Latest / Best of Business / Jodi O'Donnell: Heather Du Plessis-Allan talks with Jodi O’Donnell on TVNZ’s $10.7m profit.

Transcript

Jodi O'Donnell: Heather Du Plessis-Allan talks with Jodi O’Donnell on TVNZ’s $10.7m profit. · Best of Business

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  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from news Talk zed B.
• 0:12
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  Speaker 2: TV and Z has announced a surprise dividend to be
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  Speaker 2: paid to the government of three million dollars. The broadcaster
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  Speaker 2: has delivered a twenty five million dollar after tax profit,
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  Speaker 2: which is a huge turnaround after last year's eighty five
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  Speaker 2: million dollar loss. Jody O'Donnell is the CEO of TV
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  Speaker 2: and Z. Hey, Jody, Hi, he how are you?
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  Speaker 1: Oh? Well?
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  Speaker 2: Thank you? How wrong was I? Though? Just a couple
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  Speaker 2: of days ago I was saying that's the end of
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  Speaker 2: the dividends from TV and Z and here you go.
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  Speaker 2: How'd you do it? Well?
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  Speaker 3: Look, I think that like many businesses last year, we
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  Speaker 3: all had to make really hard decisions. But wasn't just
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  Speaker 3: around us actually resetting our cost base. We actually really
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  Speaker 3: ruthlessly focused around revenue initiatives as well, so we were
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  Speaker 3: able to do it at the same time, and our
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  Speaker 3: revenue was stronger than we had predicted.
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  Speaker 2: Do you think it's the last one, though, the last dividend? Yeah,
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  Speaker 2: for a while.
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  Speaker 3: Look, it's our obligation to pay a dividend, and we've
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  Speaker 3: actually paid eight dividends over the last ten years. So
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  Speaker 3: it's a process that we go through every year and time.
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  Speaker 2: If you're going to have a couple of losses a
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  Speaker 2: lead straight, you're not going to be paying a dividend,
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  Speaker 2: are you.
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  Speaker 1: Well?
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  Speaker 3: Again, it's a process that would have to go through
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  Speaker 3: every year. So I'm not going to stay upfront whether
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  Speaker 3: it's in or it's out.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, would you pay one in a loss?
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  Speaker 3: Again, it would have to be a conversation that we
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  Speaker 3: have with our board at the time.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, so it's a possibility, given that you did turn
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  Speaker 2: around a profit here, did you cut too hard when
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  Speaker 2: you cut?
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  Speaker 3: I knew you'd ask me that question. Look like I said,
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  Speaker 3: we had to make the decisions that we had in
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  Speaker 3: front of us at the time, and so what was
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  Speaker 3: really important is that we set the cost base of
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  Speaker 3: the business into a stable position that we could see
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  Speaker 3: at least for the next three or four years. And
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  Speaker 3: that was really important for us as we started our
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  Speaker 3: investment program. So over the next two years in particular,
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  Speaker 3: we're self funding an investment program, and that's really important
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  Speaker 3: for us to ensure that we can transform. Tving said,
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  Speaker 3: the first thing that all of our viewers will see
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  Speaker 3: will be a brand new tving z plus platform next
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  Speaker 3: year that obviously allows us to have enhanced user experiences,
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  Speaker 3: but also allows us to unlock the capability which you
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  Speaker 3: would have heard us announced earlier this week with in
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  Speaker 3: conjunction with a fef for World Cup rights.
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  Speaker 2: When's the FIFA World Cup again?
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  Speaker 3: It's middle June next year.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, So does that is that the start of you
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  Speaker 2: guys charging us for things? I mean, it's obviously the
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  Speaker 2: first case of it, but how soon after that does
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  Speaker 2: that become the regular thing.
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  Speaker 3: Well, look, it's the first thing that we've identified that's
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  Speaker 3: really important, and we know we'll be big for audiences.
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  Speaker 3: So as a free to we broadcaster, there's always rights
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  Speaker 3: that have been outside of our reach. So for us
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  Speaker 3: to unlock that pay capability, we want to test and
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  Speaker 3: learn how do the super fans want to watch all
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  Speaker 3: one hundred and four matches and then how do we
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  Speaker 3: balance that as well with the free to wear audience exposure.
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  Speaker 3: So we've said the all whites will all be free
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  Speaker 3: on tvings one, so it'll be huge learning opportunity for us.
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  Speaker 2: Do you think are you guys looking at just charging
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  Speaker 2: punters for the big events or do you think you're
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  Speaker 2: going to charge us for the regular stuff that we
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  Speaker 2: like to watch, like Bluey?
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  Speaker 3: Fifty million streams of Bluey in the Last World, how
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  Speaker 3: many of them were your household?
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  Speaker 2: I keep telling you put Bluey behind the pay will
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  Speaker 2: your mint?
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  Speaker 3: Look, we are thinking about it in event space at
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  Speaker 3: the moment. So what we want to be able to
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  Speaker 3: do is you know, TVNZ is free at its core,
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  Speaker 3: and that will continue. We're an ad funded business and
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  Speaker 3: we will be free. But certainly once we test this
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  Speaker 3: event pass with FIFA World Cup, we'll look for other
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  Speaker 3: opportunities as well. It's really around what the audience audiences want,
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  Speaker 3: but also with that pay capability, it means we can
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  Speaker 3: compete for rights that we haven't been able.
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  Speaker 2: To do in that house. I spoke to you about
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  Speaker 2: the netball, Yeah, really happy.
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  Speaker 3: You're just really happy to make it accessible for all
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  Speaker 3: New Zealanders And I think.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, are you actually paying anything or are you
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  Speaker 2: just the lucky recipient of the netball.
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  Speaker 3: That's obviously a commercial sensitivity, so I won't be able
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  Speaker 3: to answer that, but certainly we've had the netball for
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  Speaker 3: the last two years. We've had a free game a
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  Speaker 3: week and so we can see the audience growth there
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  Speaker 3: and how much the audiences love it, and it's really
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  Speaker 3: important for us that we can obviously showcase that well.
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  Speaker 2: It's got to be a point at which when as
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  Speaker 2: you get more we're coming to watch the fever, then
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  Speaker 2: we're coming to watch the netball, then we're coming to
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  Speaker 2: watch the MPC, and we're watching all this stuff. At
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  Speaker 2: some point you will have a credit where you can
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  Speaker 2: start checking a lot more stuff behind the pay well right,
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  Speaker 2: because we'll get used to the platform.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: Again, we are at our heart free toware and so
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  Speaker 3: that's a really important part of our DNA. But with
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  Speaker 3: this capability, it means that we can compete.
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  Speaker 2: You need to make money, Jody.
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  Speaker 3: We do need to make money, No, absolutely we do,
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  Speaker 3: and we will always make the decisions based on that basis.
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  Speaker 2: Speaking of which, how much is are in Z paying
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  Speaker 2: you to be in the building.
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  Speaker 3: Again, that's a commercial negotiation, but we're looking forward to
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  Speaker 3: them when they do move on.
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  Speaker 2: Thank you, Jody. It's worth try. Jody o'donald TV and z' CEO.
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