Pacific Media Network (PMN)

Pacific Media Network (PMN) is New Zealand’s pan-Pacific public radio and digital media broadcaster, owned and operated by the National Pacific Radio Trust (NPRT), a charitable trust whose trustees are appointed under a ministerial appointment framework. The Trust has presented itself in more recent communications and in the June 2025 appointment release as the National Pacific Media Trust (NPMT), although the National Pacific Radio Trust remains the entity name used in the Government’s public directory and in NZ On Air funding records. PMN traces its origins to Radio 531pi, established by the Auckland Pacific Island Community Radio Trust in Ōtāhuhu in 1993, and now serves an estimated 92 per cent of New Zealand’s Pacific population through a nationally available network of radio, digital news and language-specific services across Cook Islands Māori, Niuean, Tongan, Samoan, Tuvaluan, Kiribati Gilbertese, Fijian, Rotuman, Tokelauan and Solomon Islands languages, alongside English-language content. PMN is headquartered in Auckland.

Media assets

Radio: Niu FM (Auckland and key regions), 531pi (national network), PMN News, Samoa Capital Radio

Pacific language services: PMN Cook Islands, PMN Niue, PMN Tonga, PMN Samoa, PMN Fiji, PMN Rotuma, PMN Kiribati, PMN Tokelau, PMN Tuvalu, PMN Solomons

Ownership and governance

PMN’s governing body, the National Pacific Radio Trust, is a charitable trust whose trustees are appointed by the Minister for Media and Communications on the advice of the Ministry for Pacific Peoples. The Trust operates under a Deed of Trust that specifies a charitable purpose centred on providing media services for Pacific communities in Aotearoa New Zealand, with reach back to homeland Pacific nations. The Board comprises six trustees as of mid-2026, with significant turnover during the review period.

In June 2025, the Minister for Media and Communications announced the appointment of three new trustees, Hinurewa (Hinu) te Hau, Dr Ruby Manukia-Schaumkel and Ruth Sio-Lokam, alongside the reappointment of Teremoana Rapley and Holona Lui (the latter as Deputy Chair). Tiumalu Peter Fa’afiu, originally appointed as Chair by the Government in August 2017, continues to serve as Chairperson through the 2025/26 review period.

At management level, Don Mann, of Tongan and Māori descent with affiliations to Vava’u, Ngāti Ruapani and Ngāti Kahungunu, has served as Chief Executive Officer since 1 July 2020, having previously been CEO of the Pacific Cooperation Foundation. Mann has overseen PMN’s transition from a primarily radio-focused operation to a multi-platform digital and content production organisation, including the November 2025 signing of a Memorandum of Understanding with the National Broadcasting Corporation of Papua New Guinea (NBC PNG) for content sharing, talent development and co-production aimed at strengthening PMN’s offering to Melanesian Pacific communities in Aotearoa.

Source of funding and budget

PMN is overwhelmingly publicly funded through annual contracts with NZ On Air, the Crown agency responsible for content investment in New Zealand public media, supplemented by project-specific public funding (including Pacific-language funds such as the Moana Reo Media Fund, a contestable scheme initially established under Budget 2023 with an allocation of NZ$2.6 million and administered by the Ministry for Pacific Peoples) and a small share of commercial revenue (advertising, sponsorship and production partnerships). The SMM baseline records NZ On Air funding to PMN of around NZ$5.1 million in the most recently reported figures, by 2023, with subsequent annual levels depending on contracting decisions.

The funding environment has tightened in two specific respects relevant to the 2025/26 cycle. The Public Interest Journalism Fund (PIJ Fund), a NZ$55 million time-limited NZ On Air programme established by the previous Labour government from which PMN had secured up to NZ$275,000 for Pacific news reporting, expired across the 2024 to 2025 period and was wound up without a continuing successor of equivalent scale, removing a supplementary funding stream from which PMN had previously benefited and increasing the importance of its core NZ On Air contract and project-specific Pacific-language funds. Separately, the broader Crown media-funding architecture is under review through the Ministry for Culture and Heritage’s Media Reform consultation, which closed on 23 March 2025; the outcome and any resulting structural changes that may affect Pacific public-interest media funding and regulation in future cycles remain pending as of mid-2026. PMN was among the public-media stakeholders engaged in the consultation debate.

Notwithstanding the funding pressure, PMN has expanded its operational footprint during the cycle. In 2025/26 the broadcaster and Radio New Zealand jointly launched a talent retention pilot to develop Pacific journalists, partly in response to the wind-down of the cross-sector Te Rito Journalism cadet scheme. PMN also took home two key awards at the 2025 New Zealand Radio & Podcast Awards, providing external recognition of editorial and programming quality during the review period.

Editorial independence

PMN’s editorial independence is anchored in the structural separation between the Trust and the Crown shareholding ministries, in the absence of any statutory regime requiring government approval of programme content, and in the broadcaster’s adherence to the Broadcasting Standards Authority code framework for radio content and the New Zealand Media Council principles for online content. The Trust’s Deed of Trust frames PMN’s editorial role as serving the Pacific diaspora in New Zealand and providing connectivity to homeland communities, without prescribing political content positions.

No confirmed evidence of direct ministerial direction on programme content or editorial decisions during the 2025/26 review period was identified in the SMM review.

AI and digital policy

PMN maintains a digital presence centred on pmn.co.nz, with the PMN News portal and an extensive podcast catalogue as its principal digital reach mechanisms, alongside social-media accounts on Facebook, X, Instagram, YouTube and TikTok. No published PMN policy on AI-generated content, synthetic-media disclosure or C2PA-style content-provenance frameworks was identified in this review; the broadcaster did not feature in the February 2026 joint declaration on no AI-generated editorial video or imagery made by TVNZ, RNZ, the New Zealand Herald and Stuff.

June 2026