a magic wand to fix the problems of the media, and Gardiner agrees it’s not fair to blame them for what’s happening.
“This has been coming for a long time. And actually, successive governments were slow on doing something to regulate the big tech multinationals. If that had been done some years ago, we’d have had that new revenue coming in as ad revenue was diminishing.”
She’s asked for screen funding agencies to be exempt from the 7.5% cuts the Government has asked from ministries. But that isn’t happening.
The Film Commission this week told The Post that it was engaged in a confidential process with staff and could not share details of it publicly. Its new structure would be in place on July 1. NZ
On Air also said it was in discussions with the Ministry for Culture and Heritage, and could provide more information after May 30.
Gardiner says even shows like Shortland Street, Celebrity Treasure Island, The Traitors NZ, Married at First Sight NZ and food and home shows are not immune from the chopping block if ad revenue continues to drop, as is expected.
Cameron Harland, NZ On Air chief executive, is also concerned for the media, but says the organisation will keep funding a range of content to provide “some stability” and “some jobs”.
“Loss of news plurality is a real concern for democracy ... Unfortunately we are limited in what we can do given increasing demands on our finite funds, but we see our role as continuing to communicate with and listen to the sectors we support, and to seek to spread our funding as far as possible.”
Tui Ruwhiu, executive director of the Directors and Editors Guild, says with screen funding agencies having less money to dole out, less local content will be made. There’ll also be increased competition for those small pots of money.
“Essentially, we will not be seeing ourselves reflected on the screen in the future as we have been up until now. And that’s a very sad situation in our view. It also means we are losing our voice, the voice of us as New Zealanders,” Ruwhiu says.
“Shortland Street ... is potentially being affected by what is currently happening. So that means one of our most iconic New Zealand soap operas may not be on screen in future and will be replaced by probably something from America or Australia or England or somewhere else.
“The cultural impact of us not seeing ourselves on our screens, of us not creating our own stories, will be profound, particularly at a time of social change and division.”
Ruwhiu says it’s often said New Zealand can’t introduce quotas or levies because they will contravene our agreements on trade.
“Meanwhile, our industries are crumbling. That’s a big problem.”