Shorts Newsletter - 22 April 2021

NZ On Air is delighted to announce the appointment of Raewyn Rasch (Ngāi Tahu) as Head of Journalism, to lead the delivery of our new $55m Public Interest Journalism fund.

The Head of Journalism role has been newly created to add specialist journalism industry knowledge to the NZ On Air Funding team.

Raewyn has 30 years experience in journalism from hands on reporting through to management level and academia. You can read more about her appointment in our Media Release.

Raewyn will be based in our Auckland office.

Another new recruit to NZ On Air will bolster our cross-platform measurement and audience engagement with funded content.

Cat Goodwin joins NZ On Air from media agency OMD as our new Audience and Media Strategist. The role was created to address a resource gap identified in the recent NZ Media Fund review.

Cat has more than 20 years experience in the media industry in a range of planning, strategy and insights roles across media agencies and broadcasters.

Head of Funding Amie Mills says bringing Cat on board adds critical capacity to the Funding team.

“Cat blew us away with her passion for media planning, strategy and audience insights. She will bring a new focus to how we gather and analyse cross-platform metrics, and how we define stronger audience engagement measures for the content we fund.”

Cat takes up the role on May 17 and will also be based in our Auckland office.

Rounding out appointment news, we welcome the Minister’s announcement of Dr Ruth Harley’s reappointment as Chair of NZ On Air.

Ruth has been reappointed for a further three year term from the end of May. Her helming of the Board follows a distinguished career in the screen sector here and in Australia.

July is the first round of the new financial year and we expect to receive many applications. As we did last year, we intend to provisionally cap the Factual and Scripted funding committed to this round to ensure funds remain for later rounds.

• Factual – genres prioritised for this round include Documentary and General Factual applications (including Events). Approximately $10m has been allocated for content intended for general audiences.
• Scripted – applications for the Premier, Sustainable, Newer Storytellers strands of our Scripted Roadmap will be considered. Approximately $20m has been allocated for content intended for general audiences.
• Development – both Content (including Diverse Development) and Industry Development applications will be considered. Please see the Development Roadmap.

Read the full May/July round information for funding applicants here.

Information regarding the Public Interest Journalism round will be released separately on Friday, 30 April.

Important dates

22 April 2021 - Funding round opens.
All applications must be made through NZ On Air’s online application system. Applications not submitted through this system will not be accepted. You must submit a request to register with our online system well in advance of the application deadline day.

30 April 2021 - Public Interest Journalism round information published, round opens

20 May 2021, 4pm - Application deadline. Round closes.
Late applications will not be considered. In very exceptional circumstances, for time-sensitive projects agreed prior by the Head of Funding, we may consider an out of time application. But we will not be generous.

14 July 2021 - Decisions confirmed, applicants notified the following day.
This date may be extended at NZ On Air’s sole discretion