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Television New Zealand is mulling how to deal with remaining episodes of Eye to Eye With Willie Jackson, who is standing for mayor of Manukau City.
The state broadcaster has been caught short on the aspirations of Jackson and his frequent Eye to Eye guest John Tamihere, who is standing for mayor of Waitakere City.
The TV role gives both of the former MPs a clear advantage over other candidates. Rules requiring candidates to stand down from high-profile broadcast roles are clear for general elections but there is no ban for local body polls.
The pair's popular show The World According to Willie and JT is off the air so does not create a problem.
But Eye To Eye - which is funded by taxpayers - has five weeks left to run in the lead-up to the election, and includes a forthright editorial.
"We are busy looking at our protocols this afternoon to see how we deal with this. It is not cut and dried," said TVNZ spokeswoman Megan Richards.
Making radio waves
Jackson and Tamihere have been talking about standing with their radio bosses at MediaWorks' RadioLive "off and on" for a few weeks.
But MediaWorks RadioLive programme director Mitch Harris says he only found out for sure at the start of this week.
Harris confirmed the obvious - that the pair have an advantage over other candidates - but said that was just a fact of life. It's the reason why so many media folk end up in politics.
Over at MediaWorks' sister channel Radio Pacific, chief Chris Gregory said John Banks stood down from his radio show in July so he would not be accused of using the show as an election soapbox.
But MediaWorks will be relieved that Willie & JT have no such compunctions as their afternoon show is a nice little earner and delivers lots more ad dollars than Banksie.
Harris insists he is ambivalent about the fact three of his announcers will be standing for mayoralties in the upcoming local body elections - the third is Michael Laws, standing for mayor of Wanganui.
Harris likes having high-profile people on the radio, but the downside is they have limited time to commit.
Broadcasting through the campaign is a good deal for both parties.
Willie and JT have an election soapbox that keeps up their profile in a way regulated advertising could never achieve. And MediaWorks has a high-profile pair at the centre of public attention during the Auckland radio ratings.
Now that's business synergy.
Blogger Brad Shmidt asked whether Michael Laws should be on a radio show while electioneering for mayor of Wanganui. The RadioLive morning show host replied with a pithy email telling Schmidt to "fluff off wally" - or stronger words to the same effect.
Back to the future
ACP Magazines has made a blast from the past by reappointing Paul Dykzeul as chief executive of its New Zealand operation.
The new private equity controlling shareholders of ACP have named the tough-talking businessman to the role vacated by Mr Nice Guy Heith Mackay-Cruise.
The appointment comes at a pivotal time in ACP's history, with private equity now controlling 75 per cent of the magazine company, which has a dominant place in both Australia and New Zealand industries.
Mackay-Cruise exited the company for a new job in the education sector a few months ago amid ownership changes for ACP which appeared to cloud his prospects for promotion.
But rather than a new focus, ACP has gone back to the future.
Dykzeul is currently publisher of monthly and homemaker titles for Kerry Stokes' Pacific Magazines and has more than 15 years' experience in the magazine publishing industry.
He began his magazine career with ACP as managing director of its New Zealand group. He was then managing director of Murdoch Magazines in Australia, overseeing Better Homes and Gardens, Marie Claire and Men's Health magazines.
He joined Pacific Magazines initially to oversee the licensing and New Zealand operations which are focused on New Idea. Dykzeul is understood to have relished his first stint in charge.
Meanwhile, the former editor of ACP's North & South, Robyn Langwell, is believed to be finalising details of an eight-month term overseeing the features department at the Herald on Sunday newspaper.
Langwell - who left North & South amid a makeover of ACP's current affairs structure - is said to have already made her mark on staff of the paper during her early appearances.
No clouds for Sky
Sky Television chief executive John Felletsays he is relaxed about the impact on the pay broadcaster from free to air channel TV3 having exclusive rights to the Rugby World Cup.
He points out that Sky has never held the World Cup, and while it is clearly a positive for TV3 it is not a negative for Sky. He says that the only real impact is that usually the All Blacks tour the Northern Hemisphere at the end of the year, but this would not be going ahead and Sky will miss out on that crowd puller.
New world order
The media revolution has caused some tensions within a small corner of Fairfax Media.
It seems the giveaway Hamilton Press took issue with the daily Waikato Times requisitioning a story about community policing without first notifying the paper.
Waikato Times editor Bryce Johns wrote back to its sister paper, explaining the new world order at Fairfax.
After outlining how the paper wound up taking away the story, Johns wrote in an email:
Either way, we will publish the same day and we are in a very new era in the media now - papers in the same group are cooperating and sharing resource. Just today our front page lead was used on the front of the Dompost - we gave it to them 12 hours before we printed. In effect, another paper had our lead story first. But we felt it was warranted to keep a sister paper ahead of the game. You will be beating a very lonely and outdated drum to be too worried about what's happened today.
Bryce.
Press on the move
Fairfax is looking at a sale and leaseback deal that will allow it to retain some of its presence in the Press building in the heart of Christchurch. The media company announced this week it was spending $30 million moving printing presses to a greenfields site on the fringes of the city.
Chief executive Joan Withers said while the company wanted the Press to retain a presence in central Christchurch, moving the new printing and production facilities made sense.
Fairfax says the move is "the largest ever single capital investment" in the Press, but it's not clear how much of that will be covered by the sale of the central Christchurch site.
Meanwhile, Withers confirmed another venture - developing a website for Auckland.
She said the company was not commenting on the online initiative, which is understood to be headed by Bernard Hickey.
But one source familiar with the website said it had similarities with a Fairfax website for Brisbane.
Fairfax New Zealand is under-represented in Auckland where the Herald holds sway in newspapers and where a lot of the retail advertising is mopped up by MediaWorks and The Radio Network.
