YIELDA.
I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page, a daily podcast presented by the New Zealand Herald. A battle is underway for the future of one of New Zealand's
biggest media companies. Auckland based Canadian billionaire Jim Grennan has in the last fortnight emerged as one of the biggest shareholders in enzed Me, the owner of the enzed Herald, newstalk ZEDB and many music radio stations, and next month he hopes to vote out the company's current board members and install himself and three others at the company's shareholder meeting.
It's the latest bit of turmoil to hit the media sector in this country, with nearly every major media company seeing upheaval to some degree over.
The last twelve months.
Today on the Front Page, we're joined by media insider Shane Curry to discuss what Grennan wants endzed Me and if the sector is any closer to stability.
So, Shane, let's start with the big one. Who exactly is Jim Grennan and how did he make his wealth and why is he now living in New Zealand. I've got so many questions.
Yeah, Jim Grennan a little bit of a mystery man in some ways. And in fact I've asked several times for an interview with mister Grennan and he has said he will talk at some stage. But he what we know of him, He is a Canadian billionaire, made his
money through private equity and investing in other businesses. Moved here in twenty twelve and as a Kiwi as a Kiwi resident, lives in Takapuna, and has very much come to the four obviously in recent weeks in terms of his shareholding and ended me and his intentions to become an endy Me board member.
So Grennan founded his own media brands since moving here, New Zealand News and Essentials and The Centrist. What do we know about his motivation to start those brands?
So he has put out several statements in the last few weeks just in terms of media inquiries, talked a little bit about this centriest and The Centrist itself is basically an aggregation site if you like, and he has said that he introduced that by means of bringing more to the everyday discussion. I guess in the news media kind of environment, he felt that there were stories that
weren't getting or seeing the light of day. They do employ some journalists to write stories specifically for the website, but other stories they point to, For instance, they will point to stories on the Herald or to other news websites, and so it's a little bit of an aggregation site as well as having its own unique content. But he felt a bit like the platform, I guess in terms of the audio sense that there was a conversation missing on some topics and some political stances. I guess as well.
So Grennan has sent you a statement that editorial content is a side issue, but the quality of journalism impacts of the business, that he wants to improve the quality of journalism, including through training to advanced staff skills, and that he wants a new editorial board with representation from both sides of the spectrum. What do you make of all that?
Yeah, I think if we just take a step back a little bit, Chelsea is obviously you know, he is aiming to have a seat on the board of ensied me along with three other nominees, and we have another shareholder, Osbian Partners, who have put forward their own two nominations. Now at the moment, what we don't know is the details of a letter that mister Greennan has written to ensed Me outlining some of what he sees as operational and governance concerns. And so I've been requesting that letter
from both enzied Me and mister Grennan's group. So far it hasn't been released. I do expect it will be released at some stage ahead of the annual shareholders meeting, and in that will get a sense of really the editorial I guess, I guess endeavor that mister Grennan is
talking about here. But on the face of it, you know, he's made some comments that should give cheer to the Enzbing newsroom in the sense of, you know, wanting to uphold and uplift the quality of journalism, maintaining standards and building standards. But I guess the devil is in the
detail in terms of just what that specifically means. And of course, when he talks about an emphasis on factual accuracy, the newsroom will say, yes, that there's a big focus for us at all times less selling of the writer's opinion. He's also said that, and that's a discussion that comes up quite a bit in terms of differentiating opinion from
actual news stories. And you know enz ME is said in the past, you know, it's making efforts to make that emphasis on factual stories versus opinion a lot more differentiated. I guess, make it much more clearer to readers just when they're reading commentary and opinion versus a straight news story. And so I think, you know, he's totally in line with what the company has been trying to do and
then appealing to a wider political spectrum. I guess that again comes back to some of the points he was making around setting up the centrist you know, that free flow of information and ideas that there is a broad church of content, which you know, mass media organizations will argue that they are already in that ballpark.
Well, as you can imagine, this is a significant interest to our members. So are many of the journalists at NZDME and as the union who represents them. We're working through this issue with them, and I think it's fair to say that the primary primary concern here is to ensure that journalists are able to continue doing their job
with genuine editorial independence, without fear or favor. And the concern here is that we clearly have an individual who is highly motivated to take control of a major media entity in New Zealand who is doing so quite clearly with the intent of promulgating a particular political perspective, and there are real concerns about what that might means. The editorial independence of journalists are at injymen.
So, Australian based Spheria Asset Management that owns nineteen percent of enz ME has come out last week and said it backs Grinnan's plans.
So does that.
Mean that this board takeover is basically a given?
Now?
Do you think the current ENZME board can scrap backer? When?
Ya?
So? What?
We won't know the final breakdown of the vote obviously until April twenty nine, and when the shareholders do all get together, and before that meeting happens, they will have available to them the biographies of all the six new nominees for the board, as well as you know existing board members. They'll know how they operate and so forth.
There will be documentation that ended ME distributes and I expect that that will include correspondence from mister Grennan to the company in terms of outlining his proposals and ideas for the business. So potentially that letter, potentially that letter exactly, and so I think the idea will be that Enzimy shareholders will have as much information as possible ahead of
the vote. So what we do know about the numbers right now is that enz Me's bigger shareholder, Spheria Asset Management, which has nineteen percent of the company, that is backing mister Grennan's bid to become a board member and the three other nominee. So that's a significant number to get to the fifty percent majority. This is a very fast moving story, and I expect that mister Greennin, myself and his supporters will be expecting to be over that fifty
percent majority. If not already then certainly by the time April twenty nine rolls around. From my discussions, you know, talking to lots of different parties, they do seem confident. Having said that, I also know that enz Me will be talking to all of its shareholders in one way or another in terms of presenting just how the company is fearing its progress over the last twelve months. Especially
we've just heard the financial results and what's planned. I mean, at the annual results announcement just a couple of weeks ago, the company put forward three significant proposals in front of shareholders, including the appointment of a new board member, and VA can see on the board for that. So as I say, there's going to be a lot more to come in the next forty odd days.
I've been at anzedmy for nearly a decade now, and I can't say that I've had too much to personally do with the board or our shareholders. The same way, I don't think doctors in an emergency department are rubbing shoulders with the Health then Z board for example. But you, however, Shane, have been on this company's executive team. What does a media board do and how much say do they actually traditionally have over editorial coverage.
Well, I can safely say that when I was the editor in chief and on the executive and that was more than two years ago now, But at no stage did the board or the executive give direction in terms of you must cover the story kind of thing. We're a board an executive, you know they will make sure the settings are right in terms of resourcing and support. I worked very closely, for instance, on our extensive code of conduct and ethics, presented that to the board for approvals.
Really the settings and the environment that the board and the executive are responsible for to allow that editorial independence to be maintained. And of course, what we've heard in the last week or so is some concerns from the Journalists Union. They just want reassurances that any new board members, including mister Greennan, will uphold that editorial independence. And so far the noises from mister Grennan have actually been very
positive about editorial output and inputs. So the union is seeking, i think a one to one meeting with mister Greennan, just to be reassured itself on those points.
Bezis said that he's in favor of personal liberties. Well, of course, so am I, and that's why I'm in favor of free expression. You know, it's right there in the First Amendment. And news organizations have always honored free expression by having a variety of points of view on their opinion pages. But Beasos now is just shutting that down, and he's saying that only his point of view is
going to be represented on those pages. And that really is a betrayal the heritage of the Washington Post, and I think a betrayal of the very idea of free expression.
So Amazon boss Jeff Bezos purchased The Washington Post back in twenty thirteen, but in the last decade he hasn't caused much controversy there as he has in the last six months. First he stopped the paper from endorsing a presidential candidate in last year's election, and well recently he's been dictating what he wants to see in the opinion part of the paper. That's led to staff resignations and a drop in digital subscriptions. So do you think that the same reaction could happen here?
I think a totally different market in America. So if you look at the American market, you know, obviously tens of millions of people in The Washington Post is very much a global brand, almost and certainly a national brand. The New Zealand market is much smaller than news catching the area, if you like, is much smaller, and so all of the mainstream media organizations in New Zaan will strive to be a broad church of ideas, of opinions and commentary, and of course covering lots of the same
topics at times. Now, that's not to say that those ideas can be broadened, or that news media organizations can pick up different topics to chase individually from each other,
and of course they do do that. The American journalism system and media systems a little bit different as well, in terms of the opinion pages are generally run by executive editors who report up through a different line from the newsroom itself, and so that kind of church and state a little bit, the two different divisions, whereas hair opinion and news is basically led by the editor in chief as a whole. And so it's a bit of
a different model. And I can see what Bezos is doing, and it has been, in my view, a change, a pivot obviously from him. He's previously said that he didn't want to interfere at all with any of the Washington Post content. I think you need to look at the political landscape obviously in America at the moment, and Bezos was literally sitting behind Donald Trumpet on Inauguration Day along with some of the other tech giant CEOs and owners. And to know that, you know, there's a very careful
kind of game being played there at the moment. All I see really happening in the New Zealand market, yep, they'll be focused on mister Greennan if he becomes a board member and any other new board members. But of course, you know, it's a mass market newspaper, the New Zealand Herald.
It's a mass market media organization ended me. It's always had private owners, and I expect that all the shearholders, certainly all the directors, will certainly be trying to make in of Me as successful as possible into the future.
So let's move on to the rest of the industry. And things have not been sunny the last year. The entire news Hub brand was shut down in July, Iconic TV and Z shows were canceled after decades on air, Shortland Street was cut down to just three episodes a week, and now the Heir has had a major restructure of its staff. Now do you think we are near the end of these cuts or could there be.
More to camp I thought we were at the end of dramatic change a while ago. I must say last year really was one for the books. This year has started no differently so far. I didn't expect to be covering my own companies in so much detail as I have been. And certainly the other big company that's hit
the headlines already this year is Sky Television. So Sky and enz in me early on in twenty twenty five to two big publicly listed media companies in New Zealand are the ones that I guess have been in the spotlight. But I do expect that, you know, change is constant now and I think we all expect that in the
media industry. And no, I think if you look at some of the outlooks on the forecast that the CEOs have been putting out, they are expect They are a little more confident about the middle of the end of the year in terms of advertising revenue and seeing I hate the word, but seeing the green shoots, if you like, in the economy that will hopefully shore up some of that revenue. And so, you know, I'm more optimistic about this year than I was about last year, that's for sure.
But certainly, you know, I think at all times we just need to be listening to our audiences, observing just how they're reading and taking in our content, listening to our content in the case of the podcasts and so forth, Chelsea, and knowing that we're still appealing to a wide readership or wide audience. You know, there's more than two million people a day that come into the Herald and so you know that these are significant numbers and it's just about getting that business model right.
Well, there's been a lot of expectations on the government to intervene, particularly around the Fair Digital News Bargaining Bill, and it seems that it's been in limbo for a while now. Is that still on the agenda.
Yeah, there's three different pieces of legislation if you like, or three pieces that the government is focusing on, and one of the key ones is the Fair Digital News Bargaining Bill. Now that has actually been put on the back burner a fair bit because we were initially going to be observing how this new legislation in Australia would
work out. But the Aussies themselves have taken fright. There's a federal election obviously not too far away across the Tasman, but also taken fright at any sort of repercussions if they do sort of pin down facebooks in the Googles of the world in terms of repercussions from the Trump administration, and so New Zealand and Paul Goldsmith now really have to decide if we do try and pay their own way again in terms of the fair Digital News Bargaining bill.
I do believe it's still alive as an issue, and I'm sure the media industry will be pushing for it in some form to be enacted at least by the
end of the year. But I do think at the moment with that on hold and another two pieces of legislation, one of them is before Select Committee at the moment, that's the Sunday Advertising legislation, and then there's another which sort of encompass a whole lot of other issues such as a levy or at least a levy yes on revenue from the streamers for New Zealand content in New Zealand,
amongst some other moves. All of this it's a little bit messy at the moment, but they should start coming through, as I say, hopefully midyear, end of the year.
So Shane, you know I love asking you to look into your crystal ball for future predictions. Do you have any? Do you think things are going to get better? Are there some challenges we haven't discussed yet? What's your top back?
Well, I actually had twenty five predictions for twenty five and one of my first media columns of the year, and I think you know some of them have come to fruition already just in terms of the first three months, and look, it's a changing game all the time. But what I do know is that there is you know, while there are issues around trust and news and absolutely media companies need to be addressing that and listening to their audiences, there is still an insatiable appetite for knowledge
in this world for news. As I talked about the numbers of people coming to The Herald, it's the same for ZB, It's the same for a lot of our other major media organizations. People are still coming to us for information, wanting to know what's going on in the world. So as a baseline, you know, that has to be encouraging for us. So I'm always with a sense of
optimism looking ahead. It's about getting these business models right and being given that runway and the resource to be able to make sure that we are able to keep our newsroom levels at the levels they are, if not boosted. Now, we've been going through a fair bit of hurt ourselves in the last few weeks, there's no doubt about that, but I'm optimistic that that will flatten out and hopefully rebuild very soon.
Thanks for joining us. Shane.
Thanks Chelsea.
That's it for this episode of the Front Page. You can read more about today's stories and extensive news coverage at enzadherld dot co dot mz. The Front Page is produced by Ethan Sells and Richard Martin, who is also our sound engineer.
I'm Chelsea Daniels. Subscribe to the Front Page on iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts, and tune in tomorrow for another look behind the headlines.