KEY POINTS:
Taxpayers can heave a sigh of relief now TVNZ and New Zealand On Air have pulled out of the five-days-a-week soap opera The Point.
TVNZ has blown about $600,000 in development funding but says it has the scripts of 60 episodes in hand and expects to use the ideas for future projects.
Television drama is notoriously risky and an outlay of $600,000 is relatively small. But had The Point gone ahead it would have cost much, much more.
Government agencies had committed $36 million of public money over three years, with $25.5 million from NZ On Air (NZOA) and $10.5 million from the fund for TVNZ to deliver its charter.
This means that TVNZ, which was developing the series as part of its bid to increase audiences for One News, had risked none of its commercial resources for what most people would regard as commercial content. TVNZ also kept intellectual property rights and stood to gain if the show was a success.
Why do taxpayers cover TV networks' commercial risks? And why was so much money allocated in a funding deal negotiated in secret between two government agencies and outside normal procedures?
The Point was set in an Auckland community "where new mansions are next to weatherboard homes", whatever that means (think Auckland's Te Atatu Peninsula) and was designed to screen initially on TV One at 5.30 on weeknights.
In a country with low expectations for public TV, this second daily dose of New Zild soap characters strangulating vowels - and eventually no doubt their spouses' lovers - might have become the benchmark Kiwi kulcha, winning supportive fans.
But even if it were successful The Point would have cost cost millions of dollars in public money over several years to build its audience.
TVNZ and NZ On Air pulled out in part because of negative feedback from independent producers invited to make the show. They said the budget of $12 million a year was too low and TVNZ decided it was no longer feasible.
The decision prompted CanWest MediaWorks chief executive Brent Impey to proclaim that "common sense had finally prevailed".
But CanWest has itself been the recipient of government largesse in broadcasting, such as the huge public funding for its bro'Town series.
TV3 does not get charter funding but the taxpayer also covers the risk for its commercial ventures.
The public has learned to be grateful for the broadcasters showing heavily subsidised local content. How many other businesses would enjoy such huge taxpayer investment to lay off risks?
Common sense returns
The Point was conceived during a nadir in the management of TVNZ and New Zealand On Air. The production industry had been complaining about the way the once independent NZOA funding pool was being used to finance government support of TVNZ.
It is not clear how much NZOA understaffing and aggressive lobbying by TVNZ allowed this project to get off the ground.
But NZOA has been through a rough patch. Chairman Don Hunn had to have his contract extended twice. He had trouble finding a chief executive and NZOA went intermittently without an assigned television manager to administer about $50 million in funding a year.
There was widespread relief when Hunn was replaced by career diplomat Neil Walter and when briskly efficient former Broadcasting Standards Authority chief executive Jane Wrightson took over as chief executive of NZOA.
Then former TV One programmer Glenn Usmar was made television manager. Indeed, it is understood NZOA encouraged TVNZ to back away from The Point.
There had also been a change at the top at TVNZ. The main promoter had been commissioning boss Tony Holden. But he left with a swathe of former Ian Fraser appointees under new chief executive Rick Ellis.
Ellis had championed The Point publicly but few at TVNZ had a good thing to say about the soap. With NZ On Air under new management and now cool on the idea, and TVNZ announcing 150 job losses, The Point was a headache Ellis could do without.
Consortium meets telecom
Independent advertising agency Consortium has again hit the right spot in its second television ad campaign for Telecom.
The telco has given high praise to Consortium's Ferrit.co.nz commercials featuring the goofy guy talking about the joys of the online shopping mall. The Ferrit ad is one of those commercials that is a lot better than the product it advertises.
Now Consortium is hitting a bullseye again with the campaign to introduce the new Yahoo!Xtra website - the one that features a couple embarking on a (presumably) first kiss. After the tentative move towards contact the two meet with the payoff line "Good things happen when X meets Y".
This is smart advertising and a promising start to the portal under its new joint venture. In the years when it was XtraMSN it was deadly dull, and this was matched by the advertising developed for Telecom by Saatchi & Saatchi in the dark days before it improved its creative output. But that change was too late to stop Consortium getting its foot in the door with New Zealand's biggest advertiser. That said, Yahoo!Xtra has yet to show it is as good as its advertising.
The rights stuff
News agency Reuters Television is complaining to TV3 News boss Mark Jennings over unauthorised use of items on 3 News.
TV3 says the dispute is over just one item and that it is because of a "different interpretation" of what it is allowed to use for events in the public domain. Reuters confirmed a dispute over rights and referred us to their lawyers, who could not be reached at print time.
A TVNZ source insisted that there had been an issue regarding TV3's use of material over which TVNZ had exclusive rights. The source said it had been a factor in TVNZ pulling out of its Reuters deal.
It said the Reuters clip had been taped off One News and shown on 3 News and the Sydney-based operation had monitored it. Jennings said TV3 had replied to Reuters' communication but had heard nothing back.
He did not recall how TV3 had obtained the clip but said that on the one occasion when it was used - a story about an abduction in eastern Europe - it was subject to the rules for accepted use in news stories.
Jennings said TVNZ had withdrawn from the Reuters deal for a number of reasons and was blaming TV3.
