March 12, 2024
Luxon rules out rescue for TVNZ jobs
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has ruled out any government bailout or top up for TVNZ.
The state broadcaster last week announced it was cutting at least 68 jobs because of plummeting advertising revenue.
The Prime Minister says the media sector is no different to any other sectors trying to deal with changing consumer behaviour and outdated business models.
“It requires lots of innovation, and media companies will need to innovate, just like every other company does in every other sector that has gone through tough and challenging structural challenges. But I want to be quite clear, the ability for the government to step in and be able to subsidise media companies is probably not the pathway we will be looking to go down,” Ms Luxon says.
He says some media legislation may need to be updated, and the Government is also considering what to do with the Fair Digital News Bargaining Bill, which is now before a select committee