Radio New Zealand’s future at a crossroads
Opinion: Broadcasting, Communications and Digital Media Minister Clare Curran’s shambolic handling of the Carole Hirschfeld saga has already destroyed the career of a respected broadcaster.
Unless new information emerges, Curran herself is likely to survive. But the fallout over Hirschfeld’s abrupt resignation for misleading her bosses over a meeting with the minister casts a shadow over future plans for Radio New Zealand as it stands at a crossroads.
Labour’s election manifesto promised a $38 million boost for ‘‘quality programming and journalism’’, including plans to turn the state broadcaster into a fully multiplatform non-commercial entity, alongside a free-to-air television service.
Hirschfeld was seen as pivotal to that proposal – known as RNZ+ – not just because of her broadcasting background but because she was also considered the most enthusiastic backer of the standalone TV channel championed by Curran.
But chief executive Paul Thompson insists the network is bigger than one person. ‘‘Carol was great and she was great on the team and she’s contributed significantly to the plan along with a lot of other senior folk but RNZ and RNZ+ are much bigger than any one executive.’’
Hirschfeld was a high-profile recruitment for RNZ and was seen as a coup for Thompson.
But Radio New Zealand recently announced Hirschfeld was due to move into a new role as head of programming from next week, with another senior executive, Glen Scanlon, poised to take over as head of news.
It is understood the change was seen as a sideways move for Hirschfeld, while Scanlon’s background in digital media as a former Stuff news editor points at the direction in which the state broadcaster is moving.
Hirschfeld was forced to stand down after Thompson confronted her with evidence that she had misled both him and the board for months over her meeting with Curran last December.
Hirschfeld had repeatedly told Thompson the meeting was by chance, when texts released yesterday show it was arranged over several months.
Her motivation for withholding the truth has not been explained, but there were suspicions within RNZ that Curran was seeking out allies for the standalone TV channel aspect of Labour’s broadcasting manifesto, which she has championed.
Both Thompson and board chairman Richard Griffin have a broader vision for the RNZ+ plan.
The fallout over Curran’s meeting with Hirschfeld is probably too late to affect the budget round. But even before this controversy, the RNZ+ proposal faced criticism, particularly for the TV channel component, will put further pressure on the likes of Newshub and TVNZ in an increasingly fragmented media market.
RNZ has been forced into a twotrack planning process while it waits for the May Budget to decide its future, with option one, according to Thompson, being the status quo. But he says RNZ can live with that after a funding boost last year from National, which put the network on a firmer footing.
‘‘The other track is if the policy is implemented that will be really exciting for us and allow us to accelerate and amplify that plan.’’
That plan revolved around a ‘‘strong independent multimedia RNZ’’ but there were no plans to be ‘‘a full-blown TV broadcaster’’.
‘‘There’s always been an argument about the definition of that but we’re already running a TV channel, and occasionally we go full bore on it. Every day at 5pm, Check Point is on it. We already have that capability and technology in a very fledgling way. We just see that as growing and getting better.’’
But the increase in programming, the depth of RNZ’s journalism, and the ability to build its digital and multi-media capabilities were the ‘‘really exciting part’’.