KEY POINTS:
TVNZ is trying to link its new Ondemand website with Apple iTunes but is at the back of a queue of other international broadcasters trying to take a bite of Apple.
TVNZ chief executive Rick Ellis confirmed yesterday that it was seeking closer ties between its new download website and iTunes but that decisions were made by Apple at a global level.
"We are very interested but unfortunately we are about 40th in the queue," said Ellis through spokeswoman Megan Richards.
TVNZ's Ondemand move has been intriguing. Internationally Apple is the most advanced in paid downloads of programming and recently established its iTunes store in New Zealand.
This column has noted in the past that Rick Ellis - the new-tech friendly TVNZ chief executive behind TVNZ Ondemand - was recently reappointed as a director of Renaissance New Zealand, the publicly listed company that holds distribution rights for Apple in this country.
It would seem strange for a director of Renaissance to be running a competing service for downloading content and competing for rights.
Ellis confirmed the connection made sense and hoped to have closer ties in the future.
iTunes is not part of Renaissance but the two are intimately connected.
A TVNZ-iTunes tie-up makes sense with TVNZ combining its strong local brand with the international firepower of Apple.
Brave new world
These are interesting times for both global and local media.
Old media companies are not just colonising the online world to grab a share of advertising income through sites such as nzherald.co.nz and stuff.co.nz.
At a global level media conglomerates are trying to protect advertising revenue as the public shifts online. And some are buddying up with one another during the expensive shift into the digital world.
The growth of free download sites such as YouTube means the focus is on protecting the value of content and not just securing a share of ad revenue.
Associated Press reported last week that established content-based media companies NBC Universal and News Corporation were joining internet-based AOL, MSN and Yahoo! to create a video network for television shows and movies.
In New Zealand we have our own small-scale marriages of convenience.
Central has been ACP Magazines New Zealand, the local arm of the Publishing and Broadcasting part of the James Packer organisation.
ACP recently joined APN News & Media, publisher of the Herald, to create sellmefree.co.nz, a free online classified site.
ACP is active in the classified market through its Trader division and the joint venture website maintains a hold in the free online classified market dominated by Fairfax-owned Trade Me.
Separately, ACP Magazines has formed a joint venture with MSN and TV3.co.nz to develop a portal in New Zealand. MSN is linked to Packer's Nine Network through the website ninemsn.com.au.
The tie-up with the MSN portal makes good sense for TV3 owners CanWest MediaWorks.
CanWest has a notoriously tight focus on bottom line and has long avoided investment in an online presence largely because of the costs involved.
For MSN, CanWest's highly recognisable content TV3, C4 and its radio operations - including RadioLive - will be a key part of its push to increase hit rates.
CanWest will work at delivering downloads of TV programmes in an effort to match the state broadcaster and its Ondemand website.
CanWest chief executive Brent Impey would not give details of the relationship - formed recently after the break-up of the Telecom joint venture XtraMSN. Unlike TVNZ, CanWest does not retain a lot of the intellectual property rights to non-news programming so it will not be able to pick up as much cash as TVNZ.
APN restructuring
APN's decision to outsource the subediting of its newspapers in the group - including the Herald - has been a talking point around the media sector this week.
The proposal announced to APN staff last Thursday is to hire an outside company, Pagemasters, to handle the subediting function of APN newspapers around the country including the Northern Advocate, Bay Of Plenty Times, Rotorua Post, and Hawke's Bay Today.
The Listener and Herald on Sunday will also be affected.
The proposal is an advanced version of an international trend to outsourcing, so has been getting coverage internationally. The change will mean APN shedding in-house subediting jobs and Pagemasters hiring staff to take over the functions at a new central point, most likely in the Auckland suburb of Ellerslie close to the APN printing presses.
The outsourcing marks a big change to the culture of newsrooms by splitting the main editorial functions - putting together stories - between two sites and companies. The move is complicated by being implemented amid union negotiations for the collective contract governing Herald editorial staff.
Many staff and the the Engineering Printing and Manufacturing Union have vowed to oppose the move which they insist would create problems and a fall in standards, a view rejected by management which says that high standards will be maintained.
Beyond production issues the change would make it more difficult for the collective to prevent the company from publishing should there be strike action in support of the collective contract.
The Sunday Star-Times, owned by rival newspaper company Fairfax, focused on the issue in an editorial this week though it managed to do so without actually mentioning the name APN.
The editorial described the proposal as a "factory" approach designed to save money but said that it would be bad for newspapers.
The editorial noted that Pagemasters was owned by the Australian Associated Press news agency. AAP is 45 per cent owned by Fairfax, 45 per cent by Rupert Murdoch's News Ltd, 8 per cent by West Australian Newspapers, and 2 per cent by Rural Press.
Editors away
The departure of the Australian Women's Weekly editor Deborah Telford has led to some hand-wringing among ACP executives.
This column said incorrectly last week that Telford was moving to Australia. In fact she is still here and as a judge of the New Zealand Magazine Awards to be held in May will be casting an eye over the ACP stable.
Another clarification. I noted the resignation of Metro editor Lauren Quaintance saying that she could point to growth in the circulation during her 15 month reign. Quaintance points out that by the time of her departure in May she will have been editor of Metro of 18 months, not 15.
