Paul McBeth is the editor of The Bottom Line and Curious News, having worked at BusinessDesk for 15 years, two of which were under NZME ownership.
The kite-flying by The Australian that Nick Mowbray was part of a group of well-heeled businessmen keen to quash the lightweight clickbait of old Granny Herald was a good reminder that there’s still value in the old media sector.
It’s a shame that regulators and industry heavyweights seem adamant in their view that the Googles, Facebooks and Netflixes of this world should have to pay for what they’ve done to the rivers of gold…
I guess Trade Me wasn’t to blame for scooping all that sweet sweet classified advertising revenue 20 years ago.
And actually, The Australian’s DataRoom column has done us all a favour in reminding everyone that there’s still value in a masthead.
In fact, there might have been something of the old bait and switch in tipping the outspoken toy billionaire Mowbray as among their number, something he quickly scotched in responses to BusinessDesk and the National Business Review. And more slowly to The Bottom Line.
Because the far more interesting addition to NZME’s share register in recent weeks is that of Wellington investment house Caniwi Capital Partners, with a not-insubstantial 0.9% stake, or almost 1.7 million shares worth about $1.8 million at the Friday close of $1.06.
Not his first rodeo
Bowker’s been around the traps and isn’t afraid of a skirmish. He copped a public shellacking a few years ago when he got into a tense LinkedIn stoush with Ian Taylor and exited his Hurricanes Super Rugby shareholding not long after.
And he got drawn into Stuart Nash’s email saga that saw the more-centre-than-left Labour minister given his marching orders for giving his donors a heads-up on a Cabinet meeting.
Bowker wouldn’t be the only NZME shareholder bemoaning how Granny has gone woke, with some ginger groups aghast when their money has been rejected by the ad department.
Not that those of a different political hue would agree, given the Auckland masthead sits alongside the powerhouse NewstalkZB radio brand – hardly the stuff for the sensitive wee souls that tune into Radio New Zealand.
Because irrespective of the struggles facing older media groups – and news in particular – in keeping the lights on, there are owners out there who appreciate the value of soft power just as much as they do a solid price-to-earnings ratio and a healthy dividend yield.
If you cast your mind back more than a decade and look across to the West Island, you might recall that mining magnate Gina Rinehart mounted a campaign to get a couple of seats on the board of Fairfax Media Group after she’d snapped up almost 19% of the company.
Back then, her refusal to sign an editorial charter spooked the board, and they offered her a single representative director instead.
And to be fair, with the amount of iron ore her Hancock Prospecting group was selling, if she needed a mouthpiece to extoll the virtues of mining in Australia through the 2010s, she should’ve simply lobbed in an offer and asked if they take cash.
Across space and time
The similarity between our would-be NZME activists and Rinehart’s crusade – despite the time and distance – is because information is always in hot demand and media remains an alluring industry.
The unfortunate part is that a generation of media execs haven’t quite worked out that – as Jarden’s Arie Dekker said – you can’t cut yourself to growth.
Instead, they look to the government to do something, as if something new wouldn’t emerge from the ashes of their fallen empires.
And what we get are the likes of the latest discussion document from the Ministry for Culture and Heritage, promising to create modern legislation for the media and content production sector that tinkers around the edges, but doesn’t address the structural issues that are more embedded in the individual entities themselves than the wider market.
Sure, some such as the proposed amalgamation the Film Commission and New Zealand On Air seem a no-brainer, and the carryover of NZ On Air’s backing for online text-based work would be a godsend if it shores up funding for the excellent Open Justice and Local Democracy Reporting programmes.
But what’s really going to come from forcing all online broadcasters to invest a proportion of their revenue into local content creation or acquisition if those production houses aren’t operating in a way to keep people in jobs if and when things change, as they inevitably will?
And trying to introduce a single standard for all media professionals under an expanded authority, funded by a levy, isn’t going to encourage too many more plucky startups to come out of the woodwork, such as the Between Two Beers podcast.
Sure, trust has been declining in media – when you have to advertise yourself as a trusted brand, you probably aren’t – but that’s the case for all sorts of public institutions, not just news.
As much as polite society might not like it, the rise of alternative media has all the hallmarks of the great unwashed’s love affair with tabloids in the Twentieth Century, and that provided just as much solid journalism as it did guff for a quick chuckle.
Unlike many in the media sector, I’m of the view that reports of its death have been greatly exaggerated.
And if a canny businessman like Bowker can see value in the likes of the Herald, maybe regulators should pause for a cup of tea before rushing through reforms as if there was no alternative.
Image from Curious News.
