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From:
Paul Thompson <[email address]>
Sent:
Tuesday, 30 July 2019 6:02 PM
To:
Colin Holden
Subject:
follow-up
Kia ora Colin

Thank you for your and Harry’s  time today.

On reflection, could I suggest that, as a courtesy, you give the Minister a heads-up on our broad, early thinking?

The key points are that:

-
RNZ is interested in looking at whether we could access the 102FM frequencies for a new service for young
New Zealanders that would play a large proportion (say, 40%) of NZ music.
-
We are also looking at ways we can create more audience and Charter value from our investment in RNZ
Concert.

We will keep you briefed as we develop our plans, and I will update the Minister the next time I see him.

Please let me know if you need more information.

Regards

Paul

Emails sent by Radio New Zealand Limited (RNZ) or any related entity, including any attachments, may be
confidential, protected by copyright and/or subject to privilege. If you receive an email from RNZ in error, please
inform the sender immediately, delete it from your system and do not use, copy or disclose any of the information
in that email for any purpose. Emails to/from RNZ may undergo email filtering and virus scanning, including by third
party contractors. However, RNZ does not guarantee that any email or any attachment is secure, error-free or free
of viruses or other unwanted or unexpected inclusions. The views expressed in any non-business email are not
necessarily the views of RNZ. www.rnz.co.nz
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Out of scope
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From:
Paul Thompson <[email address]>
Sent:
Thursday, 7 November 2019 1:00 PM
To:
Colin Holden
Subject:
RE: 102FM
Thanks Colin – our planning is progressing and we intend to launch the new brand in mid-2020 (subject to board
approval of the business case in December).

The plan does not require the new spectrum but if that is an option we would like to explore it with you.

Should we have a chat about this?

Cheers

Paul

From: Colin Holden <[email address]>
Sent: Thursday, 7 November 2019 12:54 PM
To: Paul Thompson <[email address]>
Subject: 102FM

Kia ora Paul,

We met in July to discuss RNZ’s initial thinking about developing a music and youth focused station.

I’m interested in whether RNZ has progressed its thinking about this, and in particular whether you are still
interested in exploring the use of the spectrum at 102FM that was reserved many years ago for a youth radio
service.  If you’re intending to push ahead, we’ll need to do some thinking about a process for allocating this
spectrum, and engage with the Minister etc.  If the proposal is on hold, I won’t allocate any resource to this.

Happy to chat!

Tx
Colin

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Colin Holden | Deputy Chief Executive, Policy and Sector Performance (acting)
Manatū Taonga | Ministry for Culture & Heritage
He ngākau titikaha, he hononga tangata
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Promoting a confident and connected culture
Public Trust Building, 131 Lambton Quay, Wellington
PO Box 5364, Wellington 6140
Ph 9(2)(a)

[email address] | www.mch.govt.nz

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
This is an email between the Ministry for Culture and Heritage and the intended recipients only.
It may contain privileged material. If this email is not intended for you do not read, use, distribute or copy it.
Please notify the sender immediately and then delete the email and any attachments.
1

9(2)(a)
From:
Paul Thompson <[email address]>
Sent:
Tuesday, 10 December 2019 5:13 PM
To:
Bernadette Cavanagh; Colin Holden; Olivia Cross
Cc:
John Barr
Subject:
FW: Note to RNZ staff about the new music strategy
Categories:
Red Category
Kia ora Colin, Olivia  and Bernadette

I hope you are all well.

FYI, today I updated RNZ staff on the development of our new music strategy and the creation of an additional
service aimed at people aged 18-34.

My note to staff is below.

It is still a high-level plan at present and at this stage we are not making an external announcement.

We expect to provide further detail on the implementation of the strategy by late January.

Please let me know if you have questions.

Cheers

Paul

From: Paul Thompson
Sent: Tuesday, 10 December 2019 4:09 PM
To: All Staff 9(2)(k)

Subject: Note to staff about the new music strategy

Kia ora koutou

Over  the past few months the RNZ Executive Team has been working on a new music strategy aimed at attracting
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young audiences. The thinking has been shaped by RNZ’s overarching mission: to form lifelong relationships with
ALL the people of Aotearoa.
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As I have explained at my staff talks this year, RNZ must connect with more young people if we are to fulfil our role
as New Zealand’s public broadcaster.

I presented the music strategy to the RNZ board last week and they have approved it. The objective of the strategy
is for RNZ to become as successful with young audiences through music as we are with older audiences through
news and current affairs.

The strategy relies on RNZ’s well-established 10 New Zealanders segmentation research into audience needs and
preferences. This identified a clear opportunity to engage with these hard-to-reach younger audiences with music
content delivered differently to RNZ’s current outputs.
1

At the heart of the strategy will be the creation next year of an additional  music brand aimed at New Zealanders
aged 18-34. The new brand will be available on multiple platforms and will celebrate and showcase New Zealand
artists and their music.

This will be an exciting opportunity to connect with younger people, strengthen our Charter performance and
diversify and grow RNZ’s audiences.

A team led by music content director Willy Macalister will now work on a plan detailing how we will implement the
strategy in 2020.

The proposal is likely to result in changes across all RNZ Music outputs, including RNZ Concert.

We will continue to develop our plans over the next few months and  expect to be in a position to provide more
details in the first quarter of 2020

In the meantime, please talk to Willy or Dave Allan if you have questions.

Ngā mihi

Paul

Emails sent by Radio New Zealand Limited (RNZ) or any related entity, including any attachments, may be
confidential, protected by copyright and/or subject to privilege. If you receive an email from RNZ in error, please
inform the sender immediately, delete it from your system and do not use, copy or disclose any of the information
in that email for any purpose. Emails to/from RNZ may undergo email filtering and virus scanning, including by third
party contractors. However, RNZ does not guarantee that any email or any attachment is secure, error-free or free
of viruses or other unwanted or unexpected inclusions. The views expressed in any non-business email are not
necessarily the views of RNZ. www.rnz.co.nz
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From:
Bernadette Cavanagh
Sent:
Friday, 7 February 2020 4:02 PM
To:
Ruth Palmer; Peter Ramage; Louise Lennard; Anna Butler; Olivia Cross
Cc:
Matthew Oliver
Subject:
Fwd: follow-up notes
From: Paul Thompson <[email address]>
Date: 7 February 2020 at 11:03:02 AM NZDT
To: Bernadette Cavanagh <[email address]>
Subject: follow-up notes

Kia ora Bernadette

Thanks for your time on the phone today.

Te recap, the new RNZ Music strategy has four components:

1.  The restructure of RNZ Concert into a leaner  and automated  operation utilising modern
broadcast technology. That will free resource for us to do new things for underserved,
young audiences (see point 2 below)  while maintaining an effective classical music service.

2.  The launch of a new music  brand aimed at young people (18-34), particularly Māori and
Pacific people. The new brand will help RNZ deliver more strongly to our Charter obligations
by diversifying audiences, better showcasing NZ artists and their music  and significantly
boosting the range and volume of NZ content we publish and broadcast.

3.  Making the best use of the various platforms to distribute/broadcast both the lean RNZ
Concert and new music brand. Under the new strategy, we will prioritise FM for the new
brand.

4.  If additional  platforms are made available and are affordable – eg new FM frequencies – we
will be happy to use them.

In terms of timing,  the outcome of the staff consultation will shape the timeline. Nothing is yet
locked-in  in terms of when services will change.

Finally, we will start working on an initial estimate of the capex and opex required to deliver a new
FM network.
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Please call if you wish to discuss.
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Cheers

Paul




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may be confidential, protected by copyright and/or subject to privilege. If you receive an email from
RNZ in error, please inform the sender immediately, delete it from your system and do not use, copy
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9(2)(a)
From:
Peter Ramage
Sent:
Friday, 7 February 2020 4:49 PM
To:
Olivia Cross; Luke Hiscox; Ruth Palmer
Cc:
Louise Lennard; Bernadette Cavanagh; Anna Butler
Subject:
RE: Additional information for Cabinet on Monday
Attachments:
BR2015 052 RNZ Concert Costs - Seen by Min.pdf
Kia ora,

1. RNZ no longer splits out RNZ Concert from other expenditure in its reporting. The 2015 Funding Agreement
provided RNZ Concert approximately $5m per year, broken down as follows. We expect it to cost at least as
much in 2020.

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Ngā Mihi

Peter Ramage
9(2)(a)

From: Olivia Cross <[email address]>
Sent: Friday, 7 February 2020 3:46 PM
To: Luke Hiscox <[email address]>; Peter Ramage <[email address]>; Ruth Palmer
<[email address]>
2

Cc: Louise Lennard <[email address]>; Bernadette Cavanagh <[email address]>;
Anna Butler <[email address]>
Subject: Additional information for Cabinet on Monday

Hi all,

Thank you again for the quick turnaround on the Minister’s talking points for Cabinet. The Minister has asked for a
few more details in addition to the talking points by 10am Monday.

1. Can he have costings for how much it costs to run Concert.

9(2)(f)(iv)

An email covering off those three points will be sufficient. As always feel free to give me a call.

Ngā mihi
Olivia

Olivia Cross | Private Secretary – Broadcasting
Office of Hon Kris Faafoi | Minister of Broadcasting, Communications and Digital Media
Email: [email address] | DDI:
| Mobile:

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Out of scope
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out of scope
From:
Paul Thompson <[email address]>
Sent:
Monday, 10 February 2020 12:44 PM
To:
Bernadette Cavanagh; Olivia Cross
Cc:
Peter Ramage; Anna Butler; Ruth Palmer
Subject:
RE: FM network costings
Thank you, Bernadette

Some slight suggested tweaks below in red.

Regards

Paul

From: Bernadette Cavanagh <[email address]>
Sent: Monday, 10 February 2020 12:27 PM
To: Paul Thompson <[email address]>; Olivia Cross <[email address]>
Cc: Peter Ramage <[email address]>; Anna Butler <[email address]>; Ruth Palmer
<[email address]>
Subject: RE: FM network costings

Kia ora Paul – many thanks for these costings.

Olivia – I’ve just spoken to Paul to clarify that these costings are on the basis that Concert’s transmission remains as
is ie this is the cost of maintaining Concert’s existing FM network and adding a new youth station on the 102
network. If some staffing changes were made to Concert (as has been proposed in the staff consultation that RNZ
has under way) , there could be savings which could be applied to the staffing and operational costs of the new
youth station, but until those decisions are made the amounts can’t really be quantified. So for the Minister’s
purposes today, these are the highest costs. We would work with RNZ on refining them, if a decision was made to go
down this path.

Paul and I discussed the potential changes to Concert and the implications for RNZ’s funding agreement with NZ on
Air and the Radiocommunications Act. Paul clarified that RNZ would not take any actions that would see them
breach their agreements or be unlawful. That could have an impact on the timeframe for any changes, which RNZ
would work through after the consultation process is finished. Paul has requested further legal advice on the
Radiocommunications Act 1989. The SPE process would enable any proposed changes (or not) to be worked through
with the government as shareholder.

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Finally, Paul wanted to make clear that RNZ was listening to the comments being made and the legitimate concerns
being expressed, there was a genuine consultation process underway, and RNZ wants to work with the shareholder
on a way ahead.   OFFICIAL INFORMATION ACT

[Paul – feel free to correct me if I have anything wrong.]

Ngā mihi
B

From: Paul Thompson <[email address]>
Sent: Monday, 10 February 2020 10:45 AM
To: Bernadette Cavanagh <[email address]>; Olivia Cross <[email address]>
Subject: FM network costings
1

Kia ora Bernadette and Olivia

As requested, here are our estimates of the costs of establishing a new FM network. These are estimates only and
we will need to do further work to confirm.

Option 1

Metro coverage only (five high-powered sites)

-
$3m in one-off capital costs.
-
$1m in annual operational costs ongoing.

Option 2

Full FM coverage (six high-power sites and 28 lower power sites)

-
$8m in one-off capital costs
-
$2m in annual operational costs ongoing.


Please let me know if you have questions.

Cheers

Paul


Emails sent by Radio New Zealand Limited (RNZ) or any related entity, including any attachments, may be
confidential, protected by copyright and/or subject to privilege. If you receive an email from RNZ in error, please
inform the sender immediately, delete it from your system and do not use, copy or disclose any of the information
in that email for any purpose. Emails to/from RNZ may undergo email filtering and virus scanning, including by third
party contractors. However, RNZ does not guarantee that any email or any attachment is secure, error-free or free
of viruses or other unwanted or unexpected inclusions. The views expressed in any non-business email are not
necessarily the views of RNZ. www.rnz.co.nz
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
This is an email between the Ministry for Culture and Heritage and the intended recipients only.
It may contain privileged material. If this email is not intended for you do not read, use, distribute or copy it.
Please notify the sender immediately and then delete the email and any attachments.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
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Emails sent by Radio New Zealand Limited (RNZ) or any related entity, including any attachments, may be
confidential, protected by copyright and/or subject to privilege. If you receive an email from RNZ in error, please
inform the sender immediately, delete it from your system and do not use, copy or disclose any of the information
OFFICIAL INFORMATION ACT
in that email for any purpose. Emails to/from RNZ may undergo email filtering and virus scanning, including by third
party contractors. However, RNZ does not guarantee that any email or any attachment is secure, error-free or free
of viruses or other unwanted or unexpected inclusions. The views expressed in any non-business email are not
necessarily the views of RNZ. www.rnz.co.nz
2

9(2)(a)
From:
Alan Withrington <[email address]>
Sent:
Thursday, 20 February 2020 3:22 PM
To:
Peter Ramage
Subject:
RE: information requests for 102FM Cabinet paper
Attachments:
RNZ Project - Ollie Wards 22 Nov 2017 (002).pdf; RNZ Segment Flipbook - Full
report - NOT FOR PRINT.pdf; THE MUSIC OPPORTUNITY - BUSINESS PLAN v2.pdf
Kia ora Peter,
I am really sorry  Peter but for some reason that email didn’t get to me, or in my rushing around I somehow
managed to delete it.
My apologies.
So a belated thank you for setting out the requirements and timeline, and we will be working hard over the next few
days to get as much relevant information to you as we can.

As you are probably aware by now, I did sent some initial documents through to Anna this morning,  but in case not,
I am attaching the 3 key documents which have under-pinned our planning so far for the new service.
If you have any questions or need further clarification please do not hesitate to ask.

In the meantime we will work away on supplementing this with some additional information and get this to you as
early as possible next week.

Regards,

ALAN WITHRINGTON | HEAD OF BUSINESS TRANSFORMATION AND STRATEGY
RADIO NEW ZEALAND | LEVEL 2 | 155 THE TERRACE
PO BOX 123 | WELLINGTON | NEW ZEALAND 6140 | www.radionz.co.nz
Mobile
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[email address]

Some attachments not included as these are publicly
available at the below addresses and as such, have not bee

www.rnz.co.nz
included here:

https://www.rnz.co.nz/about/documents

https://www.rnz.co.nz/assets/cms_uploads/000/000/195/_27_

RNZ_Project_-_Ollie_Wards_22_Nov_2017.pdf

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From: Peter Ramage <[email address]>
OFFICIAL INFORMATION ACT
Sent: Thursday, 20 February 2020 2:41 PM
To: Alan Withrington <[email address]>
Subject: FW: information requests for 102FM Cabinet paper

Kia ora Alan,

Just confirming that you received the below email.

I am conscious that our timeframes are tight and want to make sure we are clear on deliverables

Ngā Mihi
1

Peter Ramage
9(2)(a)

From: Peter Ramage
Sent: Wednesday, 19 February 2020 2:06 PM
To: Alan Withrington <[email address]>
Subject: information requests for 102FM Cabinet paper

Kia ora Alan,

Thanks for the meeting to discuss the
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to RNZ way forward on RNZ’s new youth
strategy.

MCH is working to provide Minister Faafoi a draft Cabinet Paper to allocate 102FM on 26 February, so that it can be
considered by Cabinet on 30 March.

9(2)(f)(iv)











MCH will need RNZ to provide information detailing its proposed new service. This should include information on
the of the outputs and outcomes the service will be delivering. We will also need information on the timelines –
when would RNZ expect to have any service established. While we appreciate a full business case will not be
possible in this timeframe, we would expect it to be able to make the case for change. This will help Ministers justify
the allocation of 102 to RNZ.

MCH also need details of the  costs of any new service. This will help Ministers understand the business case for
RNZ’s new service, but Ministers are not making any decisions on funding at this time.
In particular MCH requires costing on the capital and operational expenditure associated with establishing a new
youth service on 102FM

Thank you for agreeing to provide the original February 5 proposal, as well as material soon to be made public under
the OIA. Any future requests for official information should be communicated to Keegan Platten, our Ministerial lead
to ensure  a coordination between our organisations. Keegan is contactable at [email address]

Ngā Mihi

Peter Ramage | Senior Adviser
Manatū Taonga
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| Ministry for Culture & Heritage
Public Trust Building, 131 Lambton Quay, Wellington
PO Box 5364, Wellington 6140
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Ph 9(2)(a)

www.mch.govt.nz

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
This is an email between the Ministry for Culture and Heritage and the intended recipients only.
It may contain privileged material. If this email is not intended for you do not read, use, distribute or copy it.
Please notify the sender immediately and then delete the email and any attachments.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
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9(2)(a)
From:
Alan Withrington <[email address]>
Sent:
Tuesday, 25 February 2020 3:32 PM
To:
Peter Ramage
Cc:
Anna Butler
Subject:
New Music Service for young New Zealanders
Attachments:
CABINET PAPER OUTLINE - to MCH 25Feb20.docx
Kia ora Peter,

Please find enclosed our paper on the new music service and the FM frequencies.

We weren’t sure whether you needed this in the form a draft Cabinet paper or a stand-alone document for you to
attach, so have tried to structure it to work either way.
At this stage the only area we would like more time on if possible, is the capital expenditure, and especially
transmission.
While we have done some work on our own to calculate the costs, we are also waiting on some quotes from Kordia
which will help firm up on our numbers.

If you have any queries or need any more information please do not hesitate to ask.

Regards,

ALAN WITHRINGTON | HEAD OF BUSINESS TRANSFORMATION AND STRATEGY
RADIO NEW ZEALAND | LEVEL 2 | 155 THE TERRACE
PO BOX 123 | WELLINGTON | NEW ZEALAND 6140 | www.radionz.co.nz
Mobile

9(2)(a)
[email address]

www.rnz.co.nz

Emails sent by Radio New Zealand Limited (RNZ) or any related entity, including any attachments, may be
confidential, protected by copyright and/or subject to privilege. If you receive an email from RNZ in error, please
inform the sender immediately, delete it from your system and do not use, copy or disclose any of the information
in that email for any purpose. Emails to/from RNZ may undergo email filtering and virus scanning, including by third
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party contractors. However, RNZ does not guarantee that any email or any attachment is secure, error-free or free
of viruses or other unwanted or unexpected inclusions. The views expressed in any non-business email are not
necessarily the views of RNZ. www.rnz.co.nz
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