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Cabinet is today grappling with a tsunami of public outrage at Radio New Zealand's plan to sack the staff of RNZ Concert and provide classical music programming as an automated service running on the AM frequency and Freeview.
Broadcasting and Communications Minister Kris Faafoi says ministers have received a huge amount of feedback over the weekend, including from many Maori and Pasifika listeners concerned at the implications of downgrading the service to free up spectrum and resources for development of a youth channel.
He says when RNZ executives briefed him a few weeks ago, he asked for more consideration to be given to the needs of Concert FM's existing listeners.
"One of the big challenges all broadcasters have is maintaining or attracting a younger audience. That's certainly what Radio New Zealand is trying to do, but as the Prime Minister said today, helping one part of the audience by powering down another is not necessarily the way to go about things if you are trying to increase access to content in the arts for all New Zealanders," Mr Faafoi says.
Broadcasting Minister Kris Faafoi
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