Radio New Zealand chief executive Paul Thompson has confirmed he will leave the public broadcaster at the end of 2026, ending a 13-year run at the top of the organisation, and Deputy Prime Minister David Seymour says nobody should be surprised.
Thompson, who has led RNZ since 2013, told the board in December 2025 of his intention to step down. The decision was made public on 22 May, earlier than the broadcaster had planned, after what RNZ board chair Jim Mather described as the current circumstances warranting an earlier statement.
“Paul and the Board agree, given the current circumstances, that it is appropriate to make his announcement earlier to avoid further conjecture and distraction,” Mather said.
Those current circumstances pointed squarely at Seymour, who used an interview on The Platform last month to suggest Thompson would not be answering the call at RNZ for much longer. Asked at Parliament whether he had been tipped off about a coming resignation, Seymour said he had not.
“I wasn’t pre-announcing that,” he told reporters, as quoted by RNZ. “However, I just make the observation, if your numbers are going in the wrong direction and your board is changing, then I wouldn’t be surprised if other changes came with that.”
He went further, taking credit for foresight rather than for any inside line.
“As it turned out, I was right. I didn’t need to be Nostradamus to predict it. I think anyone could have seen that coming.”
Seymour also made plain that he wanted RNZ to change tack.
“Clearly there’s been a decline in listenership. There’s been a decline in trust. He’s had a very long run, and I think it’s probably a good time for RNZ to change its direction slightly.”
That framing runs into one awkward fact. RNZ is, by the most widely cited independent measure, still the most trusted news brand in the country. The 2026 AUT Trust in News survey, the longest-running longitudinal study of New Zealand media confidence, again ranked RNZ at the top of the table.
The listenership story is less flattering. RNZ National peaked at around 607,000 weekly listeners in 2021 during the heaviest Covid period, fell to 468,000 in 2025, and has since recovered slightly above 500,000. It still trails NewstalkZB, the commercial talk station owned by NZME, which has held the number one spot for several survey periods.
Media Minister Paul Goldsmith struck a noticeably different tone from his Cabinet colleague.
“I thank Mr Thompson for his service and wish him well in his endeavours,” Goldsmith said. “All my interactions with him have been very positive.”
The contrast between the two ministers is not accidental. Goldsmith, a National MP, holds the actual broadcasting portfolio. Seymour, the ACT leader and Deputy PM under the rotating arrangement, has been the loudest critic of public broadcasting inside the Coalition, regularly arguing that taxpayer-funded media should either shrink, change scope, or compete on the same commercial footing as everyone else. ACT went into the 2023 election proposing to scale back parts of the public media sector and has continued to apply pressure ever since.
Thompson took over RNZ in 2013. His tenure covers the 2018 funding boost under the first Ardern government, the failed merger with TVNZ that was scrapped in early 2023, the Covid news-of-record period that drove audiences to record highs, and the subsequent post-pandemic audience drift that has hit most legacy broadcasters worldwide. He also navigated the editorial integrity review prompted by the 2023 incident in which a senior digital journalist had been editing wire copy with material sympathetic to Russia.
The departure timing matters politically. Thompson’s exit lands at the end of 2026, just after the next general election. The incoming chief executive will be selected and onboarded by an RNZ board working with a freshly returned, or freshly changed, Coalition. Mather has not yet outlined the recruitment process.
For RNZ staff, the bigger question is what the political mood music means for the next funding round. RNZ receives roughly 73 million dollars a year from the Crown, with the bulk going to its radio and digital news operations. Coalition partners have aired different views on whether that line should hold, grow, or shrink. The next budget cycle will be the test.
For voters, the broader question is what they want public media to look like at all, and who they trust to pay for it. The Newswire voting tool lets you compare where the parties sit on RNZ, broadcasting reform, and a long list of other policy areas before you cast your vote at the 2026 general election.
What do you think? Should public broadcasting be funded at current levels, scaled back, or expanded? Leave a comment below.
This article was written by AI, briefed to report the facts, hopefully without some of the bias people bring to the job 🙂
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