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RNZ spent more than $ 100,000 on a controversial ad campaign that drew strong criticism from its commercial media counterparts.
Figures released under the Official Information Act show RNZ spent $ 107,550.89 on the “We’ve got news for you” campaign, which blanketed New Zealand cities and social media feeds in the month before the lockdown.
The campaign poked fun at other media, including Stuff Ltd, the publisher of this website, as well as media like the NZ Herald, one of its major competitors, by joking about the way those sites raised revenue through advertising and subscriptions.
“If it seems like you can’t avoid ads online, we’ve got news for you”, read one advert.
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“If it seems quality journalism has disappeared, we’ve got news for you,” read another.
The ads noted that RNZ didn’t carry ads or ask for subscriptions, but many in commercial media felt the they were unfair given the strains on the industry and hid the fact that RNZ’s readers paid for its journalism through their taxes.
Stuff Editorial Director Mark Stevens called the ads “tone-deaf” and “hypocritical” in an Op-Ed on Stuff.
He said the campaign undermined RNZ’s efforts to help its commercial media counterparts survive.
A spokesperson for RNZ said the campaign wasn’t intended to grow market share at the expense of other outlets.
“RNZ has a small budget for marketing its services in order to reach as many New Zealanders as possible.
“The intent of the campaign was not to gain market share for RNZ at the expense of print publications but instead to raise RNZ’s profile with people who are not aware of the publicly-funded services we provide,” they said.
The spokesperson said the campaign had now ended.
Monique Ford / Stuff
RNZ spent more than $ 100,000 on an ad campaign.
“The campaign existed across multiple platforms with multiple tag lines. The criticized tag lines were a small part of the overall campaign.”
“The campaign has now finished.”
Shayne Currie, managing editor of NZME, owners of the NZ Herald and Newstalk ZB told The spinoff that he thought the ads were an attack on the paywall his company had rolled out last year as a way of funding premium journalism.
“It’s disappointing and disingenuous for taxpayer-funded Radio New Zealand to somehow suggest New Zealanders are not paying for RNZ journalism or journalists,” he said.
Commercial media have taken another hit since RNZ’s ads went live. Executives from major media, including Stuff, told Parliament’s Epidemic Response Committee they had seen their advertising revenues drop by more than 50 per cent.
NZME, Stuff, and MediaWorks have asked staff to take voluntary pay cuts of 15 per cent, and NZME has continued its efforts to buy Stuff, most recently by offering $ 1 for the company – an offer rebuffed by Stuff’s owners Nine media in Australia.
In April, the Government announced the first of multiple packages to support media through Covid-19.
It offered $ 11.1 million for targeted assistance to media companies and additional cashflow assistance in the form of waived transmission fees charged to broadcasters.
RNZ was the only organization to receive specific assistance, getting $ 600,000 via the Government agreeing to temporarily cover the cost of the broadcaster’s AM transmission fees.
