Nearly $20m of public money spent on scrapped media merger

Nearly $20 million of public money was spent on the scrapped RNZ-TVNZ merger, according to the final costings.

More than half of the money ($11,896,000) was spent on contractors and consultants, including at firms PwC and Deloitte.

Prime Minister Chris Hipkins scrapped the public media merger in February as part of a plan to refocus the Government on ‘bread and butter’ issues.

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The other main costs included about $3 million on reimbursing RNZ, TVNZ and NZ On Air for working on the project, and $2.5m on overheads including leasing office space for a year.

Despite the project being axed, the Ministry of Culture and Heritage said it now has a more informed view of what New Zealanders want from public media and a business case which will be referenced for future options.