Media Releases

Outcome of music, arts and culture review

Released at 2:20 pm on 1 October 2025

With the reduction in RNZ’s funding in this year’s budget, RNZ reviewed how it covers music, arts and culture to determine whether it could be more effective at reaching audiences across platforms and be more efficient.

This means there will be some programming changes. We recognise that change is difficult for audiences and kaimahi. As a publicly funded media organisation, RNZ has a responsibility to assess and ensure all parts of the organisation are performing in a way that delivers for our audience and serves the public interest.
 
Youth platform TAHI to close
The youth market is notoriously difficult and despite the hard work of everyone involved, TAHI has not reached the target audience to the extent that would justify continuing to fund it.

Interim Head of Content John Hartevelt said the expansion of international platforms such as YouTube and TikTok had made it difficult to support dedicated youth channels.

“We are able to reach younger audiences by making our content freely available on those platforms and our focus will now be on making sure we continue to offer a wide range of vibrant content that fulfils our Charter requirements to reach audiences of all ages.”

Hartevelt said RNZ is proud of what TAHI has achieved in the past four years and what TAHI has taught the rest of RNZ.

The TAHI podcast will have its final episode on Thursday 6 November. 
 
At the Movies radio show to end
Part of the review into how RNZ covers music, arts and culture looked at how we are ensuring audiences benefit from a variety of voices. As a result, RNZ is changing how we meet the audience demand for film reviews, through the introduction of multiple contributors that will allow for an increased diversity of viewpoints and for more reviews to appear across RNZ’s platforms.

This does mean that the long running At the Movies radio show will finish, however the At the Movies podcast feed will be retained as a showcase for the wide range of reviews on RNZ National.

The date for the final At the Movies radio show will be confirmed shortly. We will also be confirming summer programming including Matinee Idle shortly.  
 
The Sunday Sampler show finishes up
The one-hour programme The Sunday Sampler has wrapped up, however, long running album review segment, The Sampler, continues within Music 101 and music reviews will continue across RNZ’s radio programming and digital platforms, ensuring all of RNZ’s audiences can benefit.
 
Changes to Culture 101
Culture 101 will change from two presenters to one. This is to bring the programme in line with its sister show Music 101 and to boost production of the show. The show itself will continue its important role profiling creativity and culture in Aotearoa, aiming for an even larger audience across platforms.