AAP closes New Zealand Newswire

Australian Associated Press will close its New Zealand Newswire after weak revenue weighed heavily on the business.

AAP chief executive Bruce Davidson.

Australian Associated Press will close its New Zealand Newswire after weak revenue weighed heavily on the business, with the loss of at least ten journalist jobs.

It is understood that while the NZM was still incurring losses seven years after launch, the business was close to breaking even, but pressure from publishers to reduce subscription fees was adding up to a bleak outlook.

The move means New Zealand will no longer have an independent wire service. Of the 14 journalists employed by the operation’s offices, one journalist will return to the Sydney office and two will be retained as correspondents based in Auckland and Wellington.

AAP is in discussions with the remaining 11 members of staff about potential redundancies, and hopes to redeploy at least one to cap the number of redundacies at 10. Staff were given ten-and-a-half weeks notice ahead of the closure on April 27, 2017.

NZN, with offices in Wellington, Auckland and Christchurch, was launched in September, 2011 to report on breaking news events around the country following the closure of the 132-year-old news agency New Zealand Press Association a month earlier.

“This is a challenging and personally trying time for us,” said AAP editor-in-chief Tony Gillies.

“We threw all we could at this. Our staff, some of the best journalists in the business, have worked extremely hard to deliver a news service we have been so proud of these past seven years.”

Aside from local news, NZN journalists also provided coverage of All Black rugby tours; prime ministerial trips; Olympic Games in London, Sochi and Rio; and the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.

It will still provide New Zealand coverage of the Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast in April.

“This has been fantastic work and we will miss this,” Mr Gillies said.

“In the end we have not been able to sustain the business. Our media customers whom we rely on for revenue continue to confront challenges in the industry.”

It comes after former ABC managing director Mark Scott closed the organisation’s New Zealand offices in 2014 as part of wider cuts to its foreign news bureaux.

The NZN closure will be noted with keen interest by executives at Fairfax Media and NZME.

Fairfax is trying to salvage a merger between its New Zealand operations and rival NZME by challenging a High Court decision blocking the deal.

Fairfax and NZME believe that not enough consideration has not been given to the dominance of the Google and Facebook digital advertising duopoly, which is putting publishers under enormous pressure as they attempt to entice subscribers and attract ad dollars.