Yesterday, the board of New Zealand’s public service radio, Radio New Zealand announced Paul Thompson as the new CEO and Editor-in-Chief.

Thompson replaces current RNZ’s Australian CEO Peter Cavanagh who has been with the public service broadcaster for the past ten year. Cavanagh is set to stop down at the end of the year as his contract expires.

Currently, Thompson is the group Executive Editor for Fairfax Media in New Zealand and has previously worked as a Fairfax writer and is the former editor of the Christchurch Press.

RNZ listeners are reportedly worried that Thompson’s commercial background may influence  unwanted changes to the public service broadcaster but in a statement to stuff.co.nz Thompson said:

“That’s not up for discussion. Being a state-funded public broadcaster “is the absolute essence” of RNZ. I’m certainly not going there to turn a commercial-free world on its head. It is a commercial-free state-funded broadcaster. It’s not changing.”