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Latest news from Radio New Zealand's business team.
Latest news from Radio New Zealand's business team.
Now, perhaps the most startling thing of the news yesterday that our old mates at the state radio broadcaster have opened a voluntary redundancy programme, is that they've never done that before. 100 years they've been doing the business at Radio New Zealand. 100 years, never had a voluntary redundancy. Tells you something about how insulated the real world from the real world they are. Mind you, I don't even know that's true actually, because Radio New Zealand used to be a whole different beast. In my early days of broadcasting, Radio New Zealand encompassed commercial and non-commercial radio stations, and there was, I can tell you from personal experience, no shortage of carnage fiscally. The place was run by halfwits and we were permanently in a state of flux, if not carnage. The most famous might have been a thing called Project Aurora, where we allegedly all took pay cuts – that was a scandal in and of itself. So it's not like the media hasn't seen tricky days, and I think that's the ultimate point here, isn't it? There's a tremendous amount of coverage of the media, too much, really. And if I can be a little bit blunt, a lot of the tough stuff in the industry is no more upsetting than the dark days for any number of industries. Also, and this applies to Radio New Zealand, if you live in a false world, it will catch up with you eventually. Yes, media like a lot of industries is changing, but then it always has. 44 years in and counting for me, I can tell you media has been in a constant state of change, if not upheaval – it's all I've ever known. No, it wasn't always Google or Facebook nicking the ad money, but it was video, or TV, or deregulation of licences, or rubbish management. Having worked at Morning Report myself, you've never seen such a sheltered workshop of lavish staffing and indulgence. They enter the Radio Awards every year and apart from not winning, the joke in the industry is the number of producers they've got: 19. Are you serious? For contrast, this show, which 1. wins and 2. has more listeners, has three. And that includes Glenn, which is debatable as to whether we should include him at all. I wish no one ill will, don't get me wrong. I wish no one ill will. I wish boom times prevailed across the whole landscape. But equally, I wish people lived in the real world. And Willie Jackson handing out tens of millions is irresponsible politics, not a business plan. Willie and his ilk, as always, never paid the price for this. The poor sap who took the new Radio New Zealand job will. The money that pays for jobs has either earned or it's given. If it's given, it's always on a whim – in this case a political one. It is not their fault that Willie is an idiot. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Latest news from Radio New Zealand's business team.
Latest news from Radio New Zealand's business team.
THE BEST BITS IN A SILLIER PACKAGE (from Wednesday's Mike Hosking Breakfast) Something's Not Right Here/What's Behind the Bans?/How Humiliating/Have I Just Been Fired?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Latest news from Radio New Zealand's business team.
Latest news from Radio New Zealand's business team.
Tim Watkin is a journalist and media manager. He works as executive editor for audio at Radio New Zealand, but is currently on sabbatical at the University of Glasgow, studying how to rebuild trust in journalism as part of a project on Epistemic Autonomy. In this interview we discuss the nature of trust, why it's important, why journalists seem to be losing the public's trust, whose fault this is, and what might be done about it.Book your place at our public event with Gavin Esler, "Dead Cats, Strategic Lying and Truth Decay", here. Ethics Untangled is produced by IDEA, The Ethics Centre at the University of Leeds.Bluesky: @ethicsuntangled.bsky.socialFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/ideacetlLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/idea-ethics-centre/
Latest news from Radio New Zealand's business team.
Latest news from Radio New Zealand's business team.
Latest news from Radio New Zealand's business team.
Latest news from Radio New Zealand's business team.
Latest news from Radio New Zealand's business team.
Latest news from Radio New Zealand's business team.
Latest news from Radio New Zealand's business team.
Latest news from Radio New Zealand's business team.
Latest news from Radio New Zealand's business team.
Latest news from Radio New Zealand's business team.
The polling industry, whose only answer to fairly obvious questions seems to be “this is just a snapshot in time”, may have trouble explaining the past week of polling in this country. There was one on Tuesday night and one on Wednesday morning. They have completely different results. One has Luxon as the most popular leader. One has Hipkins as the most popular leader. One has National leading Labour. One has Labour leading National. One has the current Government as the current Government. One has a new Government, with the current Government out. It doesn't get a lot more contrasting than that. Even if you accept a lot of the numbers are tightish, some of the numbers aren't even within the margin of error. It's almost as though the polls aren't accurate. It's almost as though you could ring up 1000 people and get one answer, then ring up another set of 1000 people and get a completely different answer. If you can do that, why would you pay money to people who will tell you these things mean anything? At least TVNZ use commercial money to pay for this stuff. Radio New Zealand, who seem to have taken over from TV3, use our money. And given they have just had a budget cut and given they are losing their audience at a rate of knots, I'm not sure this can be classed as quality expenditure. I went to their website yesterday. The headline was "What the polls are telling us in 7 charts". And there they were. There was lots of colour, lots of lines up and down, and squiggles. But I already knew, given I had seen the charts from the night before, that either their charts meant nothing, or if they did mean something, then the other guy's charts weren't up to much. Or quite possibly if we did this charade for a third time, they would both be exposed as having shonky numbers. But remember: "they are only a snapshot in time". Except given they were done at the same time, they aren't, are they? So what are they, other than a very large waste of time and money? See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
I've struggled with a couple of authors this week – Jacinda Ardern and Jake Tapper. What I struggle with is one of them is making money out of the fact they made an astonishing hash of their job, quit, bailed out of the country and is now collecting money for retelling what happened in a way that would suggest no carnage was left behind. The other is making money by exposing what he watched unfold in front of his eyes for four years and really did nothing about. I'm not sure who the bigger fraud is. The Ardern book is widely traversed and has been marketed very well internationally. My wife showed me a snippet from Oprah. Let's be frank: post WeightWatchers and Ozempic Oprah is not exactly reputationally untouched herself. She's fascinated with Ardern, and it appears to be around kindness. I bet you anything you want Oprah doesn't have the slightest idea about how the country was wrecked under Ardern. She sees what Ardern wants you to see: fragile, huggy people who run things with good vibes. In the meantime, at CNN, I have no idea what Jake Tapper was watching between 2020-24 because we all watched the same thing. Except CNN wasn't spending a lot of time saying "hey, have you noticed the old guy is getting worse by the day?". Given that was CNN's job is it any wonder they rate the way they do? But for Tapper to then go out and monetise what he was already, allegedly, being paid to do, seems a new low of sorts to me. But back with Ardern. In one review former Labour Party leader David Cunliffe runs the classic line of "I have a different recollection”. That's in response to Ardern's attack on him whereby she essentially calls him a fraud and how she couldn't understand how he got the top job and not her mate Grant. You had to, she said (probably in tears), question his authenticity. Are you serious? Authenticity? From Jacinda Markle? The only bit of marketing that seems to have been missed along with the hand-wringing interviews on Radio New Zealand and TVNZ is some Ardern jam or cake recipes. If she had just been useless, it might have been alright. Hopeless, but didn't break the china. But she wasn't. She was dangerous, she was the pulpit of truth, she was a control freak, and she was a narcissist dressed up in Kate Sylvester pretending she wrote back to all the kids. She wrecked the joint then collected the dough in Boston. Tapper and Ardern made money for failing to do their job. There should be a law against it. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Latest news from Radio New Zealand's business team.
Latest news from Radio New Zealand's business team.
Latest news from Radio New Zealand's business team.
Latest news from Radio New Zealand's business team.
Latest news from Radio New Zealand's business team.
Latest news from Radio New Zealand's business team.
Latest news from Radio New Zealand's business team.
Latest news from Radio New Zealand's business team.
Latest news from Radio New Zealand's business team.
Latest news from Radio New Zealand's business team.
Latest news from Radio New Zealand's business team.
Latest news from Radio New Zealand's business team.
Latest news from Radio New Zealand's business team.
Latest news from Radio New Zealand's business team.
Latest news from Radio New Zealand's business team.
Latest news from Radio New Zealand's business team.
Latest news from Radio New Zealand's business team.
Latest news from Radio New Zealand's business team.
Latest news from Radio New Zealand's business team.
Latest news from Radio New Zealand's business team.
Latest news from Radio New Zealand's business team.
Latest news from Radio New Zealand's business team.
Latest news from Radio New Zealand's business team.
Latest news from Radio New Zealand's business team.
Latest news from Radio New Zealand's business team.
Latest news from Radio New Zealand's business team.
Latest news from Radio New Zealand's business team.
Latest news from Radio New Zealand's business team.
Latest news from Radio New Zealand's business team.