Any thinking Australian has spent the better part of two decades looking across the Tasman with envy. I spent several months living there in 2017 and, in person, the difference seemed so pronounced it was almost shaming. Since roughly the turn of the millennium, just as Australia has stalled and regressed, New Zealand has matured and progressed. They stayed out of the Iraq War, while we entered it. They came to terms with their colonial history, while we denied ours. They invited refugees, while we made a show of punishing them. Friendlier, less belligerent, more cultured, more innovative and somehow more at ease, New Zealand really was, in the shopworn parlance, “punching above its weight”, while Australia settled into being merely punchy, assuming the international role of a small man with a big mouth. The absence of News Corp media in New Zealand, surely a factor in all this, felt like fresh air.
News Corpse. Just what NZ needs 
This all sounds like your own assumptions, conveniently written somewhat like a news article. I don’t think for a minute this will actually happen. We don’t even know what this meeting was about. It was probably completely unrelated to Newshub.
Contains the quote of the week, “Rats in a Sack”.
Let’s not just run with the narrative that NZ should be treated as a local affiliate of Australia. That’s exactly what they need to avoid. There is no financial benefit in Australian media companies crossing the Tasman on their white horses to save the domestic NZ news industry either - and on a day to day basis very little domestic Australian news would be relevant to NZ and vice versa.
If only they never separated from New South Wales during the colonial era…
Of course, it’s not an unusual case: there’s a TV station in Bermuda (a British territory) that’s affiliated with CBS and ABC in the United States.
Fun fact, because they were in the discussions of being part of federation, New Zealand is listed in the Constitution under Definitions as one of “The States”.
On the flip-side, there’s several sections that list only five founding states, WA is either listed separately or not at all as they almost didn’t join Australia.
Hopefully an positive outcome from this meeting to save 6pm and Ryan Bridge at 6.30pm, like old Network News & Holmes!
You might get 6pm, I doubt you’d get much more.
Agree. Half hour bulletin at 6pm is all that is needed these days. Followed by a Ryan Bridge show at 6:30pm - this would be studio based and relatively inexpensive to produce I would think.
It will be interesting to see the outcome, WBD have probably had a change of heart and will be shutting the operation down much sooner than July. The only other possibility is that an external deal has been reached and the meeting is just out of courtesy for the staff.
There’s legal, logistical and contractual elements to the July winddown date, which is timed with the end of the FY, so I’d be sceptical of them pulling it forward for no reason.
I think it might be timed to have given Sky full 60 days notice. If it were at EFY, the final bulletin would have been 30 June.
At one time NSW very nearly didn’t join either. NZ gave up early on, the distance was just too great (about 3-4 days by Steamer, if you had good weather).
I just thought of an idea. What if New Zealand brought back their TV license and the TV channels could each have a share of the fees from it? What do you think?
Completely outdated mode of thinking to bring it back.
Multiple reports: Stuff has won race against NZME to save the Newshub division; staff meeting happening at 10:30am this morning.
Well that’s some good news then! Well done Stuff.
I’m so happy it’s not Murdoch.