KEY POINTS:
It's been a topsy-turvy year across all arms of the media, as John Drinnan illustrates in this guide to who was hot - and who was not.
ADVERTORIAL AHOY
The Business Herald banged on about the Sunday Star Times Going Up, Going Down column and its advertiser plugs. The NZ Listener followed the move to advertorial with its photography issue fronted by a shameless pre-Christmas shopping advertising plug and content featuring "Nikon ambassador" Dan Carter. Expect more barriers between advertising and editorial to fall as advertising spending bites next year.
BLOG ANON
For all the talk, blogs were largely irrelevant to voters. Many anonymous bloggers railed against the evils of the Mainstream Media (MSM) and ranted about political heroes and enemies from the safety of anonymity, although some - like Russell Brown on Public Address, David Farrer on Kiwiblog, and David Beatson on pundit.co.nz - were honest enough to sign their names.
CLOSE UP WITH SAINSO
Mark Sainsbury became a natural face of TV One and ensured Close Up was the natural home for mainstream magazine show viewers. Mike Hosking or Paul Henry have a sharper style that makes Sainso seem a bit of a softie. But the man with the 'tache works.
DANCING WITH DEBT
Aussie media princes James Packer and Lachlan Murdoch walked away from Kerry Packer's publishing and broadcasting empire, including ACP Magazines, leaving it to be rescued from debt commitments by equity firm CVC. Fairfax Media is also loaded with debt. The media sector is headed for another period of change.
EXECUTING A CRISIS
How did TVNZ bosses handle Tony Veitch's revelations about the alleged assault of and private settlement with his former girlfriend, allowing him to stay on air? State TV said it did not know the scale of the attack. TVNZ ordered an independent report from law firm Russell McVeigh into executive talks and handed it to police. But that report remains secret. TVNZ refused a request to obtain the report report under the Official Information Act, and said its approach has been upheld by the Ombudsman.
FAIRFAX FALL
Why did the share price of Fairfax Media - publisher of the Sunday Star Times, the Press and the Dominion Post - fall so much further than other Australian media companies during the end-of-year slide? One view is that the debt that paid for Fairfax's expensive acquisitions was linked with the company share price, and when the price fell with the rest of the stock market it set off new onerous obligations.
GOING, GOING, GOING...
Morning Report host Sean Plunket has talked about leaving Radio New Zealand National for a couple of years but is talk about having "had enough" just a negotiating ploy in wage talks for its very bored star? We'd be sad to see him go. He is this country's best broadcaster at dissecting facts. The interview with a shattered Winston Peters during the Owen Glenn funding fiasco was great radio.
HOLMES AWAY
After 21 years on breakfast radio and and 17 on top of the Auckland ratings Paul Holmes has been dropped and swapped with Saturday morning host Mike Hosking. Holmes laments that he could have taken Christchurch, which Hosking will try when he starts next month. Holmes will have a new big challenge, when he has the chance of being a new legend competing against Kim Hill.
"I" OF THE STORM
Even before the global financial storm the advertising world was in a maelstrom from the growth of online media and search engine advertising. Online media has coaxed people from established media, but its bigger impact has been in swallowing advertising revenue. Online advertising allows easier targeting of specific consumers. The Interactive Advertising Bureau predicts online and interactive advertising will reach a $180 million spend by the end of this month, putting it within shooting distance of magazines, which are expected to earn about $250 million.
JOHN, JOHN, JOHN
Can John Campbell and Campbell Live recover after the red room fiasco, in which he pretended to interview an actor pretending to be one of the war medal thieves? Around the same time he and producer Carol Hirschfeld were appearing in a stage play. It's an unfortunate inclination for the newsman - to want to play the Luvvy - which has damaged his brand.
KIRK OUT
Speculation across the Tasman is that the former chief executive of Fairfax Media, David Kirk, will come back to NZ and may line up a career in politics. If that's the case he can probably expect a big cut to his income.
LEGS AT 11 PM
TV3 late news Nightline presenter Samantha Hayes seems a nice enough person, and she knows how to read a teleprompter. But, like Kate Hawkesby on TVNZ before her, Hayes has been encouraged to be a dress-up doll, leading Metro magazine to label the newsreader television's sexiest woman.
MAG-NIFIQUE
It is incredibly easy to start a magazine and during a long boom we have sustained a lot of titles, with successful independents bought by the big groups - APN, Fairfax and ACP. But how will those struggling independents cope in the advertising market next year? The big boys will also be cautious about buying them.
NBR ONLINE
Publisher Barry Colman must have felt a special sense of satisfaction late this year when the upgraded website for his National Business Review forced Fairfax to pull back from its businessday.co.nz website and fold it into stuff.co.nz.
O'REILLY OUT?
Sir Anthony O'Reilly-controlled Independent News & Media is planning to sell its 39 per cent stake of APN News & Media, whose New Zealand assets include the Herald, NZ Woman's Weekly, Listener, and half of the Radio Network. Talks are expected to drift into the first quarter of next year, and it is still far from clear who will have the wherewithal to buy the assets in the financial turmoil. There is talk that the group, encompassing newspapers, magazines, outdoor adverting and radio interests, might be broken up.
PASIFIKA TV
John Barnett, Oscar Kightley and MediaWorks are behind proposals for a Pacific Islands television channel for Freeview, to serve the country's 200,000 Pacific Island people. Every ethnic group would like a channel, but why not help the disproportionate number of poor people rather than provide cash for media types?
QUIET DEBATE
The Film Commission - in the firing line for using New Zealand taxpayer money to fund British concept Dean Spanley - resents criticism of its secretive funding policies. In an end-of-year newsletter to film-makers, chairman David Cullwick told them they should not go public with their views of the commission. It had been damaging to the industry and did not give the public and Government a good impression of the vibrant industry. Translation: "Shut Up. People are asking awkward questions."
RADIO GAGA
Veteran broadcasters Larry Summerville and Bernie Brown have a tough task busting into the Auckland market with two companies - MediaWorks and the Radio Network - controlling New Zealand commercial radio. Auckland community station BIG FM launched in early November on 106.2 FM with 10-year community radio rights sold by the Government.
STATE OF RADIO
Perhaps Radio New Zealand board of governors chairman Christine Grice should be more aware of what is happening at Radio RNZ National. An exodus of staff, state radio running a series about the formation of the Labour Party during the election campaign, and the unorthodox approach to the Noelle McCarthy plagiarism case would cause an uproar at a public broadcaster such as the BBC.
TSAR GREGORY I
Former Baldwin Boyle public relations managing director Greg Shand is a frontrunner in the search for a communications tsar for the National Government to handle its lobbyists and interest groups. I'm hearing that if it goes ahead it will not be until March.
UNWATCHED SUNRISE
TV3's breakfast show Sunrise appears to have picked up some viewers in Auckland since actor/presenter Oliver Driver replaced James Coleman. TV3 hopes to get the show breaking even and is avoiding pulling it. If the sun sets on Sunrise TV3 could not attempt a breakfast show again, and that would detract from the value of the company.
VEITCH REACH
What's the bet that Tony Veitch will turn up back in the media next year, on the radio and eventually on TV3? The Radio Network - which gave the former Radio Sport host a lot of support when the assault issue surfaced - has been disappointed by rumours he plans to return to rival MediaWorks.
WHAT WOULD YOU DO ...?
What would you do if you didn't have Sky? asked the Sky TV ad. Well, we'd talk to the family, read a book or magazine, check out the news online, pop out for a walk, have a barbecue on the beach ...
X-RATED SCRUM
Prime Television brought new meaning to the war between pay and free-to-air television when it accidentally slipped in segments of its hard-porn channel into its Grassroots rugby programme on free-to-air channel Prime.
YOUR MEDIA
Whatever happened to the EPMU's Our Media campaign, which launched last year to counter falling resources in New Zealand newsrooms? Good intentions regressed into an appeal for a certain political viewpoint and type of news, and the EPMU became a third party fighting for the re-election of the Labour government. It was an inevitable outcome for an ideological campaign that sought to define the right kind of news.
ZAPPED
That is what will happen next year to media companies that don't manage to find innovative ways to meet the demand for new content in the tough economic environment, and to traditional media that do not capture the drift online.
