RNZ prepares to change its tunes
RNZ has brushed off concerns that a radical overhaul of its music services will take it into a turf fight with the country’s commercial radio stations.
The state-owned broadcaster began consulting staff yesterday on a proposal that would see it make 18 redundancies and axe jobs at RNZ Concert.
It plans to create 17 jobs at a new youthoriented music channel based in Auckland that it plans to launch later this year. But sources suggested only a few existing staff were being given the chance to transfer.
‘‘There will be a whole lot of new jobs doing some quite new things,’’ chief executive Paul Thompson said.
Head of music Willy Macalister said RNZ’s 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 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 whose jobs were on the line have criticised the moves as a step towards replacing RNZ’s music division with ‘‘Spotify’’, sources said.
Thompson said RNZ needed to create the new brand and that decision had board sign-off. ‘‘We just don’t have enough connection with younger New Zealanders. The bit we are working with staff on is the impact of the new strategy on them.’’
Commercial radio broadcasters NZME and MediaWorks are understood to have had talks with the Radio Broadcasters Association about RNZ’s new direction.
The association’s chief executive, Jana Rangooni, said it would have ‘‘serious concerns’’ if a taxpayer-funded broadcaster launched products and platforms that targeted audiences ‘‘already well served by commercial radio broadcasters’’.
Macalister downplayed that concern, saying a lot of thought had gone into avoiding a clash. ‘‘A rising tide will float all boats . . . There is a section of the audience that is not consuming radio at the moment and we really hope we can appeal to them.’’
That would involve the new service supporting more ‘‘grassroots’’ music, emerging artists and live performances, he said.
Thompson said it would be ‘‘pointless’’ for RNZ to launch a service that replicated what the commercial market already did well, and said it would aim to offer any new content it created to other broadcasters.