TVNZ has revealed it wants to retain a “reduced” version of the 1News website as the broadcaster pushes ahead with major changes to its business.
Earlier this month, the broadcaster announced a proposal to shutter 1News.co.nz.
Speaking to staff this afternoon, chief executive Jodi O’Donnell announced the outcome of stage one of consultation on wide-ranging “strategic change” plans across the business.
The Crown-owned company, which is commercially rather than taxpayer-funded, is attempting to plug a $30 million hole in revenue.
A spokesperson for TVNZ confirmed a series of changes today. They include
- Retaining a reduced 1News.co.nz while we build news audiences on TVNZ+ and develop news capability on TVNZ+
- Bringing News and Content together into a new division to drive audience and digital growth
- Investing in News on TVNZ+ progressively to build audience and capability
- Creating centres for excellence for data, analytics and AI
- Creating a new Creative Hub.
Decisions around outsourcing around content workflow and technology functions will be deferred to allow more time to consider the impacts.
Earlier this month, O’Donnell told staff that TVNZ wanted to cut 1News.co.nz and the 1News app entirely, as part of a larger proposal to save $30 million annually.
At the time, the media company said it wanted to pivot to delivering digital news solely through its streaming platform TVNZ+.
A TVNZ spokesperson said another stage of consultation would now begin.
“We’ve confirmed with TVNZers the strategic changes we’ll be making to the business to help us reach our $30m target and deliver on our Digital+ strategy,” they said.
“Next week we will enter the second stage of consultation, which will include proposed structure changes to deliver on our decisions, as well as to drive efficiencies through the business.
“Proposals will be provided to our people first and we won’t be commenting in the meantime.”
TVNZ has confirmed 68 jobs will go in a proposed restructuring across departments, including news and current affairs. (Source: 1News)
A steep drop in advertising revenue has created a major budget deficit for TVNZ in the past 12 months, which has already slashed spending.
In May, TVNZ axed long-running and celebrated current affairs programmes Fair Go and Sunday. It also axed roles from Re: News and other parts of its business.
