Mike's Minute: The real world is catching up to Radio New Zealand

The Mike Hosking Breakfast

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2d ago 2:30

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Now, perhaps the most startling thing of the news yesterday that our old mates at the state radio broadcaster have opened a voluntary redundancy programme, is that they've never done that before.

100 years they've been doing the business at Radio New Zealand. 100 years, never had a voluntary redundancy. Tells you something about how insulated the real world from the real world they are.

Mind you, I don't even know that's true actually, because Radio New Zealand used to be a whole different beast.

In my early days of broadcasting, Radio New Zealand encompassed commercial and non-commercial radio stations, and there was, I can tell you from personal experience, no shortage of carnage fiscally. The place was run by halfwits and we were permanently in a state of flux, if not carnage.

The most famous might have been a thing called Project Aurora, where we allegedly all took pay cuts – that was a scandal in and of itself.

So it's not like the media hasn't seen tricky days, and I think that's the ultimate point here, isn't it?

There's a tremendous amount of coverage of the media, too much, really. And if I can be a little bit blunt, a lot of the tough stuff in the industry is no more upsetting than the dark days for any number of industries.

Also, and this applies to Radio New Zealand, if you live in a false world, it will catch up with you eventually.

Yes, media like a lot of industries is changing, but then it always has. 44 years in and counting for me, I can tell you media has been in a constant state of change, if not upheaval – it's all I've ever known. No, it wasn't always Google or Facebook nicking the ad money, but it was video, or TV, or deregulation of licences, or rubbish management.

Having worked at Morning Report myself, you've never seen such a sheltered workshop of lavish staffing and indulgence. They enter the Radio Awards every year and apart from not winning, the joke in the industry is the number of producers they've got: 19. Are you serious?

For contrast, this show, which 1. wins and 2. has more listeners, has three. And that includes Glenn, which is debatable as to whether we should include him at all.

I wish no one ill will, don't get me wrong. I wish no one ill will. I wish boom times prevailed across the whole landscape. But equally, I wish people lived in the real world. And Willie Jackson handing out tens of millions is irresponsible politics, not a business plan.

Willie and his ilk, as always, never paid the price for this. The poor sap who took the new Radio New Zealand job will.

The money that pays for jobs has either earned or it's given. If it's given, it's always on a whim – in this case a political one. It is not their fault that Willie is an idiot.

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Mike's Minute: The real world is catching up to Radio New Zealand

The Mike Hosking Breakfast

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published 2d ago