Media job cuts: How many roles have gone and where

Job cuts continue at most of the country's major media outlets and there is a warning that legislation some hope might help the sector could be a killer blow for many participants.

In recent weeks, there has been no shortage of job cuts news.

Here is an overview of what has been reported.

Stuff

Stuff has disestablished video journalist roles in Auckland, while adding new ones in Wellington and Christchurch, cut audio roles, disestablished two senior roles to create a new head of multimedia content and strategy, and is understood to be holding meetings with other teams about cuts.

It is understood it has severed ties with style platform Ensemble, which it acquired in 2021 as part of a "life and style refresh". Stuff did not respond to requests for comment.

NZME

The NZ Herald has brought an end to its Focus video bulletin, and host Cheree Kinnear has had her role disestablished. Earlier in the year, the company cut about a dozen roles as it moved resources from the regions into Wellington and Christchurch.

Whakaata Māori

Whakaata Māori said it was still working through a "realignment process:" and would not comment further until final decisions had been made. It was reported earlier that staff were warned of job cuts and the potential axing of its daily news bulletin. It faces a projected funding reduction of more than $10 million by 2027. A spokesperson said it expected to have the plan finalised by November.

TVNZ

TVNZ is going through still more cost-cutting, after bringing an end to Fair Go and Sunday earlier in the year. It wants to find $30 million in savings or extra revenue over the next year and has revealed plans to close its website. A spokesperson said it was still working through a "feedback process".

Mediaworks

Mediaworks is proposing job cuts for a second year in a row. But a spokesperson said the situation might have been overstated in reports that "dozens" of staff could be affected. "We are only looking at the function and future of two roles at MediaWorks, in different areas of the business. While they're still in consultation we won't speculate on the outcome."

The drop in advertising

Industry sources say one of the few bright spots is advertising from TAB, which is now under new owners Entain.

Asked whether he would be available for an interview about the job cuts and the country's media, a spokesperson for Media Minister Paul Goldsmith said job cuts were operational matters for media organisations to speak to.

Newsroom co-founder and former TV3 head of news Mark Jennings said the industry was still suffering the impact of a drop in advertising.

"For those companies that are entirely dependent on advertising. It's been grim. The only answer to it really is constant cost cutting."

He said Warner Brothers Discovery had tried to get ahead of the curve by closing its newsroom and outsourcing the production of its news to Stuff.

"Now it's struggling in the ratings. It's reduced the cost base but whether it's been able to hold on to the sort of revenue it had is probably debatable."

In a Newsroom column, he pointed to Sunday's ratings. The top rating programme of the night was ThreeNews. "But it was watched by 26,300 people in the demo and 1News hammered it with more than six times the number of viewers. A 56 point share to Three's nine. When Newshub ended in July its 6pm news was scoring around the 20 share mark, and years before that it was into the 30s."

He said TVNZ would probably need to find an additional $40m rather than $30m to break even.

"It seems to be very slow in doing that and will be eating into its cash reserves."

Jennings said those cash reserves were initially earmarked for a digital transformation that was meant to start pre-Covid but had not made progress.

"I'd say it is probably now two or three years behind where it should have been. That's problematic. It's struggling to optimise its audiences on TVNZ+. It has good content and is going ok but it's not a match for the international streamers."

Jennings said it would need a subscription model but that was probably not possible with its current technology stack.

Smaller players such as Newsroom were surviving because of their relatively low cost bases but it was hard to grow in a depressed economy, he said.

What's the future?

In 10 years' time there would probably have been more rationalisation in the market, particularly around the free-to-air TV stations, he said.

"It's hard to imagine either of them being there in the shape they are now. They are just faced with constantly declining audiences for their broadcast models. They will shift to on-demand but there's so much competition in that space."

Jennings pointed to the Fair Digital News Bargaining Bill, which would require players such as Google and Facebook to pay news organisations for content.

Google has warned that if the legislation were to go ahead, it would "reassess the manner in which [Google] operates in New Zealand".

"We'd be forced to stop linking to news content on Google Search, Google News, or Discover surfaces in New Zealand - and discontinue our current commercial agreements and ecosystem support with New Zealand news publishers," Google's New Zealand country director Caroline Rainsford said in a statement on Google's own site.

Jennings said the bill in its current form could be "very bad" for a large chunk of the country's media.

"NPA, which is NZME and Stuff, are for it and I think if Google and Facebook withdraw from news in this country, they may figure they could be the last men standing."

RNZ chief performance officer Glen Scanlon said RNZ was concerned about the cuts facing the wider media sector, and the impact on both people and journalism.

"Our view is that society and democracy is better served by a strong and vibrant sector. The disruption does highlight the importance of having a cornerstone public media service. RNZ is focused on sharing content and partnering with other media where it helps. A great example are the positions we fund in newsrooms through the Local Democracy Reporting scheme."

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