Hard News by Russell Brown

In this week's Media Take show we talked about the state of radio – commercial, Maori and Radio New Zealand.

Radio plays a variety of roles in our media environment, but a particular one in the two big media companies NZME and MediaWorks, where its low costs and robust advertising revenue make it the profitable part of both businesses. It's probably not going too far to say that radio rules the roost in both companies and its editorial culture influences the whole. But is there a reckoning yet to come for commercial radio?

Former Mediaworks CEO Brent Impey and Karyn Hay, a 35-year radio veteran on and off-air, talked to Toi and I about that.

The history of radio for and by Maori stretches back to 1940, when Wiremu Parker read bulletins of war news in the reo. Maori radio stations did not appear until the 1980s and did not have any firm footing until a series of Treaty claims forced the government to reserve radio frequencies and establish Te Mangai Paho in the 1990s.

Today, more than 20 iwi stations operate as a national network – most on shoestring budgets – with a news service provided by Radio Waatea. But Te Māngai Pāho chief executive John Bishara recently said the agency is no longer interested in investing in conventional broadcast infrastructure. It's time, he said, to go digital. But is it that simple? And where's the money?

We invited in Jacqui Taituha, the manager of Te Kūiti-based Maniapoto FM, which is still fulfilling its kaupapa after 20 years on air – even as it works to embrace new ways of delivering radio content. Like most iwi radio stations it faces a challenge the rest of the sector doesn't – the need to serve the very different needs of rangatahi on and hand and kuia and kaumatua on the other.

With Jacqi was the chairman of the National Māori Radio Network – Te Whakaruruhau O Ngā Reo Irirangi Māori – Willie Jackson, who is also the CEO of Radio Waatea.

And in the final part of the broadcast show we were joined by Radio New Zealand CEO Paul Thompson, who has been seeking to respond to the challenges not only for public radio but for radio as a whole that he identified in a 2014 speech. An eight-year budget freeze – which means a cut every year in real terms – means that nearly every necessary innovation comes at the cost of something it's currently doing. It's not an enviable position, but as he had pointed out, it might look quite good if you were in newspapers, watching your advertising revenue tank.

Absolutely inevitably, Willie used the show to pursue directly wth Paul his continued complaint about the level of Maori content on Radio New Zealand – most notably in the extra online-only Q&A we recorded. It's healthy for someone to be keeping the pressure on, but I'm not sure Willie actually serves Te Whakaruruhau by focusing almost exclusively on it.

During prep for the show, I did a news search of his name and Te Whakaruruhau – and every story, going back months, was him attacking Radio New Zealand. He's in danger of giving the appearance that he wants to talk about someone else's organisation and not his own. There were some important things we ran out of time to talk about, including the implications for iwi radio of Te Matawai, the new independent statutory agency to be created through the Maori Language (Te Reo Maori) Bill.

There was also some useful difference of opinion between Karyn and Brent over what she regards as the continued lack of on-air opportunity for women in commercial talk radio. She was very impressive – the star of the show, even.

Anyway, you can watch the programme on demand here. And the 17-minute extra online Q&A here.

Here's two minutes of the Q&A: