Shake Up
On Wednesday, the Ministry of Culture and Heritage issued the Media Reform Discussion Document.
This is the biggest shakeup to affect our sector next to that of the advent of international streamers, which has forever changed the global screen industry.
The changes proposed are significant. Many are long overdue.
Simply put, the proposed reform is due to:
- The Broadcasting Act and New Zealand Film Commission Act being out of date.
- The wider New Zealand media landscape—print, online and screen—is suffering because local advertising is being hoovered up by global platforms that do not pay tax in New Zealand.
- The advent of streamers and online platforms has fractured New Zealand audience viewing habits, with more and more eyeballs going to content made internationally.
- We are now part of a globally competitive content market and our shows in large part suffer from a lack of quality due to the lack of funding available firstly for development, and then for production.
The reforms proposed are:
- Ensuring accessibility of local media platforms: Require TV manufacturers to ensure local media services are prominent and visible on devices such as smart TVs so they can be easily found by audiences (Page 11).
- Increasing investment into and discoverability of local content: Require streaming platforms and TV broadcasters to invest in local content and implement measures to ensure it is more ‘discoverable’ on their platforms, supporting the production of and engagement with New Zealand stories (Page 15).
- Increasing captioning and audio description: Require more captioning and audio description on content that is broadcast or streamed to ensure access for disabled New Zealanders (Page 19).
- Modernising professional media regulation: Revise the broadcasting standards regime (including the Broadcasting Standards Authority) with platform-neutral and system-level regulation of professional media (Page 22).
- Streamlining Crown content funders: Consolidate NZ On Air and the Film Commission into a single entity, supporting efficient administration of government funding for local content and industry development
If you review the industry’s Aotearoa New Zealand Screen Sector Strategy delivered to the then Labour Government in 2020, you can see that many of the items up for discussion—and more—were mooted for examination. Read here.
Perhaps most contentious in the proposed reforms is the establishment of a single entity to replace NZ On Air and NZFC. There are advocates for and against this.
The merging of TV and film into screen content brought about by the streamers is highlighted in the document as one of the reasons a single entity should be considered. Another, is undoubtedly the current government’s sometimes misguided drive for greater efficiency and productivity, with the reasoning being one entity could do the work more efficiently and cost-effectively than two.
As our screen world continues to be affected by the constant change happening to it, which includes that being wrought by AI, it’s important that we do our best to influence how it will be governed.
I encourage you to read the Media Reform Discussion Document and to provide feedback on it as outlined by the deadline of 23 March 2025.
As part of our response, we will shortly conduct a survey to ascertain your thoughts on the proposal for a single funding body entity to replace NZ On Air and NZFC. Please take the time to do this.
Tui Ruwhiu
Executive Director
Last updated on 14 February 2025
