$140,000 on TVNZ CEO credit card as redundancies pile up
Jonathan Marshall at the SST reports:
TVNZ boss Rick Ellis has racked up more than $140,000 on his company plastic – including $32,000 entertaining – during a time of major redundancies at the broadcaster, a Sunday Star-Times survey of more than 100 public-sector chief executives has revealed.
I’ve not been jumping on the bandwagon for most of these disclosures, as they seem reasonable. But hell $140,000 is a lot of money – even over two years.
Ellis’ liberal spending over the 24 months to June this year coincided with a period of plunging profits and savage job cuts at the state-owned enterprise, which has been hit hard by the global financial crisis.
TVNZ’s 2009 annual profit was 89 percent down on the previous year. Some 215 TVNZ staffers have lost their jobs since 2007. Between June 2008 and June 2010, Ellis, who earns between $710,000 and $840,000 yearly, spent $140,768.19 on his TVNZ-issued credit card.
The expenditure may be legit, but that does not mean it was prudent. I am glad to see the Minister asking the Chairman for a please explain.
But assessing just how Ellis spent $140,000 of TVNZ’s money was difficult. Citing commercial sensitivity, the broadcaster refused to hand over anything more than a grand total, broken down into broad categories. This included $11,765.52 on “miscellaneous” items. The broadcaster last night refused to say what they were. The ombudsman is investigating.
TVNZ spokeswoman Megan Richards said TVNZ would release only limited details of Ellis’s expenditure because “we are a commercial operation in a highly competitive, not to say cut-throat global industry. The kind of detail government departments may care to release is damaging to our competitive position.”
Richards said it was unfair for TVNZ to release its data when bosses of private companies Fairfax, APN, MediaWorks and Sky were not forced to.
But Maori TV CEO Jim Mather, also a state-owned enterprise boss, happily provided his credit card statements and receipts. Mather spent $19,632.53 in the same 24-month period.
I may be wrong, but I suspect the privately owned MediaWorks will have a massively smaller bill on their CEO’s credit card.
August 8th, 2010 at 12:19 pm
Does Megan understand the difference between a private and public funded enterprise?
“Richards said it was unfair for TVNZ to release its data when bosses of private companies Fairfax, APN, MediaWorks and Sky were not forced to”
I suspect not…
August 8th, 2010 at 12:27 pm
I recall a JD for a CEO of a division at a corporate group I used to work for specified one of the qualities sought was “a well managed ego.”
I’m wondering if another quality sought is “healthy and expansive sense of entitlement”
August 8th, 2010 at 12:47 pm
Snort, snort, snort, oink, oink, eeeeeeeeeeee………………., snort, snort, eeeeeeeeeeee…….,oink, oink, splash, splash ( rolling around in trough ), snort, snort, oink, very high pitch squeal…………oh dear, arse just blew out.
August 8th, 2010 at 12:55 pm
The real folly is not the expenditure itself but rather the use of the card.
The CEO surely should have had enough brains to have underlings pick up most of the tabs on their cards.
It is for this lack of street smarts he should be fired.
August 8th, 2010 at 1:20 pm
This trougher gets 18 times the average wage yet still cant get by without a top up…what a fat pig.
August 8th, 2010 at 1:25 pm
I believe TVNZ is mostly funded by advertising revenue, minimally through NZ on Air for certain programs, not as a general subsidy
August 8th, 2010 at 1:43 pm
I also believe their shareholder (ie the taxpayer) is currently propping them up.
August 8th, 2010 at 1:55 pm
Break and sell bloody TVNZ. We don’t need this outfit, which produces and broadcasts unadulterated crap.
August 8th, 2010 at 2:25 pm
“This included $11,765.52 on “miscellaneous” items. The broadcaster last night refused to say what they were. The ombudsman is investigating.”
I think miscellaneous items probably means those picked up in the Supermarket during his weekly shopping.
August 8th, 2010 at 2:25 pm
Why wouldn’t APN, Fairfax et al release their CEO’s credit card expenditure if asked? And they might be asked… by shareholders.
But how would, say, details of how APN’s CEO used his credit card affect APN’s competitive position? Unless he was putting actual operational expenses on his Visa to cost-shift… but that’s highly unlikely. It’s a rubbish argument, and TVNZ shouldn’t be allowed to get away with it.
If I were a newspaper boss right now, I’d publish my credit card details on the front page of my newspaper, then call out Ellis.
August 8th, 2010 at 2:31 pm
More money for the Sir Humphrey’s in their bowler hats and pin stripes. More money for the CEO SOe and the Mohair or Leather jackets.
They are really scurrilous, and they also fucken know it, and they know there is Eff all we can do. Their mates the Pollies just feed them more buns for favours in return!
August 8th, 2010 at 2:32 pm
No wonder is it that these scum prop up socialism with lies and propaganda, and if the government ceased advertising, imagine how their profit would subside.
Crooked cronyist scum all part of the same elitist media/ government conglomerate that in the now deceased Soviet Socialist Russia was called the nomenklatura.
August 8th, 2010 at 2:49 pm
Does anyone have a single reason why TVNZ should not be sold?
August 8th, 2010 at 3:01 pm
Partially sold – why not? Merged with RNZ to make a NZBC, with decent programming along the lines of the Australian Broadcasting Commission? Certainly.
ABC have some of the best TV as far as docos are concerned (they beat the pants off discovery etc), and have better news. They don’t have the big budget dramas or sport, and nor should they either.
August 8th, 2010 at 3:29 pm
Not only that, gazzmaniac, but the ABC manage to run:
ABC1 – what TV1 used to be like before the Philistines took over. In depth news and current affairs, good drama (some of it is locally made, but subsidised by a web of Federal and State government funding bodies), comedy etc. Tends to favour British impoted stuff.
ABC2 – timeshifted stuff from ABC1 plus imports from other countries, which opens up a whole lot of programming that I personally find excellent. Canada, for instance, seems to produce comedies that aren’t nearly as crass as those from the US but far quirkier than those from the UK.
ABC3 – dedicated kids’ channel, closes down early evening.
ABC News 24 – I no longer have to resent being blackmailed to pay for a load of crap I don’t want on pay TV if I want to get a 24 hour news service. Yay!
Radio National – pretty much like National Radio.
ABC FM – Concert FM.
Newsradio – like Morning Report / Checkpoint running 24/7. On weekends you get the best of the BBC too (i.e. they don’t just switch on the satellite and you get what happens to be on, they actually select stuff to play you for at least part of the day).
ABC Local Radio – think the RNZ community stations back in the day when they truly were part of the community.
Triple J – one of the main reasons – if not the reason – the Australian music industry is incredibly versatile and strong.
With a smaller population, NZ can’t expect to support that much broadcasting without charging much more per capita. But your suggestion would at least get us a poor man’s version – a decent “main” channel with perhaps a digital offshoot (like TVNZ7). Sell TV2, introduce a restrained level of commercials to Concert FM (the A/B audience is incredibly valuable), and invest the money in content.
Of course the budgets are different. But I’ll bet the ABC’s CEO hasn’t blown $140k on
booze and prostitutes“miscellaneous expenses” while managing to bring all this and more to Australians.August 8th, 2010 at 3:37 pm
DPF> I may be wrong, but I suspect the privately owned MediaWorks will have a massively smaller bill on their CEO’s credit card.
That depends if the shareholders and board of MediaWorks are doing a better job holding the CEO to account compared to the board of TVNZ and the shareholding minister. Both private and public high-level managerial positions are often grossly overpaid – basically a ‘you scratch my back, I scratch yours’ kind of arrangement.
On the plus side, being public means that there can be increased accountability to the public – as long as the government doesn’t allow the private sector to hide behind ‘commercial sensitivity’ and the like.
If the government held TVNZ properly to account (at a financial level, not at the level of editorial decisions, of course), it could be much more efficient than the private sector. Commercial sensitivity of information is not a good excuse; if information helps the private sector improve, without directly costing TVNZ anything, that is good. If private sector are so competitive that even when TVNZ is accountable and efficient we need to fund TVNZ so they can compete (and so it can act in the public interest rather than purely in commercial interests) that demonstrates that the mixed public-private economy is working.
August 8th, 2010 at 4:16 pm
“Does anyone have a single reason why TVNZ should not be sold?”
More than that, do any of the cheer squad for government radio/ TV have a morally acceptable reason why I as a taxpayer should provide them with such an absolutely non-essential service?? If you want radio or TV there are plenty of sources out there. Get your fucking greedy amoral fingers out of my pocket.
August 8th, 2010 at 4:33 pm
But ABC is so left wing it’s not funny.
We watch mainly Sky so would happily see TVNZ sold off as long as we can keep National Radio and the Concert Programme. And the local programmes we fork out for have no appeal to us at all eg Outrageous Fortune glorifying a sleazy family of low-lifes.
I also think it’s time visiting officials pay for their own dinners and public servants stop all this lavish entertaining. It’s all scratch my back and makes no difference in the long run to agreements, treaties, sales etc. The only people affected would be ridiculously priced restaurants and the staff they employ. No wonder Wellington is so over-supplied with high end restaurants. I wonder how many would survive without the taxpayer dollar?
August 8th, 2010 at 4:45 pm
As a redundant worker but with a part time job, i willing to take the weight of his plastic credit card(carring it) on my back so this trougher dosnt strain himself for 10% of his troughing (UM easy money he has spent on the sweat of my tiny wage)
August 8th, 2010 at 4:56 pm
TVNZ spokeswoman Megan Richards said
…who gives a flying fk what Ms Richards says…cant porky ellis speak for himself…Im payin your wages fat boy..I wana know , from you , what you spent my tax paying dollars on…get off ya tosh and front piglet.
August 8th, 2010 at 5:15 pm
Rick Ellis used to be my boss once. No wonder he went to the state sector. That sort of thing would have been a no-no in the private sector I suspect.
August 8th, 2010 at 5:16 pm
Shoot, most people would be quite happy to have that as a wage over two years, let alone as credit card “expenses”.
Some people just live in another world.
August 8th, 2010 at 5:39 pm
Rick Ellis wasn’t very liked at EDS/Databank. I know quite a few people who hated his guts.
August 8th, 2010 at 5:48 pm
*hic*
August 8th, 2010 at 6:28 pm
I was told the other day that I am a loser because I earn less the 100 grand a year.
Here is a troffing pig that gets paid 840 grand of our money to run state TV that rarely has anything worth watching and produces extremely biased (journOlist?) news.
On top of this the business is running on negative profit and laying off staff, but he still sees fit to stick us for another 140 grand.
This mongrel isn’t a pig troffer, he’s just plain pig shit.
Who’s the loser?
August 8th, 2010 at 6:40 pm
It kinda depends what was in there, my bill for 2 years would easily be 1/2 that, what I am trying to say is if his travel and accommodation was all on the credit card, then it’s fair. Given the international travel his role would entail, if however it is excluding airfares and accomodation then damn he has been living well.
As an aside commercial reasons for not disclosing the breakdown is b*****t.
August 8th, 2010 at 7:00 pm
Looks like Ellis jumped ship from EDS too soon when you see Hurd got $40 million after ripping off HP (who took over EDS) http://www.engadget.com/2010/08/06/former-hp-ceo-mark-hurd-rewarded-with-a-12m-severance-after-bei/ maybe with private enterprise its better to get caught.
August 8th, 2010 at 7:13 pm
Is Megan Richards a silly bint or what…..
Private companies can be forced to release their CEO’s expenditure to their board and shareholders, if required by either. Just because TVNZ is from the state sector does not indemnify them from scrutiny by their board and shareholders (me and you).
As someone whom spends a massive amount of money on creditcards, due to the nature of my business, I find these amounts staggering, as knowing what I spend the money on to incur this level of costs, they must be living one helluva life.
I have regular business class trips all over the world, 4-5 star hotels for 200 days a year, most company expenditure, flights for contractors, all for around 200k p.a.
So what are they spending the money on????
August 8th, 2010 at 7:16 pm
I’ll bet his creditcard does not include flights, as they will have a corporate travel arrangement where their travel is invoiced directly.
August 8th, 2010 at 7:37 pm
The whole lot of them outed this week are a bunch of fat, troughing pigs . Snouts in the trough, snuffle snuffle snuffle, while the rest of the country tightens their belts. Makes me sick.
August 8th, 2010 at 7:49 pm
I wonder what the laid off average joe TVNZ worker now struggling to pay a mortgage, makes of this.
This really is disgusting, but is no more than can be expected with big government. Handouts to its cronies. Sell the whole sleazy joint.
August 8th, 2010 at 7:52 pm
I agree completely, that wins the prize for biggest dumbfuck comment of the year.
No doubt some political science or BA grad straight out of uni. No idea of the real world
August 8th, 2010 at 9:09 pm
She’ll be some dumbfuck marketing grad nickb, whom, in my experience, believe they are the most important function of an organisation.
Oh to have such belief in oneself….
It is horrifying to look at the statistics of science grads to marketing grads ratio, I don’t remember what it is, and internet connection is too slow here to look it up, but something in the order of 100:1, in favour of marketing. Any wonder our country is fucked when we’re turning out so many unproductive fuckwits.
August 8th, 2010 at 9:53 pm
Adolf Fiinkensein: “The CEO surely should have had enough brains to have underlings pick up most of the tabs on their cards.”
The underlings did pick up most of the tabs on their cards.
August 8th, 2010 at 10:44 pm
This nearly all driven by petty media jealousy. 2+2 = 22 it seems here and in the paper
If his company is like mine the most senior person picks up the tab so as the CEO he would pay for everything he might attend. The reason is to prevent underlings being put in difficult situations and bosses signing off their own expenses.
Colleagues have had to pay for company conferences, company christmas parties involving a couple of hundred people, as well as international travel which quickly gets costly.
But even if it doesn’t cover that stuff, there is good reason not to reveal the details as i doub;t they want the opposition to know what execs of advertisers they have been buttering up.
August 8th, 2010 at 10:44 pm
I would LOVE to see porker Jonathon Hunt’s wining and dining expenses when he was living high on the hog in London.
August 8th, 2010 at 10:46 pm
eszett: “I believe TVNZ is mostly funded by advertising revenue, minimally through NZ on Air for certain programs, not as a general subsidy.”
Here we go again. TVNZ too loves this kind of line implying that it’s a fully commercial business, paying its way through advertising revenue. The financial facts are that:
- One helluva proportion of said advertising is effectively subsidy revenue that comes from Government entities (us).
- As in any business, equity in the company is a financial liability to the shareholders (us).
- TVNZ enjoys an implied guarantee from the Government (us) – it won’t be allowed to go broke!
- Despite all that advertising revenue, most of the time TVNZ does not earn a respectable commercial return on equity.
- TVNZ requires periodic bail-outs and subsidies from Government (us), cf injections of funds to assist digitalization, and the so-called “Charter” subsidies that disappeared down the drain under the previous Government.
Let’s dispel once and for all the quaint notion that TVNZ is “competitive” and “commercial” in the real broadcasting world. It’s not. It is propped up by Government (us) with normal commercial risks being borne ultimately by the public exchequer (us). There is no remaining justification for state ownership of this populist broadcaster of very lightweight news and entertainment programme material.
August 8th, 2010 at 11:10 pm
Just sell it off!!
We need to money, and it is a sink hole.
In the next Parliament of course!
August 9th, 2010 at 9:29 am
The left loves state services.
The right loves to turn these services into “Corporations” based on a “private enterprise model” which “will surely operate them on a competitive commercial footing and provide a better return on taxpayer’s money” or so the theory/doctrine goes.
Wrong.
C***s in suits at the top cream off what used to be wasted by the hopeless at the bottom.
Otherwise known as JOBS FOR THE BOYS.
Insert just another layer of un-elected, below-the-radar troughers here. Only difference seems to be the letters after their names, C.E.O. instead of The Hon…
August 9th, 2010 at 10:47 am
I’ll bet his creditcard does not include flights, as they will have a corporate travel arrangement where their travel is invoiced directly.
Incorrect, a large portion of TVNZ expenditure is done via credit card rather than running creditor accounts. Thus people should take a deep breath regarding this, otherwise it is they that may look silly.
August 9th, 2010 at 11:07 am
Mattyroo, “I have regular business trips all over the world, 4-5 star hotels 200 days a year”. If you need someone to carry your bags you know where to find me.
August 9th, 2010 at 11:33 am
@calendar girl – very nice summary of all the special advantages that TVNZ enjoys.
They also occupy slots 1 and 2 on any television set, SKY decoder, etc. How about we stick them on slots 37 and 63 and see how many people tune in?
August 9th, 2010 at 11:57 am
In the private sector C.E.O.’s do incur costs similar to those of Ric Ellis so in that respect it is nothing new. TVNZ is an S.O.E. and to intents and purposes operates as a private company in a competitive enviroment therefore it’s (TVNZ) operating expenses can be considerable.
The singular requirement of any company is to make a profit and a return on investment to shareholders. If a company is not performing for whatever reason then there could be an occassion to examine costs in relation to making savings on operating expenditure.This may entail limiting executive travel and reviewing bottomline costs associated with personel.
August 9th, 2010 at 3:40 pm
Being rather naive (along with old, idle and a constant drain on the state) can anyone please explain why we need a state owned TV, with four outlets and a state radio with how ever many outlets and yet leave the fish and chip wrapper industry to the private sector .
How can we get any truth in news without an equivelent of” Pravda”.
August 9th, 2010 at 5:41 pm
No further moves will be made by the Broadcasting Minister against the CEO of TVNZ for excessive spending on his credit card.
Rick Ellis spent more than $140,000 on his business credit card in two years, with $32,000 of that on entertaining.
Minister Jonathan Coleman says he’s spoken with TVNZ chairman Sir John Anderson about the spending.
Sir John told him he’s comfortable with the spending, given the role TVNZ plays and the state of the economy
…”nothing to see oink here…oink oink..move on move oink..on…fuckers”…
August 9th, 2010 at 5:44 pm
Starboard at 5.41: exactly. Talk about a whitewash, the lot of them. Troughing bastards
August 9th, 2010 at 5:48 pm
this country is corrupt.