Following Minister Goldsmith’s announcement earlier this week that tweaks to the domestic SPR for TV series would allow Shortland Street to access the scheme, more good news about the show’s future been released this morning (Friday 5 July).
NZ On Air has committed up to $3 million support for the 2025 season of the show from its first funding round of the new financial year. The funding offer is contingent on Shortland Street being supported by the SPR. It is, essentially, a life saver, although the show will change in 2025.
The programme will drop from its longstanding five-nights-a-week presence to three, according to TVNZ.
NZ On Air CE Cameron Harland said, “NZ On Air exists to ensure Aotearoa’s stories and voices are seen and heard in our media. But that’s under serious threat right now due to the rapid decline in ad revenue that has hit every commercial media organization.
“In the past, platforms have been able to commercially fund a lot of local content, but that’s changed. In an environment in which a huge quantity of global content is readily available, it is vital to our culture that we retain as many local stories on screens as possible.”
NZ On Air’s $3 million of support is continent on the show being granted provisional approval for the newly-tweaked SPR. That decision lies with the NZFC, and so is likely to be the first test of how closely aligned the two agencies’ views are, about what constitutes what Minister Goldsmith characterized as “strong industry and cultural value” when announcing the expansion of the SPR on Tuesday.
It’s hardly likely the NZFC would say that a show that’s been on air for 30-something years doesn’t have cultural value, but the exercise might be a good opportunity to test the new process and ensure there aren’t any bits of lego lurking in the hallway, ready to cause a bit of unexpected grief.
We got to talk with SPP’s Kelly Martin shortly after the announcement came out this morning. She was, not surprisingly, having a good day – albeit tinged with sadness that, on the same day as Shortland Street is getting a new lease on life, many of Kelly’s former colleagues at Three are ending their contracts with the final broadcast of Newshub at 6pm.
Discussions between TVNZ and SPP about whether and how Shortland Street might be able to continue next year have been going on for several months, and SPP has been lobbying for some time for a route to access the SPR.
Kelly praised Paul Goldsmith and the officials advising him for getting a good grasp of both TVNZ’s and the show’s situation, and delivering a workable solution.
At its heart, the problem is TVNZ’s – advertising income diving off a cliff – but the effects of that are also felt by the prodcos when the broadcaster can’t afford to commission or continue shows. It is, as Kelly noted, a monetisation problem not a content or audiences problem. Audiences are watching a lot of content.
Shortland Street is the major performer on TVNZ+, drawing 20 million+ streams last year. As the broadcaster moves to become digital-first, it has as much incentive as SPP to try to find a solution to the challenges.
TVNZ’s CE Jodi O’Donnell said, “Our goal is to build a sustainable model for the long-term … We have an extremely engaged online audience for Shortland Street and we want to take the show successfully into the future and ensure its ongoing relevance.
“TVNZ has identified that three episodes per week is the sweet spot for multi-night viewing amongst younger audiences of Shortland Street.”
The show plays elsewhere, as well as in NZ, so we asked if the move to three eps per week would have an impact on those arrangements. Probably not, reckoned Kelly, noting that shows like Shortland Street are very much made for and sustained by domestic audiences.
Other shows internationally have been making similar moves, including the UK’s long-running Hollyoaks, produced by another All3Media company, Lime Pictures. As well as there being less commissioning money around, there’s quite the glut of content available globally, so – perhaps ironically – less of something might even make it more attractive for an international broadcaster or platform to pick up.
On NZ screens, it looks like we’re pretty much guaranteed another year of Shortland Street and, maybe, TVNZ will make some progress towards balancing its books – possibly with help from something else Minister Goldsmith announced on Tuesday alongside changes to the SPR, the revival of the News Bargaining Bill.
