NEWSTALK ZB’s triumph at the New Zealand Radio Awards last week was as predictable as the sunrise. Heather du Plessis-Allan once again walked away with the Sir Paul Holmes Broadcaster of the Year trophy, her second consecutive win, while Newstalk ZB itself was crowned Best Station for the fifth year running. The self-congratulation was so thick you could spread it on toast. But when a station enjoys a near-monopoly in the talkback market, victory is less a sign of excellence than the inevitable result of having no meaningful competition. Everyone’s a winner at Newstalk ZB — especially Newstalk ZB.
The awards function less as a celebration of journalistic merit and more as a brand-building exercise for NZME, ZB’s parent company. The NZ Herald dutifully trumpeted the network’s success, as if the accolades were proof of its editorial superiority rather than the predictable outcome of a structurally lopsided media landscape. Outside NZME’s own promotional ecosystem, the reaction was muted. Few seemed genuinely impressed. Many barely noticed. And why would they? The awards have become a ritualised pat-on-the-back for a station whose influence rests not on innovation or public service, but on its ability to reliably channel a particular political worldview.
Newstalk ZB has long abandoned any pretence of ideological neutrality. It is, and has been for years, an unapologetic amplifier of right-wing interests. Along with breakfast host Mike Hosking, Du Plessis-Allan is the network’s most polished exponent of this line. Her weekday drivetime show is a steady stream of government-friendly framing, selective outrage, and carefully curated indignation. When the coalition government stumbles, she cushions the fall. When Labour or the Greens so much as breathe, she reaches for the blowtorch. Her interviews with government ministers are warm, collegial, and often deferential. Her interviews with opposition MPs are combative, impatient, and dripping with suspicion. This is not a secret; it is the show’s defining feature.
She has even said on air that a Labour government returning to power this year would be a “disaster”. That is not analysis. That is campaigning. And it is campaigning delivered from the country’s largest commercial radio platform, under the guise of journalism. When Labour whip Kevin McAnulty described NZME as a “National Party proxy”, du Plessis-Allan reacted with wounded indignation, insisting she is fair and impartial. But impartiality is not a feeling one has about oneself. It is a standard demonstrated through practice. And the practice at Newstalk ZB is unmistakable.
Yet the station is not shaping the nation so much as preaching to its own choir. The demographics tell the story: a largely male, largely conservative, largely 55-plus audience that has hovered around 13 percent of the total radio market for years. It is a stable, loyal, and ideologically aligned listenership. The callers who populate ZB’s airwaves reflect this — resistant to social change, suspicious of progressive politics, and deeply invested in the preservation of the status quo. Du Plessis-Allan does not challenge these instincts; she affirms them. She packages conservative orthodoxy as common sense, dresses partisan talking points as objective truth, and delivers it all with the confidence of someone who knows her audience will applaud rather than interrogate.
This is what now passes for “Broadcaster of the Year”.
The deeper problem is not that Newstalk ZB is right-wing. Media outlets are entitled to editorial positions. The problem is the pretence — the insistence that ZB is simply reflecting public sentiment rather than shaping it, that its hosts are neutral arbiters rather than ideological actors, that its awards are earned through journalistic rigour rather than market dominance and brand synergy. The awards help maintain this illusion. They provide a veneer of credibility, a sense that ZB’s dominance is the result of merit rather than structural advantage and political alignment.
Meanwhile, the broader media environment continues to shrink. Public broadcasting is under political pressure. Independent outlets struggle for funding. Newsrooms are thinning. In this context, Newstalk ZB’s awards haul is less a celebration of excellence than a symptom of a media ecosystem where commercial talkback — loud, partisan, and predictable — fills the vacuum left by weakened public-interest journalism.
Du Plessis-Allan’s success is not mysterious. She gives her audience what they want: certainty, simplicity, and a worldview in which their grievances are always justified and their political preferences always correct. It is a formula that works. It protects ratings. It wins awards. But it does not serve the public interest. It narrows debate, entrenches division, and elevates partisan advocacy over genuine inquiry.
Newstalk ZB will continue to celebrate itself. NZME will continue to promote its stars. And du Plessis-Allan will continue to present her political preferences as objective truth. But none of this should be mistaken for journalistic excellence. It is branding, not broadcasting. It is influence, not insight. And it is long past time we stopped confusing popularity with merit.
If this is the best our commercial radio landscape can offer, the problem is not that Newstalk ZB keeps winning. The problem is that no one else is left to compete.
0 comments:
Post a Comment
Comments are moderated.