Whakaata Maori

Whakaata Māori is New Zealand’s Māori-language public broadcaster, established by the Māori Television Service (Te Aratuku Whakaata Irirangi Māori) Act 2003 and on air since 28 March 2004. Originally branded Māori Television, the broadcaster adopted its current bilingual identity, Whakaata Māori, in a formal renaming on 9 June 2022. Its statutory function is to make a significant contribution to the protection and revitalisation of te reo Māori me ōna tikanga, and it sits within New Zealand’s wider Māori-Crown broadcasting framework alongside Te Māngai Pāho (the Māori broadcasting funding agency) and the network of iwi radio stations. The broadcaster is headquartered in Auckland and, following the 2024 restructuring described below, employs approximately 170 staff.

Media assets

Television: Māori Television

Streaming: MĀORI+ on-demand platform (hosts the online-only Te Reo service from March 2025)

Ownership and governance

Whakaata Māori is a statutory Māori-Crown broadcasting entity, established under the Māori Television Service (Te Aratuku Whakaata Irirangi Māori) Act 2003. Its governance structure is built around a seven-member Board: four directors are appointed by Te Mātāwai, the independent Māori-language statutory entity established under Te Ture mō Te Reo Māori 2016, and three are appointed by the responsible Ministers (the Minister for Māori Development and the Minister for Media and Communications). This Māori-Crown appointment model is the principal feature that distinguishes Whakaata Māori from Crown-only-appointed public broadcasters in the State Media Matrix’s state-managed categories.

Jamie Tuuta continues to serve as Toihau (Chair) of the Board through the 2025/26 review period, following a further reappointment in 2025. Shane Taurima (Rongomaiwahine, Ngāti Kahungunu) was reappointed as Kaihautū (Chief Executive) for a second five-year term in August 2023, taking his current term through to 2028. Taurima also serves as Chairperson of the World Indigenous Broadcasters Network, and led the broadcaster through the Wai Whakaata Realignment process described below. The senior leadership team was reduced from seven roles to four during a “phase one” restructuring in mid-2024 and remained at that smaller scale after the realignment was completed in December 2024.

Source of funding and budget

Whakaata Māori is predominantly Crown-funded through Vote Māori Development (formerly Vote Māori Affairs), with the appropriation flowing through the Ministry for Māori Development (Te Puni Kōkiri), supplemented by content-production funding from Te Māngai Pāho. The broadcaster’s 2024-27 Statement of Intent projects a substantial contraction in government funding across the period, from just under NZ$49 million in the 2024/25 financial year to just over NZ$38 million by 2026/27, a cumulative reduction of close to 20 per cent in real terms. Budget 2025, delivered by Minister of Finance Nicola Willis on 22 May 2025, allocated around NZ$42.3 million to Whakaata Māori for the 2025/26 financial year, confirming the downward trajectory. On current funding settings, the Statement of Intent projects a significant deficit by the 2026/27 financial year.

In response to this fiscal pressure, Whakaata Māori announced the Wai Whakaata Realignment in 2024, a strategic restructuring programme guided by the broadcaster’s Tātai Whetū principles. The realignment, completed in December 2024, resulted in three significant operational changes: a net reduction of 27 roles confirmed on 5 December 2024 (alongside the earlier reduction of the senior leadership team from seven to four roles); the transition of the standalone Te Reo channel from terrestrial broadcast to an online-only platform via the MĀORI+ app from March 2025; and the shift of Te Ao Māori News to a digital-first model in December 2024, ending the broadcaster’s long-running linear evening television bulletin. Kaihautū Shane Taurima described the realignment as necessary to ensure the broadcaster’s long-term viability in an evolving media landscape, while critics, including Green Party Māori Development spokesperson Hūhana Lyndon, argued that the funding settings had severely weakened the broadcaster.

The broadcaster’s 2025 Social Value Report, produced independently by Social Ventures Australia, estimated more than NZ$114 million in measured social value generated during the 2023/24 financial year, more than double the broadcaster’s annual operating budget. The reported impacts included increased home use of te reo Māori, stronger cultural identity among Māori viewers, and improved language confidence among learners. Politicians from Te Pāti Māori cited this data in submissions ahead of Budget 2025 to argue for restoration of funding, without success.

Editorial independence

The Māori Television Service Act 2003 protects Whakaata Māori’s editorial independence. Section 5 prevents the Crown- and Te Mātāwai-appointed shareholders from directing the broadcaster on programme content or editorial decisions. The Board is responsible for ensuring that the broadcaster fulfils its statutory function of promoting te reo Māori me ōna tikanga, while operating within New Zealand’s wider content-standards framework: complaints about programme content are first directed to the internal complaints procedure, with unresolved broadcast matters escalable to the Broadcasting Standards Authority and online-content matters to the New Zealand Media Council.

No confirmed evidence of direct executive interference in Whakaata Māori editorial decision-making during the 2025/26 review period was identified in the SMM review.

AI and digital policy

Whakaata Māori maintains a digital presence centred on whakaatamaori.co.nz and maoritelevision.com, with the MĀORI+ on-demand streaming platform (which hosts the online-only Te Reo service) and the Te Ao Māori News digital portal as its two principal audience-facing services, alongside social-media accounts on Facebook, X, Instagram, YouTube and TikTok. No published Whakaata Māori policy on AI-generated content, synthetic-media disclosure or C2PA-style content-provenance frameworks was identified in this review; the broader Māori data-sovereignty discourse in New Zealand has been shaped by independent academic and advocacy work on the implications of generative AI for te reo Māori and tikanga rather than by a single sectoral framework. At national level, New Zealand has no dedicated AI legislation; the National AI Strategy launched in July 2025, the Public Service AI Framework (January 2025) and the Responsible AI Guidance for the Public Service: GenAI (February 2025) provide the principal cross-sectoral reference points, alongside New Zealand’s June 2024 adoption of the revised OECD AI Principles.

June 2026