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New Zealand International (RNZI) broadcasts from New Zealand into the South Pacific and is relayed to South Pacific listeners by their various national news services. In 2006, American academic Andrew M. Clark characterised the role of RNZI as ‘providing a service for the people of the South Pacific’ that also provided ‘an important public diplomacy tool for the New Zealand government’ (Clark, 2006). A decade on, this article evaluates the ongoing use and utility of RNZI as a taxpayer-funded voice of and from New Zealand, as a service for the diverse peoples of the South Pacific and as a tool of New Zealand’s transnational diplomatic efforts.  RNZI is still a key source of local and regional information and connection for the distinct cultures and nations of the vast South Pacific area, whose peoples have strong links to New Zealand through historical ties and contemporary diasporas living in the country. But, RNZI now faces mounting financial pressure, a government swinging between indifferent and hostile to public broadcasting and questions of legitimacy and reach in the ‘digital age’. With RNZI under pressure in 2016, key questions arise about its present and future. What is RNZI doing well and not so well? What role should New Zealand’s domestic and international politics play in the organisation and its outputs? And how might its importance and impact be measured and understood in such a culturally and geographically diverse region as the South Pacific? Using a variety of sources, including documents released to the author under the New Zealand Official Information Act, this article explores the role of RNZI in the contemporary New Zealand and South Pacific media environments.

This article examines ten years of change at New Zealand’s public radio broadcaster, Radio New Zealand (RNZ), as it has adjusted to the new realities of multiplatform content creation and transmission brought on by the transformation of media organizations in the digital age. This necessarily engages with concepts of ‘convergence’ and how media organizations are reflecting theories of digital media change as new platforms emerge and become influential on audiences, content and organizations. RNZ’s ten-year transformation both reflects these new realities and provides new ways of interrogating the vagaries of convergence. This article critiques RNZ’s attempts to transform itself into a multimedia and multiplatform public media provider after a decade of concerted effort that began with mixed successes and ended with a definitive change in culture and content. This has seen the organization go from strength to strength in its digital and broadcast abilities and outputs. It provides an assessment of the changes at RNZ that have allowed this to happen and an evaluation of the process through some of the key concepts that have emerged around media convergence in recent times that reflect the issues radio organizations are facing in the digital age.

In 2005 a major multi---national media company launched a New Zealand radio network that played only New Zealand music-Kiwi FM. Within a year it was clear that the experiment had failed, with the network attracting only negligible audience ratings and unsustainable commercial revenue. It was at this point that the New Zealand government stepped in, granting the network free broadcasting spectrum and significant funding in return for the ongoing promotion of New Zealand music. How this happened provides critical insights into 'third way' approaches to the creative industries, and in particular, local music as a cultural, political and economic commodity. Kiwi FM raises questions about national musical cultures and how artists, governments and businesses interact in these contested spaces. This article explores Kiwi FM as it moved from being a commercial enterprise to a government partner from behind the scenes, using previously unseen documents and interviews with key players in order to interrogate the utility of 'third way' approaches to promoting and supporting the creative industries.