KEY POINTS:
Campbell Live's handling of its February 22 interview of an alleged war medals thief suggests deeper problems at TV3's weeknight current affairs and magazine show.
Never mind the debate about the channel chatting to the crim or whether it was a soft interview. Other media wanted the story and TV3 got it. That's the way TV shows attract viewers.
But the melodramatic treatment damaged the Campbell brand.
TV3 have got off lightly.
The segment - in which John Campbell acted out an interview with a hooded actor in a blood-red room pretending to be the self-proclaimed medals thief - led to a dive initially but ratings have returned to the level they were earlier this year.
But the interview has done nothing to turn around the dismal start for the show this year compared to last.
In the year to date, Campbell Live has been watched by 4.8 per cent of people in its key demographics of people aged 18-49, compared to 5.7 per cent last year. Results are similar for the Close Up key demographic of 25-54-year-olds with Campbell Live down from 5.8 per cent to 4.7 per cent. Close Up has gone from 8.1 per cent to 8.9.
INTERVIEWER AS ACTOR
TV3 marketing boss Roger Beaumont played down the results saying that Campbell Live was doing better in bigger cities. But something is amiss at the show in which Campbell and executive producer Carol Hirschfeld wield a big role, and not everybody on the team is happy, we hear.
TV outsiders - people from neither TV3 nor TVNZ - suggest poor ratings are a symptom of competing for resources with Sunrise and an attempt to "catch-up" on Close Up after a late start to the year.
Former rival Paul Holmes went ballistic at Campbell in the Herald on Sunday and, while there is clearly an element of personal angst, he was right on some points.
TV3 has acknowledged that it made a mistake.
Last weekend Campbell told the Sunday Star Times TV3 had "stuffed up" by not explaining that his "interview" or the hooded figure was a re-enactment of a real interview held earlier.
But two weeks after that interview, TV3 has an unaltered video - with no mention of a re-enactment - in a video clip on the Campbell Live web page.
As with the original lapse, there appears to be no system in place.
The problem goes beyond failing to mention the reconstruction. It's Campbell's willingness to turn from journalist to actor.
It is one thing to have Campbell - complete with searching glare and body language - pretending to conduct an interview. Back editing happens all the time when you have only one camera in the room.
But Campbell went a step further.
Not only was he acting out an interview. He was acting out an interview with another actor in the room. Maybe Oliver Driver can act as a Campbell Live stand in.
Even if you admit it's a reconstruction, it makes the TV3 star look like an idiot.
MAORI MEDIA
If you are looking for the future of Auckland Maori radio, turn up at the Ponsonby offices of MediaWorks between 1pm and 4pm on weekdays.
That is when Willie Jackson and John Tamihere - leaders at the urban Maori authorities for Manukau and Waipareira, holding rights to Crown frequencies set aside for Maori - run their popular programme on RadioLive.
Elsewhere in the building are offices for Brent Impey, chief executive of MediaWorks, who negotiated the purchase of Mai FM.
Elsewhere MediaWorks' TV3 has formed a close relationship, sharing news with Maori TV.
Impey has shown his business nous forming good relationships with Maori who control a scarce commodity in Auckland - FM radio frequencies.
Under his deal with Mai FM, MediaWorks has bought out the 50/50 joint venture partners made up of management and the Ngati Whatua tribe, but the tribe keeps and leases the valuable 88.6 FM frequency.
Use of Maori frequencies like Mai FM are dependent on limited interest by government departments in four of the Maori frequencies being used for anything more than cursory Maori content.
Mai FM has a following but sometimes it is as Maori as me.
In the past, Ngati Whatua has been happy to own half of Mai FM which for part of the time has returned good profits.
Then the rival Radio Network started Flava, an R&B-focused station that ate away at Mai's audience.
Separately, Mai FM chief executive Graham Pryor ran Ruia Mai, which held contracts for Maori Language News content on iwi stations. Ruia Mai is credited with training many talented Maori broadcasters.
Three years ago Maori funding agency Te Mangai Paho awarded the Maori language content to another Maori broadcaster - Jackson - based at Radio Waatea in South Auckland.
The Manukau and Waipareira Trusts are vested with control of the Radio Waatea frequency and for an Auckland frequency that is leased out to the hip urban dance music station George FM.
Maori content at George FM is focused on a show from 4am to 6.30am. Auckland commercial broadcasters - including Impey - have questioned the arrangement where MediaWorks and TRN have paid up to $6 million for an FM frequency. But as he did with Kiwi FM - where he obtained control of a Crown frequency without paying cash for it - Impey has found a way to make the public broadcasting system work for MediaWorks.
BOUNCING ALONG
Former energy executive Bryan Crawford has been acting like the Energiser Bunny since he moved to the advertising world as chief executive of the ad agency DraftFCB.
Ad agency folk are a breed apart.
So eyebrows were raised when the American multinational owners IPG appointed the New Zealand chief executive of meter company NGC Holdings to look after its New Zealand business.
Crawford has steered Draft FCB through troubled waters taking key retail accounts such as Noel Leeming and Pascoes. Then last week Crawford moved up another rung to be joint chairman for Australasia covering three DraftFCB agencies in Auckland, Sydney and Melbourne.
A former FCB Auckland boss, Greg Eichmann, has been appointed to implement the closer ties between agencies.
Will the new closer relations with Australia work? On the one hand it makes sense given the way the Australian and New Zealand markets are merging.
But some rivals say that agencies work better as stand alone entities. But Crawford knows his way around marketing. As general manager, corporate brand, at Caltex New Zealand in the 1990s, he was the architect of the stand-alone retail stores Caltex Star Marts, a world-first initiative for the oil company.
From 1998 to 2000, he was sales and marketing director at ACP Media where he played a major role in reconfiguring the business and achieving significant growth in advertising and circulation revenues.
