KEY POINTS:
They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but I am yet to be paid a cent for any of the pictures that have accompanied my columns over the past three years. I won't bring this up again - I just think it needed to be said.
Recently I have been hosting a breakfast show with Jason Hoyte and Matai Johnson. It's called the Late Night Big Breakfast and it's full of interesting guests, community information and fun. It is just like any other breakfast TV show but it screens late at night, more specifically sometime after 10.30pm on the new series of Moon TV.
Moon TV has now evolved into an entire network called MTN, or Moon Television Network. It comes complete with its own weather, a voice of the network which lets viewers know what they have been watching, what's coming up next, and "do not adjust your set" type information if there happens to be a technical glitch that means we have to shut things down for a while.
One of the things we are most proud of at MTN is the fact we run more in-house promos than TVNZ, CNN and TV3 combined - more than 55 per cent of the programming is in-house promos.
Promos aside, the Late Night Big Breakfast show is probably the most exciting show on the network.
It is a very flexible format, paid for by infomercials that we make in-house. This flexibility allows us the time to discuss issues of interest to everyday New Zealanders or, put another way, issues of no interest to non-everyday New Zealanders.
It has a relaxed feel and we even have our own coffee cups with the name of the show embossed on them, but we need to be wary of coffee spillage as the show is hosted from the Target Furniture Hyper-mart on Dominion Rd.
The last thing we want to do is have to buy an entire lounge suite just because somebody spilled coffee on it, as the whole point of doing the show in a furniture showroom is to save money.
To make our set we had permission to use any of the lounge suites on the showroom floor and, with more than 1200 colours and styles to choose from, we were spoilt for choice. It was then just a matter of bringing in a couple of book-shelves from the book shelf section, adding some vases with holes in them and Jason's TV, and we had ourselves a set that puts Paul and Pippa's to shame.
So what else will you see on the show?
Matai, as expected, will run his complete fitness segment. Other popular segments will include a weekly roundup of the women's magazines, and music from up-and-coming musicians you would probably never get to see had it not been for shows like ours.
This includes musicians such as father-and-son duo Sonic Groove, who appeared on the first episode to promote their new EP Smokey Town, but forgot to bring their instruments with them. For some reason they presumed we wanted to interview them rather than hear them sing. So while we interviewed psychologist Sara Chatwin and actor Richard Thompson they stood beside the couch doing nothing for the entire show.
It would be fair to say that Sonic Groove will not be invited back to appear on the show anytime soon.
Incidentally, I listened to Smokey Town in the car on the way home from the shoot and thought it was bland, lacking in originality, and, quite frankly, I don't think they have a career in music ahead of them.
One of the more popular segments is men's issues. We discuss men's health, communicate men's concerns and touch lightly on sexual problems such as premature ejaculation.
We offer solutions, many of which are on the cutting edge of science. For example, many of our viewers are probably not aware that acupuncture is now considered quite a reliable cure for premature ejaculation.
Research suggests that a man is far less likely to become over-aroused during love-making, if an elderly Chinese man is sticking needles into his testicles at the time.
Be sure to get all this and more on the Late Night Big Breakfast Show.
