March 9 date for Concert rethink
The jobs were gone but now they’re safe. Concert was set to be kicked off the FM network but now it’s staying. What’s going on at RNZ, asks
Radio NZ staff have been told the broadcaster will reset its Concert channel ‘‘with a focus on growth’’.
A leaked message, from RNZ people manager Susannah McKinistry to RNZ staff, said the broadcaster would set up workshops to develop and deliver a new strategy for Concert by March 9.
‘‘The focus of the strategy will be on growth in audience reach, size, strength, diversity – including growth with younger audience and overall engagement and impact,’’ the message said. ‘‘From early April work will begin with the team on how we can deliver on the strategy and the capabilities required.’’
The close consultations with staff on a restructuring plan meant ‘‘business will continue as usual’’, for the staff affected, the update said.
The message was sent to music staff on Wednesday, shortly after RNZ chief executive Paul Thompson met with staff to say consultations on a plan to axe 18 positions within the department and to shift Concert from FM to AM transmission had been withdrawn.
Thompson also sent a brief message to staff on Wednesday confirming the withdrawal of the restructuring proposal and saying an indication from the Government that it would support RNZ’s planned new music service for young New Zealanders provided ‘‘an opportunity to reset our thinking’’.
‘‘Over the next month we will develop a new strategy for RNZ Concert aimed at improving its audience performance,’’ he said, adding that staff would have input into that plan. ‘‘Meanwhile, RNZ will also work with the Government on the proposal for the new service for young people,’’ he said.
The Ministry of Culture and Heritage continued yesterday to maintain its silence on a statement by Thompson to Parliament’s economic development, science and innovation select committee on Thursday. Thompson told MPs that RNZ had ‘‘clearly been given a steer’’ by the ministry last year that it would be very difficult for RNZ to get a new FM frequency for its planned youth radio service and funding for it and ‘‘therefore’’ RNZ went on with its original plan.
The ministry would not confirm on Thursday that it had provided RNZ with the clear steer that Thompson referred to, and again declined comment yesterday.
It has been the worst of times. Now it is the best of times. Apparently. Forget the mercurial nature of seven days in politics. RNZ chief executive Paul Thompson has shown what a difference a day can make.
Barely 24 hours before, he looked hunted and haggard defending his handling of RNZ’s plans for Concert and the axing of 18 jobs. Now, he is ‘‘reengaged’’, ‘‘rejuvenated’’. Reborn.
The proposal to use Concert’s FM slot for a new youth network, and shed Concert’s presenters, is gone. Eighteen roles under threat now appear safe.
Even the potentially career-destroying ‘‘miscommunication’’ with minister Kris Faafoi and the Ministry for Culture and Heritage appears to have resulted in the unexpected bonus of a new FM frequency and possibly more money to go with it, although maybe at the expense of any ambitions for a potential role as CEO of any merged RNZ and TVNZ entity.
Out of the mess of a communications disaster has emerged the possibility of RNZ resurrection. ‘‘Why don’t we work on a plan together that will create some growth and something better,’’ he says.
The manager who has worked for years to broaden RNZ’s reach, some say by ‘‘bleeding’’ Concert and ‘‘cannibalising’’ its largely older audience, is now the boss charged with saving it. Maybe even improving the service.
‘‘Let’s reset, let’s re-engage with staff and let’s do both [youth network and Concert], which is the exciting part.’’
Thompson may be excited, but many of his staff remain worried.
As are some in political circles. Thompson’s star has taken a serious hit, with many insiders saying his misstep has caused irreparable damage and he’s out of the frame for the top role at any new merged public broadcaster.
While the RNZ board is maintaining a united front, members telling Stuff he has their full backing, it’s a different story at the ministry, where Thompson appears still to be at odds with officials.
The ministry has not confirmed a statement from Thompson that it gave him a ‘‘clear steer’’ last year that it would be difficult to secure an additional FM slot for a planned youth radio station.
Staff are seeking their own assurances that Thompson’s new position on Concert is genuine. They see the same man and management team who wanted to ‘‘decimate’’ Concert and RNZ’s national music resource in order to rebuild a youth network in its place and shift resources into other priorities.
Consultation to end their roles and potentially their careers has become collaboration to retain them, and not necessarily because of their managers’ plans.
‘‘How are we going to work with guys who have demonstrated that they don’t want us there?’’ one told Stuff.
Where Thompson offers new talk of working together towards a promising future, they sense spin.
Spin that glides over the gaps on the fourth floor of Radio New Zealand House in Wellington, where a temperaturecontrolled archive of Kiwi vinyl history and classical music CDs was banished to the basement and replaced by a ping-pong table, a pool table and one large, red sofa.
Spin that deflects from a deeper, ongoing struggle between the philosophies and objectives of public service broadcasting and its more brash, numbers-obsessed commercial cousin.
Among those to air their unhappiness at the planned demotion of Concert was RNZ presenter Charlotte Wilson.
In an open letter to Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, Faafoi and others she declared that Thompson ‘‘hates classical music, and over the past few years I have watched him bleed it [Concert] dry’’.
‘‘We are treated worse than poor cousins,’’ she wrote, a comment echoed by many other staff to Stuff.
Their boss disagrees with that. He says he enjoys listening to Concert.
Wilson has painted a picture of a ‘‘partisan, suspicious and unsupportive’’ workplace with little trust in management.
Others testify to the dismantling of the Concert regime, which began in the 1990s and appears to have accelerated under Thompson’s charge and the change management of Head of Radio and Music David Allan and Music Content Director Willy McAllister. All supported by a number of reports and ‘‘deep analysis’’ of audience behaviour.
Roger Smith worked at RNZ for 21 years, the last six as manager of Concert. He left barely a year after Thompson’s appointment in 2013.
He says staff appreciated the new man’s vision and energy after the ‘‘easy as she goes, no surprises, very straightforward’’ management of former chief executive Peter Cavanagh.
Thompson, a prominent newspaper editor and media executive, ‘‘came in saying that radio was dying, needed to go digital’’.
RNZ had to broaden its appeal and increase its relevance in an increasingly fraught, complex, digitally driven landscape.
‘‘But I’m not sure that Concert played much of a role in that vision,’’ says Smith. ‘‘I felt that in the year that I was manager and he was chief executive that Concert struggled to get a voice in his plans.’’
He believes that voice was undermined further in a restructure that removed his previous direct access to the chief executive.
‘‘I felt Concert was demoted . . . that it diminished its value in Paul Thompson’s eyes. This was just a minor part of his business he wasn’t so interested in, which is a shame because clearly not an insignificant number of listeners are interested in RNZ Concert, as the events of the last week have shown.’’
Many of those 170,000 listeners have made their views known, among them former prime minister Helen Clark, Dame Kiri Te Kanawa and more than 26,000 others in petitions and protests.
Thompson admits he doesn’t need to be ‘‘passionate’’ about every aspect of
RNZ’s business to do his job, but he is learning to listen. ‘‘Concert’s much loved,’’ he says, ‘‘and it represents a symbol of a wider, functioning, diverse, successful creative sector; it’s bigger than a radio station.
‘‘I knew that, but I know that with bells on now.’’
But some current and former staff doubt the management team’s commitment to that ‘‘functioning, diverse, successful creative sector’’. Especially if it’s not targeted at the 18-35-year demographic.
Concert’s staff numbers have been reduced from more than 20 at Smith’s departure to about 14 today, they say, with live recordings and other features affected by funding cuts.
And they highlight a continuing and unresolved tension between disparate objectives of audience and numbersdriven commercial radio and the more inclusive aims of public service broadcasting.
And many see that divide personified in the appointment of McAllister, the former George FM boss who inspired publicity but also derision for hiring former PM John Key’s son Max as a DJ.
‘‘When McAllister signed up a year ago it was obvious things were going to change,’’ says a former RNZ staffer, who declined to be named.
A number of staff have told Stuff they struggle with McAllister’s management style, which is more at home in the more relaxed, robust workspaces of commercial radio.
They support Thompson’s vision to have a million people regularly engaged with RNZ but say that has been undermined by his faith in his managers, a lack of focus on the details and a rush to make progress on Concert.
‘‘Willy’s got this plan, he wants to recreate George FM under the RNZ banner,’’ one says.
But Thompson ‘‘absolutely backs his management team’’, including McAllister.
And he backs himself and the team to sit down with staff and have a new, ‘‘positive conversation’’.
‘‘I’m not blase, complacent or wilfully blind to the bumps we’ve taken . . . I’ve lived and breathed this as much as anyone. It has been a really, really confronting week.
‘‘We’ve had an enormous amount of feedback and it’s been incredibly intense, and we’ve just got to be thick-skinned enough to take it, and mature enough to learn from it and listen, and focused enough to look at what we do now, and make sure we’re making the right decision.
‘‘I think there will be a clearing of the air and we’ve got to find a way to work together,’’ he says. ‘‘It’s a pretty positive path I’ve set.’’
A path he is keen to remain on. ‘‘Occasionally you’ll have a few potholes. Do you let them derail you? No.
‘‘The board’s really happy and I’m still CEO, still want the job.’’