KEY POINTS:
ACP Magazines New Zealand is disestablishing the role of editor at North & South and Metro magazines, leaving North & South editor Robyn Langwell mulling over her future.
ACP bosses told North & South and Metro staff on Friday that the company was looking at restructuring its current affairs titles and is holding back from replacing Metro editor Lauren Quaintance, who leaves soon for Australia.
ACP looks set to do away with stand-alone editors on the two titles, and appoint deputy editors. It is planning to appoint an editor-in-chief who will oversee both magazines.
The change would mean the two titles share an art department.
More significantly, it would disestablish North & South's editor role, held by Langwell for 21 years. Langwell and her husband Warwick Roger - Metro founding editor and until recently North & South's editor at large - are veterans of the magazine sector and are held in high regard.
Due to her longevity, a special relationship with Aussie management and, not least, Langwell's strong personality, North & South has stayed aloof from the constant tweaking and makeovers the ACP management hierarchy applies to its other titles.
Langwell points out there have been changes along the way, including a new design this year.
But critics say North & South's formula, which was so successful five years ago, needs a more radical makeover. In particular, it is understood ACP has been told of a perception among some advertisers that the title's audience has an even older skew - up to people aged 60 plus - limiting its appeal to advertisers.
North & South's circulation fell 9 per cent in the last six-monthly circulation audit while Metro was up by 5 per cent.
ACP Magazines group publisher Debra Millar cautioned this reporter to be "very careful" reporting speculation there was a dispute around North & South.
Millar insisted no decision had been made yet about the restructure and she was consulting staff.
Langwell, when asked yesterday if she was considering applying for the new role of editor-in-chief for Metro and North & South, said she was "off to the beach" and had not made any decisions about her situation.
She declined to comment on suggestions there had been discussions with management in recent times - "you will understand why".
ACP New Zealand is part of James Packer's profitable Publishing and Broadcasting, half of which has recently been spun off to private equity.
The ACP New Zealand chief executive, Heith Mackay-Cruise, is ending eight years with the company to run an education-based publishing company. Millar - who oversees 14 magazine titles - is expected to be a contender for the top job.
ACP has been advertising for an editor at Metro to replace Quaintance, who is moving to Australia for personal reasons after 18 months in the job. However it appears that position will no longer exist.
Saatchi Snatch Harland
Recently departed Lowe Advertising managing director Cameron Harland has not had to wait long for a new job. Saatchi & Saatchi has hired him to be general manager of its Wellington agency. Lowe lost its its two most high-profile accounts - the New Zealand Lotteries Commission and Vodafone - in quick succession recently, with Harland resigning soon after.
The former Saatchi London suit - he worked on the Toyota account there - will run the Wellington agency, which is focused on Government business. Partnering Harland will be Tim Hall, who has been appointed creative director in the capital branch. Hall is a former deputy creative director of Clemenger BBDO in Sydney.
Harland replaces Jonathan Russell, who has been heading a "Shopper Marketing" initiative called Saatchi X.
The Media Money-Go-Round
While Radio New Zealand is reportedly running out of cash and selling off its grand pianos, and TVNZ is sacking 60 news staff, Government funding agency New Zealand On Air has given away $220,000 for a third series of CanWest gameshow Pop Goes The Weasel. The series, made by Low Down Concepts and hosted by Jacqui Brown, is relatively cheap to fund - $20,000 per half hour show - - and screens in primetime on C4 and late at night on TV3. It rates poorly and has basic production values. It also allows musicians about town to show off their sharp wit to viewers and is a bit rude - so, of course, it is a big hit with 12- and 13-year-olds.
Indeed, the Government and its largesse towards the pop music industry have a high profile at the moment, considering it's New Zealand Music Month. And while news goes to the dogs, the politicians and funding bodies are desperate to reach 12-year-olds. As well as money for Pop Goes The Weasel, New Zealand On Air has given CanWest nearly $1.45 million over the past four years as a direct subsidy for its C4 music channel - a grant that is largely to support the channel because it plays so many of the music videos NZOA funds.
The Government justifies this generosity by saying that the production costs for TV are so high that it is just not economic in New Zealand. So what about its subsidies to commercial radio?
CanWest's Radio Live - which is said to be breaking even financially - is running Public Address Radio, a programme presented by Russell Brown and David Slack and also produced by Low Down Concepts. It has been given a $40,000 grant from New Zealand On Air for its first 10 shows.
Rival radio broadcaster The Radio Network also uses programmes subsidised by New Zealand On Air. But CanWest appears to have the best place at the public funding trough. We wonder how much the prospective buyers for CanWest are now valuing its access to free taxpayer funding.
Fried Alive
Last week's light-hearted jape and illustration about the wok transmitter used by a tiny Oamaru TV broadcaster has drawn a response from John McManus of Epsom. He said it would not work. Why? We'll let him tell you: "For this to work, the outer end of [the] adapter needs to be at the focal point of the wok - this gives maximum gain. A ... line of sight, wok to wok, of some 10km is achievable if good-quality connecting cables are used.
"The formula to calculate this is as follows. FP = focal point from centre of dish: dish diameter squared over 16 times c (depth of dish from rim to centre). The formula is written thus: D squared over 16 times c."
The good news for the wok-less is that McManus says it also works with a frying-pan skimmer.
Also on a technical point, TVNZ communications director Peter Parussini points out he was incorrect telling this column last week that the two new TVNZ Freeview channels will be encrypted so they cannot be picked up by Sky.
In fact, Freeview set-top boxes cannot deal with encrypted signals. TVNZ says Sky still cannot play them. But it is prevented by the Copyright Act, not by technology.
