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  • New Zealand Listener

    HOOKED ON CLASSICS

    Feb 16, 2020 8 minutes
    by JOANNE BLACK & RUSSELL BAILLIE
    illustration by CHRIS SLANE

    Radio New Zealand insists that pursuing a youth audience is essential for its future, despite the onslaught of criticism since news first broke that its classical music champion, RNZ Concert, could be downgraded to pay for a youth-focused brand.

    The proposal to disestablish 18.8 full-time-equivalent roles and significantly reduce the way its music is presented took staff by surprise when it was put to them earlier this month. The station, with a strong emphasis on classical music and with its own presenters and prized FM frequency, would remain a 24-hour, seven-days-a-week programme, RNZ’s proposal said. However, Concert would become “an automated music service available for listeners on AM … with no regular full-time hosting”, confidential consultation documents obtained by the Listener show. The new iteration of RNZ Concert would be accessed on the parliamentary network when Parliament was not sitting, on RNZ’s app, a Freeview channel and on iHeartRadio and Spotify, among other digital platforms.

    Acclaimed young composer Claire Cowan, speaking on RNZ National, likened the proposal to “a sort of jukebox-type system where they have a playlist and it’s streaming all the time with no presenters”.

    The consultation documents show that RNZ may have been intending to phase out some of Concert’s presenters and introduce more automation by stealth, without announcing the changes to listeners. The “proposed transition timeline” shows that RNZ planned to continue with

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