Mar 12, 2020 Business
Leaked plans around RNZ’s proposed new youth-focused radio station revealed one rather corny page showing a line-up of 10 New Zealand ‘types’. Comedian Tim Batt breaks down what each of them means for Metro.
RNZ has taken some heavy hits recently. In a very public self-own, their complex merger with TVNZ was revealed by their own journalist, Jane Patterson. She reported out plans being worked out late last year between RNZ’s top brass and the Government, all happening behind closed doors without the knowledge of taxpayers or employees.
Last month, they contemplated axing Concert out loud and drew the ire of Prime Ministers (former and current) and riled a highly vocal, motley crew of boomers and jazz fanatics. The pressure from the Koru-class was too much and they were forced to backpedal.
Last week, they were rightly called out by every news organisation that wasn’t RNZ for posting snide online ads targeting the commercial news sector, including the NZ Herald (though not by name) for the sin of making consumers pay for their news. Only a Herculean effort in bad decision-making could get people to defend the NZ Herald in this day and age but leave it to RNZ.
However, of all their recent faux pas, today’s is by far the most embarrassing (and meme-able). After an Official Information Act request (I suspect by an RNZ journalist) successfully uncovered a trove of planning documents about RNZ’s proposed youth-focused music station, one page stood awkwardly above all others; RNZ’s The Ten New Zealanders. It is a slide dedicated to identifying the soul of this nation and then boxing that soul into ten clear archetypes to market to, with accompanying clear-cut images.
For fun and profit, I will now go down the list of the incredibly grim societal characters our state broadcaster has divided us in to.
An earlier version of this story said that Jane Patterson ‘leaked’ the RNZ merger plans, but as Metro enemy Henry Cooke pointed out on Twitter, she really just reported the info out. Sometimes even the worst person you know makes a great point, which is, of course, heartbreaking.
