Mediawatch: New chair Brent Impey in RNZ hot seat faces political heat

Even before he was confirmed as the government's pick to chair RNZ, media people pondered what Brent Impey's appointment might mean for the state-owned broadcaster.

"I think we'll see a spotlight on the radio side of the business - and the radio news side," Mark Jennings, the co-editor of the online service Newsroom, told RNZ's Midday News in May.

Impey was Jennings' boss for many years, when he served as news chief at TV3.

"I think Morning Report will definitely be in his sights and I think he'll want to see better audience ratings from that programme, because he'll be comparing it very much to Hosking at Newstalk ZB," Jennings said on 22 May.

That was the day RNZ announced current chief executive and editor-in-chief Paul Thompson would leave the broadcaster at the end of this year.

One week later, the appointment of Impey as RNZ's next chair - succeeding Dr Jim Mather - was announced by Media and Communications Minister Paul Goldsmith. Two other RNZ board appointments were made at the same time.

That means all the current RNZ governors were appointed by the current coalition government - and RNZ will be under new management in 2027.

Political pressure building

The government clearly wants change under its new governors.

In a letter to RNZ in March, Goldsmith instructed RNZ to increase its audience share, while also finding greater savings and efficiencies.

The 2026 Budget confirmed RNZ funding would drop by five percent next year and again the year after that.

ACT leader David Seymour - a shareholding minister in RNZ - was even more blunt in May. He told The Platform host Michael Laws that state-owned broadcasters should "sell ads like the others and see how they get on".

"It's really critical that we get better people on the board and those people will change the management," he added.

He described RNZ as politically motivated, criticised the hiring of John Campbell for Morning Report, and said Thompson "had a lot to answer for".

He didn't get much pushback from Laws, who has since declared he wants "RNZ on the chopping list" as an election candidate for NZ First.

Performance anxiety

In May, Seymour also described RNZ as "a tragedy" whose "key metrics are going in the wrong direction".

However, trust in RNZ has risen in recent surveys, which also rated it as the most trusted media outlet in the country. RNZ news, podcasts and other digital content are also reaching record numbers of people online.

News and digital content is now shared with more than 60 other New Zealand media outlets. Its own website RNZ.co.nz is giving the big news publishing sites - Stuff.co.nz and NZHerald.co.nz - a run for their money in online traffic stats.

This is the result of a years-long strategy to make RNZ a fully digital outlet, as well as a radio broadcaster that's mostly attracted older New Zealanders.

"He's taken RNZ from a niche kind of player to something that's right at the centre of New Zealand media," Jennings told RNZ's Midday Report the day Thompson's departure was announced.

The critical politicians have zeroed in on declining numbers tuning in live to RNZ National in recent years, most notably for flagship news shows like Morning Report.

Commercial talk radio rival Newstalk ZB has increased its audience in some timeslots, especially in Auckland and the upper North Island.

Political leverage

"My confidence lies within the board," Goldsmith told NZME recently. "Obviously, we're making changes to that and that's my primary lever."

Pulling that lever might mean calling Impey directly.

Earlier this year, there was controversy when it emerged in the media that TVNZ's board chair spoke to the minister about its reporting of crime stats that irritated some ministers, including Goldsmith.

Editorial and operational interference by ministers is forbidden by law.

At a Scrutiny Week hearing two weeks ago in parliament, Goldsmith said he often called the chairs of state agencies "randomly... to put them on the spot".

"The people involved know which is the right side of the line to be on... and it seems to work."

Will that work for the new chair of RNZ?

"I've got no problem with talking to any of the politicians or ministers on how things are going," Impey told Mediawatch. "The line for me is around editorial independence."

What does Impey think RNZ must do?

"We've set goals in four main areas - audience numbers on RNZ National, the building up of trust, increasing our digital numbers and getting our news app to a position where it's the leading one in the country," Brent Impey told Mediawatch.

"RNZ National's ratings have certainly improved in recent times, but we need to get those up to provide value to the shareholder, the taxpayers of New Zealand."

"We can win. That means adopting an attitude around being competitive.

"You can also add trust to that. Trust numbers currently are 56 per cent.

"We want those to go up, because one of the justifications for a public broadcasting system is that the audience trusts you."

Media worldwide has suffered declines in public trust - as have politicians and governments.

If asked to weigh up RNZ's performance and prospects today, a consultant from the likes of Deloitte or McKinsey might conclude the broadcaster had mostly made the right choices.

Is it necessary to respond to political pressure over RNZ National ratings and trust?

"We're doing extremely well in the digital space, but that doesn't mean we can't do well in other areas," Impey said. "I think a board's main role is to make sure that the organisation is operating at optimum.

"It's important that we do try and pick up in the areas where there can be an improvement. Let's not hide away from that."

Core services under a sinking lid

RNZ has three radio networks - National, Concert and Pacific - as well as broadcasts of parliament.

RNZ Asia delivers news for and about Asian New Zealanders. RNZ Digital provides online news, and feature content, podcasts and online apps.

There's also RNZ's social media channels and Local Democracy Reporting, which deploys 22 reporters covering local news around the country.

There's no youth network though and the online channel Tahi closed last year.

RNZ's digital content is shared for free with more than 60 other New Zealand media outlets via RNZ Connect.

RNZ's budget was cut this year by $7m, and it will come down by a further 5 percent in 2027 and 2028.

Will RNZ retain all these services, as its financial lid sinks?

"I took this role in the knowledge that that was the government's plan and I accept that," Impey told Mediawatch. "This is a dynamic industry and we're never going to be able to escape the fact that things are changing all the time.

"A couple of things have been dropped, for example, in the youth area. That's the reality of the media.

"You cannot expect things to remain static for years and years and years, because gradually you lose audience and then you are in a crunch. We need to be dynamic, we need to be taking our audience with us through the next year or two."

Are there sacred cows?

"RNZ National is a sacred cow," he said. "So is the Concert Programme [RNZ Concert], because we are funded to produce these.

"If we didn't have those two radio channels, there's a really big question as to what is our justification."

Talk radio rivalry - and appealing to Auckland

Was Impey's former TV3 news chief Jennings right to say RNZ would target Newstalk ZB's listeners on his watch?

"The answer is yes, but it's not my role to decide who should be on RNZ National or any other programme."

Fighting talk, but that won't be easy.

When Impey was the boss at MediaWorks, its talk radio networks struggled to compete with Newstalk ZB's national audience, and its share in Auckland and the north of the country.

"The alternative is not to try and to accept that you're always going to be second," he said. "I think the aim is to win.

"RNZ National has advantages by not having any commercials. Newstalk ZB's Breakfast has 16-18 minutes of commercials each hour."

"I'm of the view that we give it a good crack, and we try and lift those numbers up to the best level we possibly can. Let's do it."

Getting the band back together?

Impey will have former TV3 employees at the helm of Morning Report, with co-hosts Ingrid Hipkiss and John Campbell. Former Campbell Live executive editor Pip Keane was appointed as RNZ chief audio officer last year.

"That's irrelevant," Impey said. "I do not have any say in who should be the host of X, Y or Z.

"The relationship that I had with ex-MediaWorks people back in the day, when I was a CEO, is a completely different relationship."

Even before Impey's appointment, RNZ's strategy targeted more listeners in Auckland, to that end, more staff and production.

RNZ is currently proposing to shift the production and presentation of Saturday Morning entirely to Auckland, which would leave Nine to Noon as the sole daytime flagship show coming from the capital.

Morning Report is already centred there and it has already adopted elements of Newstalk ZB's Mike Hosking Breakfast show, such as weekly discussions of sport and head-to-head political debates on Wednesdays after 8 am.

Is attracting more Aucklanders - and ZB listeners - also a risk?

Critic Gordon Campbell feared it could "drive away more of Morning Report's formerly faithful listeners".

"If the breakfast-jock patter now in vogue is intended to win Morning Report more listeners and greater relevance in Auckland, that is likely to end in disappointment," Campbell asked recently on Scoop.co.nz.

"Why settle for an imitation of ZB Breakfast or Mai FM's Breakfast Team, when you can get the real thing?"

Impey is unmoved.

"If you go way back, the local radio was just absolutely critical," he said. "I think it's now irrelevant that programmes are coming from anywhere.

"[They] can be broadcast from home or all over.

"There's no doubt RNZ has not performed at the level they would have wanted in Auckland. That presents an opportunity for a programme like Saturday Morning.

"It is not the role of the board to decide whether a programme changes or talent changes or location changes, but it's our desire that performance in media be measured."

Not everyone's convinced measurement alone can identify quality or value.

Pointing out some of the key bosses at RNZ have "come from news outlets where the click numbers rule", Campbell claimed a story's contribution to the national debate can't be assessed that way.

"I believe everything in media should be measured," Impey countered. "Whether it's ratings of a radio station, people listening to a podcast, trust or digital numbers, it all should be measured, because that way you can look at where you need to make improvements - demographically, geographically, psychographically or whatever."

Rautaki Māori (Māori strategy)

Priorities were very different under the previous government and its broadcasting minister.

Willie Jackson secured $82m for extra Māori and te reo content across all media, and claimed a new public media entity replacing RNZ and TVNZ would push it out on air and online, but his Labour government scrapped the public broadcasting merger just months before it was due to take effect.

Is Māori and te reo content on Impey's agenda now?

"The board has gone along with the policy in place in the past few years and it isn't a subject that has been discussed," Impey told Mediawatch.

"All I'll say is... RNZ National and Concert both appeal to an audience primarily over 50, so you've got to make sure that if you're looking to maximise your audience, whatever you do appeals to that audience and doesn't alienate."

"Te reo... is our national language. Its use is to be encouraged, but there's a balance, like everything."

Trust issues

Minister Goldsmith has also made it clear that he wants RNZ to set more ambitious targets for levels of the public's trust.

"My expectation is that they'll be waking up every day worrying about... how to rebuild trust," Goldsmith told a select committee during parliament's Scrutiny Week last month.

Does Impey worry about it?

"It's important to lift it up," he said. "I use the word 'impartiality' as the basis to build trust, so that you're covering both sides of the story or you are analysing as many avenues as you possibly can.

"Over the last few years, the development of populism in media - whether they be online media or even traditional media - that provides an even greater opportunity for RNZ to build up that trust.

"The public increasingly - and particularly with use of social media find scams, inaccuracies, and downright lies - I think it's a golden opportunity to be a big leader in this area of trust."

Impey didn't specify which media outlets he sees as skewed by populism.

"If it's a digital radio station, you're able to express your view however you like," he said. "If you go back to the start of newspapers, they were set up by people who want to express their point of view.

"Media has changed substantially since the introduction of social media."

How will he respond to those - including government ministers - who question RNZ's impartiality and legitimacy?

"The board made a decision to respond to David Seymour's recent comments... which was completely appropriate. Whether they're government ministers, MPs or broadcasting spokespeople, I'll be open and happy to talk to anybody front-foot, but I won't cross the line around editorial.

"If it's said to me that I should say something to the head of news about a particular story, it won't happen."