Radio New Zealand (RNZ) is Aotearoa’s public service multimedia broadcaster, committed to delivering trusted, independent news and current affairs. With a wide range of programmes and podcasts, RNZ plays a key role in emergency broadcasting, reaching audiences through three networks: RNZ National, RNZ Concert, and RNZ Pacific.

RNZ focuses on delivering New Zealand-centred stories to a wide audience via radio and online channels, particularly through its website, www.rnz.co.nz. As digital content creation became increasingly central to RNZ’s strategy for audience engagement and growth, the ability to manage a greater volume of digital assets effectively became critical.

As collaborating partners, our goal was to improve content access and usage via a digital transformation project to overhaul digital infrastructure and modernise asset management.

Radio New Zealand embarked on a large-scale program to improve its digital services and architecture. Ackama was brought on board to lead this transformation. RNZ had been using an internally developed CMS (Content Management System), but the system lacked scalability for the growing needs of the newsroom. 

Understanding the technical and workflow challenges was essential, and Ackama engaged deeply with RNZ’s content producers, such as visual journalists and news reporters, through workshops and research. 

“It was very much a technology-led project so we had to do a lot of engagement early on with visual journalists and news producers to fully understand how they would be working.” Matt Gallen, Ackama Business Development Manager.

This thorough discovery phase helped us design a platform that would integrate with RNZ’s existing ecosystem while addressing the unique needs of the newsroom.

The project required not only modernising the CMS but also improving asset organisation, metadata management, and rights information. A cloud-based, off-premise solution was identified as the best approach to eliminate the ongoing support burden on RNZ’s internal team, allowing for more efficient content management.

The core of the project was the implementation of Cloudinary, a cloud-based Digital Asset Management platform. Cloudinary is a widely adopted solution used by some of the world’s leading media organisations, providing a scalable, developer-friendly platform for managing optimising digital assets.

Ackama developed the custom app Pātaka, designed to integrate without friction with Cloudinary. The app provides journalists and content producers with an intuitive interface for uploading, searching, and publishing assets, all while ensuring that metadata and rights information are properly captured. This custom app was tailored to RNZ’s specific workflow, allowing the needs of all users to be met, from journalists to technical teams.

“There are measurable benefits, including occupying less of our own storage, fewer problems with internal infrastructure, and better, faster serving of images.” remarks Brendon Murphy, Radio New Zealand Technology Manager

Cloudinary’s ability to handle both images and audio was another key advantage, allowing RNZ to expand its use of the platform beyond images to audio publishing as well. With built-in scalability and flexibility, Cloudinary offers RNZ the ability to adapt and grow with future digital asset needs. The platform also offers a range of add-ons and APIs, giving RNZ the option to further expand their capabilities as required.

The Pātaka solution has allowed for a streamlined publishing process, with improved asset management and faster, more reliable access to digital media. Journalists now have quick and easy access to high-quality images and audio, with better rights management and metadata tagging, making the content more discoverable and easily reused. This has allowed RNZ’s team to focus on what they do best: producing and sharing Aotearoa’s stories.

The collaboration between Ackama and RNZ has proven to be a successful example of modernising legacy systems through cloud technology. RNZ is now better positioned for future growth, with a digital asset management system that is flexible, scalable, and integrated with its broader digital ecosystem.

Ackama continues to work with RNZ, providing ongoing support, updates, and innovations as their needs evolve. This partnership exemplifies how thoughtful technology and process integration can lead to tangible improvements in operational efficiency and content creation.