Fiscal cliffs, funding cuts and potential final calls for some of the country’s longest-running Māori news and current affairs shows are shaking up the sector.

*A quote has been removed as the person quoted has said it no longer aligned with their view. Additional context has been added.

Earlier this month, it was revealed that long-running Māori news and current affairs shows Te Karere and The Hui missed out in the 2025/26  funding round of Te Māngai Pāho, the Māori broadcast funding agency. While there had been indications for some time that wider change was in store for the Māori media sector, the news still came as a shock to many.

TVNZ’s Te Karere, a daily te reo Māori news bulletin that first aired in 1982, received $2.7 million in funding from Te Māngai Pāho for 260 episodes this year, with TVNZ contributing an extra $900,000. In an announcement about this year’s funding decisions, Te Māngai Pāho said, “all the fluent proposals [programmes aimed at fluent speakers] were declined due to not sufficiently meeting the assessment criteria”. Te Karere is believed to be working on a second funding bid, and according to the Herald, Te Māngai Pāho is confident it will continue to screen.

The Hui, which received $1m from Te Māngai Pāho and $788,000 in NZ On Air funding last year and screens weekly on Three and Whakaata Māori, also missed out on any Te Māngai Pāho funding in this year’s news and current affairs round. Great Southern Television founder Phil Smith, responsible for producing The Hui, told the Herald it would be reducing the number of shows next year from 40 to 26 with hopes of retaining some funding from NZ On Air.

So why weren’t these shows funded?

The $16m “fiscal cliff” Te Māngai Pāho is facing is time-sensitive funding that is set to expire next year. Meanwhile, baseline government funding for the agency only increased by $7m, or 12%, from $59m in 2017 to $66m in 2024, meaning from next year, minus the $16m, the agency’s annual funding will be $50m. Over the same period of time, the purchasing power of money has decreased by 21%.

Given the drastic budget cut, Te Māngai Pāho is restructuring its funding distribution, and this restructure is what’s putting the future of long-running Māori news and current affairs shows, such as Te Karere and The Hui, in doubt. As part of the request for proposals for this round of funding, Te Māngai Pāho announced it would be allocating $5m across a maximum of seven regional news providers and $2m for the establishment of a national hub.

Te Māngai Pāho does not release its full funding assessments, making it impossible to know the exact reasons why funding for these shows was declined – how Te Karere didn’t “sufficiently meet the assessment criteria” for fluent programming, for example. However, over the last few years the agency has been indicating a growing preference for digital-first content, with the content support section criteria of the request for proposals (worth 20% of the total marks) noting applicants must demonstrate “understanding of formatting for digital and radio platforms”. The audience strategy also stipulates “applicants must be able to demonstrate an ability to reach audiences on digital platforms”.

With regards to these shows in particular, The Spinoff understands the long-term commercial viability of Te Karere, current affairs shows Marae and Waka Huia have been a cause for concern with TVNZ leadership since at least 2020.

They weren’t digital enough for Te Māngai Pāho?

Again, it’s hard to know without knowing what the assessment feedback was. What we do know is that Te Karere has long been a linear-first production, having first aired in 1982. It’s hard to blame TVNZ for sticking with the tried-and-true format that has made Te Karere such a long-running success. But we know Māori audiences (and general audiences too) continue to desert linear television in their droves. In its current traditional television bulletin format, Te Karere becomes a hard sell when looking to the future of Māori news.

The Hui was originally a straight linear television current affairs programme. In many ways, it still is, but the show has been attempting to increase its online presence in recent times, amassing more than 21,000 followers on TikTok in two years and producing content exclusive to Facebook and its other social media channels.

What’s the deal with the ‘hubs’?

The regional news initiative began in 2020 with two years of government funding to support iwi-led regional stories distributed through a central hub. After evolving through contestable funding rounds, it received a further $5m over three years from 2022, plus a one-off $3m from NZ On Air’s Public Interest Journalism Fund. That support ends in June 2026, with provider contracts expiring December this year.

Facing reduced future funding, Te Māngai Pāho plans to shift toward a more collaborative, sustainable Māori news model, reducing duplication and requiring applicants to maximise existing infrastructure and share costs responsibly. Estimated investment for Māori news and current affairs in 2027 is $7.5m. A working group led by Kawea Te Rongo (Independent Māori Journalists Association) helped shape the new approach to Māori news and current affairs. Their recommendations informed the funding model now being introduced.

Effectively, the Te Māngai Pāho is funding regional news hubs and a single national hub to the tune of $7m in an attempt to aggregate Māori news services. Instead of having several Te Māngai Pāho-funded outlets covering the same event in similar ways, the agency sees greater value in streamlining the production of Māori news stories through funding fewer services. Last year, Te Māngai Pāho celebrated its 30th anniversary. Speaking to a room full of journalists and sector workers, chief executive Larry Parr stressed the need for greater collaboration among the sector.

Surely more is better, right?

Not necessarily, especially when you’re facing funding cuts. Travel to any major event in te ao Māori, such as Koroneihana or the tangi of a prominent Māori figure, and you will likely see a pack of Māori journalists with their resource-intensive entourages in tow, many of whom receive funding from Te Māngai Pāho. While there is undoubtedly some benefit in having multiple outlets cover the same story, there is also inevitably a lot of overlap and repetition. There are only so many ways you can cover the same story.

So what does the future hold for Māori news?

That’s what people in the industry are wondering. In March, Ngā Aho Whakaari Māori in Screen Industries and Māori journalist association Kawea Te Rongo lodged a joint submission on the proposed media industry reform. They called for te Tiriti o Waitangi to be embedded at the heart of Aotearoa’s media system, ensuring Māori voices, language, and storytelling are central across all platforms – not confined to Māori-specific outlets.

While the two groups supported reform, they warned proposals lacked new funding, Māori representation, and mechanisms to address digital and structural inequities. The submission urged increased public investment, a levy model to fund te reo Māori content, clear definitions to protect Māori media, and stronger regulation to uphold Māori rights under te Tiriti and international obligations, alongside a dedicated Māori industry working group to guide future reforms.

Upon release of its funding decisions for this news and current affairs round, Te Māngai Pāho announced that no national hub had been successful in its bid for funding. Five proposals were all declined “on the basis of not sufficiently meeting the assessment criteria”. However, Te Māngai Pāho said there were “enough positive signs within the proposals to continue with the approach”, and the agency was working with applicants to help them refine their proposals and reapply. “We are confident we can find providers in time for the 2026 year.”

The two frontrunners, assumed to be Whakaata Māori and TVNZ, both expressed interest when a single national hub was first proposed as part of a Māori media sector shift launched in 2019. One of these two outlets will likely be awarded the funding eventually, and serve as a congregator of news fed to it by the regional hubs as well as stories it produces itself.

With regards to the regional hubs, six successful proposals were awarded funding, which are all believed to be closely aligned to Māori radio stations, which also receive separate funding from Te Māngai Pāho. They will be responsible for capturing region-specific news stories and feeding these to the national hub, which will be distribute them to current affairs shows and news bulletins for non-digital platforms, such as Te Karere, “if it can prove demand”. While some demand remains for linear television news bulletins, this is undeniably decreasing at a rapid rate.

While single-year contracts limit long-term certainty, Te Māngai Pāho said 2026 will serve as a “trial year” to refine the model and assess ongoing needs. Subject to secure funding in 2027, the agency aims to offer multi-year contracts to proven providers.