Media: Less is more as Fairfax swings axe once again

Fairfax Media has confirmed job cuts in the Sunday Star-Times and Sunday News newsrooms as "the cold winds of recession" bite into the media sector.

Fairfax Group executive editor Paul Thompson said that "up to 10" positions are under review as Fairfax faces a tough advertising market.

Around seven of the editorial jobs identified - including writers and sub-editors - are believed to be at the Star-Times.

Ten staff would be a significant cut.

"We really do believe in those papers and their future," Thompson said.

He said Fairfax was not planning to merge the Sunday Star-Times and Sunday News newsrooms but was looking for more flexibility.

"We have some exciting plans and significant improvements are in the pipeline for the content and look for the Sunday News."

That raises the question - how do you do make improvements with fewer staff?

"We will stop doing some things and focus on other areas and some staff will work more flexibly," he said.

"Some senior staff will have a wider brief but we are not merging the newsrooms. The reality is that trading is very tough - for all business and not just media.

"Our Sundays are not the only media businesses in New Zealand who are really feeling the cold winds of recession."

The newsroom cuts are distinct from 70 positions being scrapped in a restructuring of Fairfax advertising operations announced on April 20.

HIGH HO

No jokes about Paul Reynolds' 2m frame - but there was (ahem) - high praise for Telecom's 5-minute video posted on YouTube.

The video, which was made by Simon Shattky, features Telecom staff as ordinary folk working hard at doing their best.

Telco commentator Lance Wiggs said it was a sign Telecom was getting it. Telecom might be over-egging it, saying the YouTube is a thank-you to the families of hard-working Telecom staffers - but

it's a sign of an emerging marketing strategy depicting it as a warm, friendly Kiwi company and a contrast to the cool image of Vodafone.

HALF AND HALF

New Zealand on Air chief executive Jane Wrightson dismissed a suggestion that the prime time focus for its new Platinum Fund illustrates past criticism NZ on Air was paying too little attention to obligations to fund minority interest programming.

"Half of people will say that, and half will say that we should not be spending [taxpayer] money on shows that outside prime time when nobody is watching," she said.

But the commercial focus for the Platinum Fund is also odd. The $15.5 million was taken off TVNZ because it was using charter money to make commercial shows such as Piha Rescue and Sunday.

The fund will continue to subsidise more of the same commercial shows. The danger is NZ on Air will avoid risk and minority-interest shows like TVNZ did when it controlled the money.

LET'S GO DIGITAL

How much longer will it be until taxpayer funds are handed over to Sky TV and its digital channels.

Wrightson said the agency has not even considered funding digital channels yet and it was hard enough to spread $90 million across the big channels and maintain local content levels.

But Sky Television chief executive John Fellet foresees a day when that might happen. "When you are funding an historical series that would screen on

a Sunday morning on free-to-air TV, you might think, hey, this could fit in with a [prime time] screening on the History Channel."

Taxpayers funding pay TV will be the inevitable consequence of Sky's growth under the present broadcasting regime. Fellet says that Sky was not lobbying for taxpayer grants for digital channels. Cynics would say "Well, not yet anyway".

Stratos Television chief executive Jim Blackman also wants a piece of Platinum. He says it should be available for his channel, which screens on the Sky and Freeview satellite services.

I doubt Blackman will be holding his breath. He has been a leading light for small regional TV channels such as Triangle TV in Auckland, which have run on minimal funding.

Triangle schedules the most intelligent show on TV - the PBS NewsHour. NZ on Air has given more money to regional TV but its focus is on local content, not quality overseas shows.

EYEING GRANTS

Now that TVNZ no longer has assured access to the $15.5 million, what will happen to the "charter" shows it funded. They will have to vie for funding for shows that run on other channels.

Among the hopefuls will be Eye To Eye with Willie Jackson, which has had a ratings slide in its fifth season, which finishes this weekend.

Executive producer Claudette Hauiti of production company Front of The Box said scheduling changes had reduced ratings. Hauiti said that after five seasons with the same set the company was happy to "zoosh it up" for a new series.

ADMAN BACK

Philip O'Neill has returned to New Zealand to be managing director of media at Mitchell Communications.

O'Neill was known as a slick suit at the creative ad agency M&C Saatchi New Zealand. He moved to be managing director at Whybin TBWA Group in Auckland then went to a similar role at TBWA Whybin in Melbourne.

YES MINISTER

Helen Clark's one-time press secretary Mike Munro has been appointed as the new communications manager for the Treasury. Once a journalist with the Dominion. Munro is steeped in the Wellington media.

More recently he was a director of Munro Church Communications, which he ran with his partner, former National Radio producer Heather Church.

ACCESS ALL AREAS

I have mentioned Sky TV's astonishing lobbying success with the Nats.

Sky Television's successful lobbying against regulation - the Government cancelled a regulatory review - has been helped by easy access to the corridors of power and communications director Tony O'Brien has been among the most assiduous and omnipresent lobbyists around Parliament.

He has ensured Rupert Murdoch's company is in a position to extend its domination of the TV market.

O'Brien deserves credit for hard work and persistence - not just for long lunches with lesser known MPs such as Gordon Copeland and organising tours for the parliamentary rugby team.

He had a parliamentary pass approved by the Speaker, which has allowed him to come and go from Parliament and the Beehive with easier movement through security checks.

Lobbying is part of politics. But other lobbyists say Sky's presence has been striking. At one point a senior executive with a broadcasting company was in a meeting with Labour broadcasting spokesman Brendan Burns when it was interrupted by O'Brien, who popped in to say hello.

SECRET SQUIRREL

O'Brien says that Sky has nothing to be embarrassed about from successful lobbying, adding that New Zealand is better off for an outcome that removed the threat of regulation against Sky.

Having been around Parliament for so long, he got to know the secretaries and MPs alike. O'Brien was one of eight lobbyists with special passes issued annually by the Speaker.

Yet a spokesman for parliamentary services and the Speaker has taken nearly three weeks to advise us which lobbyists have Speaker's access.

Warren Inkster - or Inky as he is known in PR circles - reminded the Business Herald that parliamentary services was not subject to the Official Information Act.

Six of the seven lobbyists said that they did not wish to be named. Inkster said parliamentary services had consulted its lawyer on its response and there might be Privacy Act issues over naming them.

For a lobbying consultancy, representing several companies open access makes sense - Sky has clearly found it useful.

We would still like to know which other corporate lobbyists have special access to Parliament.