TVNZ to sack 15 in news efficiency drive

TVNZ is to sack about 15 people and train reporters to edit their own work, while working across several platforms in a restructuring of its news operations.

Instead of working for just one operation, such as One News, reporters may soon have stories that are used across several programmes as well as the company's website. Camera operators and producers will also be expected to work across several programmes in a plan the broadcaster says will save at least $3 million a year.

TVNZ spokeswoman Megan Richards said the reshuffling would see an overall reduction of 10 roles. But because some jobs were part-time, or filled by more than one person, the job cuts affected about 15 staff.

"We were competing against ourselves internally and people became locked into a particular programme which limited their ability to develop their skills and it limited our ability for succession planning across a whole range of programmes."

TVNZ head of news Anthony Flannery said "digitisation" had changed the way people viewed the news. He said people wanted their news "anywhere, anytime" and the changes reflected that.

"Instead of a number of different programmes all chasing after the same story and duplicating resources, a reporter and a producer will see a story through the whole day across a number of programmes and platforms."

The changes were 12 months in the making and were based on overseas broadcasting operations. The proposal would involve staff being grouped into four areas - news gathering, daily programmes, current affairs and operations.

Newsgathering would get the daily stories and daily programmes would decide how they would be shaped for the programmes and platforms they were to go on. Operations would do the logistics.

He said the company would spend $1.5 million on the implementation.