Major New Zealand publicly-owned media company, NZME, is to cut 38 more staff from its news operations. This comes a month after the company said it was closing 14 community newspapers, impacting about 30 jobs.
Earlier in 2024, about a dozen roles were disestablished as it centralised regional coverage in Wellington and Christchurch.
NZME owns the NZ Herald, first published in 1863, which has the largest print circulation in the country. The Herald peaked at over 200,000 copies in 2006, although this had declined to an average of just over 100,000 by September 2019.
Currently, the company claims to have 222,000 subscribers (130,000 of which are digital only) and a monthly unique audience for its website of 2.1 million.
Profits Down Last Year
NZME’s Net Profit After Tax (NPAT) was $12.2 million (US$6.1 million) last year, but its revenue of $56.2 million was 13 percent lower than in 2022.This morning, the company’s 300 staff were called into meetings and told that almost 13 percent would lose their jobs. The cuts are understood to affect 14 reporting and 24 production roles. Two vacancies at Newstalk ZB will also not be filled.
Journalists will be assigned to a team, headed by an editor, which will work on live news, business, sport, lifestyle, or politics.
Contrary to the strategy of most other media companies in New Zealand, which have more closely integrated their digital production into their main workflow, NZME will also establish a specialist team to cater to print audiences, which it says have different needs from the digital audience.
The NewstalkZB and NZ Herald parliamentary press gallery teams will merge, and the number of Herald reporters will be reduced from five to four.
The strategy is to publish and produce fewer stories while focusing on those that engage the audience. The company said it would also invest more in video.
That mirrors the move by its major competitor, Stuff, into video news production.
After Warner Brothers bought the channel and shut down its news operation, Newshub, Stuff took over production of the nightly TV3 news bulletin.
Stuff also publishes multiple print titles and runs a news website, while NZME’s major radio competitor is Mediaworks, which also has an outdoor advertising arm.
NZME and Stuff—alongside state-funded Radio New Zealand (RNZ) and Television New Zealand (TVNZ)—remain the primary news sources for most New Zealanders, though the provincial Otago Daily Times and other local papers are well-supported within their circulation areas.
TVNZ is in the midst of ongoing cost-cutting, while Māori Television recently ended its daily news bulletin.
