KEY POINTS:
How much longer will the weekday edition of One News be presented by Simon Dallow and Wendy Petrie?
Those TVNZ folk waving torches in the TV One promotion are still trying to shed light on how to fix the prime-time news.
I hear that a favoured option at the moment is to do a swapsie. Petrie would be moved to present the weekend bulletin on her own and weekend presenter Bernadine Oliver-Kerby would join Dallow on weeknights.
Petrie is doing okay, but Oliver-Kerby, with her woman-next-door style, has always scored well in focus groups and it's thought the channel needs that extra spark.
I hear there is also a review of sports hosts, with a proposal for weekend presenter Tony Veitch - who is known as the Duracell Bunny because of his unrelenting energetic approach - to replace Neil Waka on weeknights.
Waka could move to weekends or possibly to front the new 4.30pm bulletin.
New head of news and current affairs Anthony Flannery will want to make some changes to the line-up he inherited from Bill Ralston.
But you wonder if it might be dangerous to rejig the news when One News seems to have slowed but not halted the exodus of viewers and advertising dollars.
Asked for comment, a spokeswoman said: "The changes you have described to me are not happening."
She declined to say what changes were planned, if any. If there are some changes - and we are confident that there will be - they may have to be implemented soon.
That is because Flannery is off for five weeks in September and October to attend the Rugby World Cup as part of a pre-arranged holiday that he negotiated when he secured the job last year.
Mediaworks
The new owners of MediaWorks are bringing in some extra media smarts to the board of directors overseeing TV3, C4 and half the country's radio stations.
Australian private equity firm Ironbridge Capital is expected to appoint former TVNZ and Prime Television chief executive Brent Harman to the board.
An announcement is expected once Ironbridge mops up the last 7 per cent of shareholders and takes MediaWorks private. Ironbridge admits it does not know much about media and has locked management into lucrative golden handcuffs to keep the profits rolling in.
Inevitably, the MediaWorks board will look to chief executive Brent Impey, a media lawyer and smart businessman with expert knowledge of the media sector going back to the days at RadioPacific.
But it will have another brain on the board with Harman - and one that has international experience and is outside of management.
Harman has an interesting pedigree. He was chief executive of TVNZ in the early 90s before leaving because of differences with the then TVNZ chairman Norman Geary, who unravelled his expansion plans.
While promoting New Zealand's America's Cup challenge in San Diego, Harman was picked for glory by John Malone, head of US cable TV giant Tele-Communications Inc.
Malone hired Harman to be chief operating officer of Flextech, TCI's UK operation, which developed TV channels for Britain's burgeoning digital TV market.
But he never advanced to CEO as expected, partly, it is understood, because of internal politics at TCI.
Harman moved to Australia to head Paul Ramsay's regional television operation, Prime Television, then restructured himself out of the top job.
He returned to be chairman of Prime New Zealand.
It is understood that during the TVNZ makeover two years ago the Government was keen for him to join the state broadcaster's new-look board.
It seems that there was some ambivalence about installing the former TVNZ chief executive to oversee current CEO Rick Ellis.
It is not clear whether that ambivalence came from Ellis or from chairman Sir John Anderson. Harman and Impey are friendly and both are tough businessmen steeped in the media business.
Hard day's night
ACP Magazines has taken another hit in the latest Audit Bureau of Circulation survey. Woman's Day has lost 15,907 or 10.4 per cent of its total New Zealand net circulation to June 30 this year. The slide seems to have been steady, with sales for the latter six-month period down 5.3 per cent.
Elsewhere, ACP had two slides and one big jump. The monthly New Zealand NetGuide lost 7694, a stunning 29 per cent, while Cleo New Zealand lost 3728 or 17.7 per cent.
On the other side of the ledger, monthly food mag Taste increased sales by 4487 copies or 17.7 per cent cent.
Fairfax, which enjoyed an otherwise uneventful audit, saw its weekly high-tech title Computerworld New Zealand losing 745 or 13.2 per cent, raising questions about the future of net-focused print publications. APN's New Zealand Magazines had a good increased circulation for youth title Creme, up 22.4 per cent to 17,415, according to the ABC audit.
Meanwhile, new publications - including ACP and independently owned titles - did well. Healthy Food Guide continued its extraordinary growth, increasing circulation 34.8 per cent to 37,354. Another independent, New Zealand Life and Leisure, rose by 33.4 per cent or 6286 to 25,118.
Food glorious food
Whatever happened to Simon Wilson, the former editor of Fairfax Magazine's Cuisine, whose role was disestablished under restructuring? It seems that Wilson has joined ACP's city title Metro as a writer. He starts on Monday. The title is being run by assistant editor Bevan Rapson. Meanwhile, ACP Media boss Debra Millar expects to be able to name the editor-in-chief role overseeing Metro and North & South. Millar is not naming names, but if I were a betting man I'd put thruppence halfpenny on the job going to Paul Little, a former editor of Metro and The Listener.
Meanwhile, there is still no name yet for the role of managing director running ACP New Zealand, the role vacated by Heith Mackay Cruise.
Frankly speaking
Wellington adman Alistair Shennan is packing his bags and moving to Perth, saying it is tough going for a small independent agency in the capital. Shennan and his partner, Paul Irwin, last week sold out their combined 35 per cent stake in Frank Advertising, which is to be jointly owned by its existing majority shareholder, the Australian publicly listed STW Communications, and by Ogilvy New Zealand.
