In mid-August 2025, news emerged of a report on the performance of “RNZ National”, Radio New Zealand’s 24/7 “flagship” broadcast channel that includes Morning Report (6am – 9am, weekdays) and RNZ’s Saturday Morning show.
The report was commissioned by RNZ chief executive Paul Thompson. But New Zealand’s public broadcaster has not publicly released the report. It has released it (heavily redacted) only to the few who requested it under the Official Information Act. That’s RNZ’s style; insular, defensive and contemptuous of the public who fund RNZ and whom RNZ ought to serve.
The Herald described the report as a “scathing independent review”. But the report is neither sufficiently scathing nor independent. And the reason it’s not sufficiently scathing is that it’s not independent.
The man Paul Thompson commissioned to do the report is Richard Sutherland. Sutherland is no stranger to RNZ. He was Radio NZ’s Head of News for five years until he resigned from RNZ just over two years ago, in July 2023. Sutherland was therefore in charge of Radio NZ’s news coverage over almost the entire period of Jacinda Ardern’s two-term Labour Government, a period during which Radio NZ deliberately ignored the manifest shortcomings of that Government, and parroted its propaganda.
Which is why Sutherland’s report completely fails to address the Elephant in the Room that has destroyed Radio NZ’s credibility and precipitated its plummeting listenership – the indisputable reality of Radio NZ’s extreme political and ideological biases.
Sutherland, as Radio NZ Head of News, was integral in converting RNZ news into a propaganda arm of the Ardern Government. Hence the complete absence from Sutherland’s report of any suggestion that the collapse of RNZ’s credibility could be anything to do with RNZ’s partisan prejudices. Because Sutherland was at the heart of the RNZ heresy. In his report, Sutherland was marking his own homework.
We’re not talking about mildly Left-leaning here. We’re talking about an RNZ completely captured by, and propagandists for, the extremes of Critical Race Theory and Trans Ideology.
In terms of Critical Race Theory, RNZ has consistently advocated for race-based “co-governance” of New Zealand, with people of Maori descent governing New Zealand in an ill-defined “partnership” with non-Maori, and for “decolonization” of New Zealand. There’s no ambiguity about this; Radio NZ has been calling for Ethno-State Aotearoa, and curating all its “news” and programming accordingly.
At the core of RNZ’s other obsession, Trans Ideology, is the false notion that a person can change their biological sex (most genuinely Trans people don’t believe the sex swap sloganeering).
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On 14 May 2022, RNZ host Kim Hill interviewed Dr Kathleen Stock, former Professor of Philosophy at the University of Sussex. Dr Stock has been cancelled by the Wokerati for having the audacity to point out the indisputable fact that a human simply cannot change their biological sex. The interview was the subject of multiple complaints to the Broadcasting Standards Authority by Trans activists. The Authority declined to uphold the complaints on the following grounds (quoting from the Authority’s written decision):
Hill’s style and tone throughout was challenging and critical. She did not sympathise with the views expressed.
We don’t know what puberty blockers do – Hill challenged this statement immediately, referring to the Ministry of Health's | Manatū Hauora position on the issue (at the time, that ‘they’re safe, they’re fully reversible’).
Hill’s mitigation of potential harm [to “vulnerable groups”] means the value of the broadcast outweighed its potential harm.
By nailing its flag to the Critical Race Theory/Trans Ideology masts, RNZ has narrowed its audience to a minority of New Zealanders who subscribe to those secular religions.
Sutherland’s report advocates for RNZ to “target” an audience comprising people over 50 years of age. But why? The hardening evidence is that younger people are becoming increasingly “conservative” and joining the burgeoning ranks of citizens who are intolerant of bullshit and of being told what to think – the types that would listen in to a credible, impartial public broadcaster.
Former editor of The Herald, Gavin Ellis, has fallen into the same trap as Sutherland; thinking that RNZ’s future lies in appealing solely to old fogies. Each of these two fogies ignores that, unlike Radio NZ, fogies are mostly not Woke.
RNZ is now completely divorced from the attitudes of ordinary New Zealanders. But it’s been a conscious uncoupling. RNZ has morphed into a massively-State funded broadcaster dedicated to massaging the egos and proselytizing the ideologies of the people who populate it.
RNZ is operating as a lucrative slush fund for its little darlings. Take, for example, the “Aotearoa Media Collective”. According to its website, “As an independent production house, AMC remains a dynamic force in shaping the indigenous media landscape and amplifying Māori voices both nationally and internationally”. AMC has received multiple juicy commissions from RNZ. Its principals (and sole directors and shareholders) are Mihingarangi Joanna Mary Forbes and Annabelle May Lee-Mather. “Mihi” co-hosts RNZ’s Saturday Morning show. But more particularly, Annabelle is the wife of Dr Jim Mather, RNZ’s chairman. You don’t have to look hard.
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Radio NZ also serves as a crash pad and charity house for poor old plodders like…Paddy Gower.
In his report, Richard Sutherland contradicts himself. A central tenet of his report is that Radio NZ should centralize its operations in Auckland. But on leaving Radio NZ, Sutherland proffered this:
“As the commercial (media) have retreated to their metropolitan cores they have left behind if not ‘news deserts’ then maybe ‘news savannas.’ We need more regional reporters, because if you're the only reporter in that town working for that community newspaper, you're only going to be able to tell a set number of stories”
“It's really important as a society that somebody who lives in Auckland can find out what's happening in Central Otago. That sort of reporting helps weave this weave the country together - and without the people on the ground to do that reporting, you lose that”
Having commissioned and received Sutherland’s report, RNZ CEO Paul Thompson has quickly foreshadowed that he proposes to do nothing concrete with it except create yet another RNZ managerial role reporting to him, a “chief audio officer”. But, while RNZ wants its preaching to be heard, it definitely doesn’t want to hear back. Which is why, despite receiving almost $70 million yearly in Government (taxpayer) funding, RNZ doesn’t do any public talk back and ferociously deletes any comments or other feedback that contradict its zealous, jealously-guarded ideological positions.
The essence of Radio NZ’s self-defense of its intellectual laziness and bloated complacency is that its biases are not truly biased - because they’re ideologically correct, on the right side of history, bla bla. RNZ is the antithesis of the plurality of ideas and opinions that ought to characterize State-funded broadcasting, with its privileged shelter from the rigors of real-world commercial strictures.
The cold, hard reality – which RNZ studiously chooses to ignore - is that most of its listeners only listen (occasionally) because RNZ is free (at taxpayers’ expense) from the inane, incessant advertisements that blight the likes of NewsTalk ZB.
RNZ is a pale shadow of its former self, the halcyon days of Geoff Robinson and Sean Plunket on Morning Report, and the damage is entirely self-inflicted.
RNZ National's audience has fallen from about 600,000 in 2021 to about 450,000 now (25%, in four years). Unless RNZ can begin to behave like a normal public broadcaster, run and presented by normal people, RNZ’s freefall will crater.
John McLean is a citizen typist and enthusiastic amateur who blogs at John's Substack where this article was sourced.
2 comments:
It is incredible that RNZ has such difficulty understanding its falling audience. Explanations have been provided in response to the review of the Charter, in direct correspondence, and via websites such as BV. A huge factor is dogged ongoing application of Willie Jackson's desired policy of maorification. (The Board is chaired by a maori!). Instead of aiming at the intelligent intellectually mature listener the program attempts to appeal to all ages, IQs, and disproportionately to maori/ pro maori and to champions of the Left. There is nothing approaching the objective comment provided by Laws and his like on the Platform.
Corruption.
Corrupt broadcasters corrupting their gullible listeners.
And Luxon allows RNZ and TVNZ to continue with their corrosive techniques to undermine this government.
I have been thinking of escaping to a Third World country that might be less corrupt than NZ, but can't find one.
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