Labour Party leader Chris Hipkins and National Party leader Christopher Luxon. Photo montage / NZME
One of the advertising industry’s top personalities is out of a role following an internal restructure; NRL fans evicted from a Panthers-Warriors match are suing four television stations for defamation; Production gremlins at Stuff, TVNZ and NZME.
One day to go! Media Insider rounded up seven of our NZ Herald and Newstalk ZB political journalists for five questions about their take on the election campaign (as well as the All Blacks’ Rugby World Cup quarterfinal chances against Ireland on Sunday morning NZT).
Best campaign: The first half of National’s campaign
Worst campaign: The first half of Labour’s campaign
Candidate of the campaign: Winston Peters, even though most of his campaign was out of sight of the cameras
Moment/highlight: In terms of impact - National’s move to say there could be a second election after ruling in NZ First and the CTU’s costings on National’s tax policy. In terms of entertainment, Shane Jones’ TikToks, and watching Christopher Luxon trying to milk goats.
Rugby score: All Blacks 24 Ireland 21
Best campaign: Winston Peters. Three things done well: Held public meetings around the country, came up with an ingenious ad involving a horse and a cowboy hat, and he got everyone else talking about him.
Worst campaign: Act. They campaigned strongly all term up until the actual election campaign, then fizzled through some poorly judged comments.
Candidate of the campaign: More a player than a candidate - CTU economist Craig Renney who has been more effective than any candidate in undermining National’s tax and fiscal plans.
Highlight/moment: The Newshub leaders’ debate hosted by Patrick Gower. He set the standard for lively debates which helped Chris Hipkins to beat the match-fit Christopher Luxon.
Rugby score: All Blacks 15 Ireland 25
Best campaign: Greens - on course for their best victory ever.
Worst campaign: Act - snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Still performing well, but a couple of strategic mistakes.
Candidate of the campaign: Grant Robertson - has ruthlessly dented National’s fiscal credibility at every opportunity. Tied with Winston Peters - has managed to come back from the dead AGAIN.
Moment/highlight: National ruling in Winston Peters – it changed everything.
Rugby score: All Blacks 7 Ireland 12
Best campaign: NZ First in the context of its effectiveness. There are rightly concerns with some of the rhetoric that is amplified through some of the party’s positions, but one can’t deny the relentless run of public meetings has contributed to Winston’s return from the wilderness.
Worst campaign: Labour. It took too long for Chippy to fully exercise his ability to interact with Joe and Jane Bloggs and it gave Luxon the room to establish himself as a superior campaigner.
Candidate of the campaign: Brooke van Velden. A big effort in Tāmaki has meant she’s a real chance of unseating National’s Simon O’Connor.
Highlight/moment: Seeing Act Party leader David Seymour have to swallow all his insults directed at Winston Peters and concede the pair could work together. Similarly satisfying has been the line Luxon has had to walk, both criticising him but never ruling him out.
Rugby score: All Blacks 15 Ireland 22
Best campaign: Act - loads of detailed policy and plenty of flair with buses, planes, race cars, and prominent splashes of magenta.
Worst campaign: National, whose campaign was actually superb until it turned everyone’s attention to Winston Peters and a possible second election.
Candidate of the campaign: Paula Bennett (Brooke Van Velden).
Highlight/moment: “I don’t know him.” Luxon’s unconvincing yet hilarious line on Peters.
Rugby score: A hung result, with everyone waiting on the specials, then weeks of negotiating, and then a second game.
Best campaign: The Greens - they started well before anyone else, clearly set out their policies and values, and have ramped up from 2020 with their biggest ground campaign ever and are (so far) being rewarded for it.
Worst campaign: Labour in the first few weeks - unclear from the beginning who they were, what they stood for, and lacked energy and hope.
Candidate of the campaign: Winston Peters - timed his run to perfection and knows all the right notes to hit (even if he hasn’t been the most media-friendly).
Your highlight of the campaign: The CTU v National stoush, and Chris Bishop storming in from the Hutt in response.
Rugby score: All Blacks 35 Ireland 28
Best campaign: First two weeks of National’s campaign
Worst campaign: Last week of Act’s campaign
Candidate of the campaign: Chris Luxon circa September 3-25
Highlight/moment: Chris Hipkins’ sharp quip in the second leaders’ debate: Asked who’s their favourite PM, Luxon said: “Are you going to say Chris Hipkins?” Hipkins: “Are you??” Classic gag.
Rugby score: All Blacks 17 Ireland 14
Radio and outdoor business MediaWorks has revealed a massive $110 million impairment following a net loss of almost $10m for its most recent financial year.
The company’s financial statements for 2022 have been finally released today – and provide one of the starkest illustrations yet of the challenges facing New Zealand’s media industry.
The company is putting a brave face on the numbers, citing a number of operational improvements and green shoots – it says 2023 has also been challenging but there are “encouraging signs of business confidence returning”.
MediaWorks operates a suite of popular music radio stations including The Breeze, More FM, The Edge, The Rock and Mai as well as a big outdoor advertising arm.
It closed Today FM suddenly in late March, citing the need for cost cuts in a tough market. Dozens of staff, including hosts such as Tova O’Brien, Lloyd Burr and Rachel Smalley, lost their jobs. The company revealed today it has removed about $10m annually in costs.
For its full financial year 2022, MediaWorks reported total revenue of $214.9m – a 5.9 per cent increase on the previous year – and ebitda of $34.4m.
However, operating costs were up 9.1 per cent in 2022, “largely due to the impact of 7.2 per cent inflation in New Zealand as well as increased investment in our people and technology”.
The net loss after tax and other items for the year was $9.7m.
An advertising legend - and one of the industry’s top all-round blokes - is out of his role.
Group M has confirmed chief investment officer Steve Tindall will be leaving the business as part of an internal restructuring.
The company issued a statement to Media Insider yesterday, saying it was “evolving the investment function to set up for the future marketplace”.
This would “see our teams deliver more innovative partnerships and better enable our people to plan, buy and optimise to deliver better outcomes for clients”.
“Steve is a quintessential media personality who has played a major role in our business leading key relationships with our partners, delivering for our clients and helping shape our agencies, expertly navigating the challenges the market has put in front of us in recent years,” said a spokeswoman.
“We appreciate all he has contributed and thank him sincerely for leading our investment division in New Zealand for the past five years. We wish him the best of luck in the future.”
Tindall wasn’t in a position to comment yesterday, but his insightful, media market newsletter will be missed by Media Insider.
Back in July, he gave strong insights for a Media Insider column into the challenges facing the industry over the next 18 months.
He believed the market would improve in the second half of 2024 as house prices improved, domestic untradable inflation came down and consumer confidence returned.
In the meantime, as we’ve seen, economic headwinds are driving change within media businesses – whether that’s personnel changes, cost-cutting or the way they sell and measure advertising.
“The smaller players could potentially fall over and the bigger players could expand into other channels,” Tindall said at the time.
The idea that New Zealand’s media businesses – including the agencies – compete and fight with one another while the global digital giants “come silently around the outside” is “ridiculous”.
“There is a great concern of the available spend inside the market. Absolutely, everyone gets worried about that. Everyone worries about jobs and everything else.
“At the same time, the longer-term view takers go, ‘okay this means we have to change what we’re doing’.
“Change for some is frightening and some people don’t want it. But actually, change creates innovation, it creates passion and it creates involvement and people need to see change is happening because when the market is down, the status quo isn’t good enough.
“If people see that you are trying to change, they recognise the money is not there yet, but it creates a different level of involvement and engagement.
“Not all of your people, just to be really clear. Some people will be hanging on to the desk going, ‘why can’t it be 1985?’”
The production gremlins were having a decent old time at three of our biggest media firms this week.
Firstly, some X (formerly Twitter) conspiracy theorists were up in arms when a slide from a previous story suddenly appeared as a backdrop to a weather report on 1 News’ 6pm bulletin on Sunday. The slide featured the Labour Party’s attack ad against National.
Some people thought TVNZ had allowed a political ad into its flagship bulletin.
“The image was shown in error,” said a TVNZ spokeswoman.
“It had been used in the story immediately prior which focused on attack advertising during this election period. Given the repetition and the fact the image was flashed up for a couple of seconds, viewers could clearly see this was an unintended mistake.”
Meanwhile, Stuff is investigating how the word f***ers - without the asterisks - ended up being published on page three of The Press in Christchurch this week.
Stuff Masthead Publishing managing director Jo Norris told Media Insider the company was still investigating how it happened. However, it was a human error, and not written by the reporter or the person who was speaking in the story.
Before we get accused of not shining a light on our own house, there were some red faces within NZME last week when we accidentally produced the wrong day’s answers to a quiz in the Hawke’s Bay Today newspaper.
For question six last Tuesday – In Craig David’s 7 Days, what did they do on Sunday? – the answer was not, as we would have you believe, ‘His daughter’.
That was the answer to another day’s question six.
The correct answer is, ‘They chilled’.
NRL champions Penrith Panthers and our very own Warriors are the backdrop to a defamation case in Sydney involving a group of NRL fans and four of Australia’s biggest TV broadcasters.
William Thurston and several of his friends were evicted from an NRL game between the Panthers and Warriors in August 2020 but the coverage of their eviction has led to the defamation case.
TV channels Fox Sport, Seven, Nine and Ten all reported at the time that Thurston and his mates had been booted out because of alleged racial slurs against then-Panthers player Brent Naden.
But Thurston maintains that there was no racial element against the Indigenous star; that police officers told the group they had to leave for being “drunk and disorderly”.
Thurston’s barrister Roger Rasmussen told the Federal Court the group was “no doubt” sledging Naden but they did not racially abuse him, The Australian reported.
“We submit as the evidence pans out your honour will be satisfied the sledging … did not go anywhere near the matters alleged by the respondents,” he said.
Barrister Dauid Sibtain SC, representing the broadcasters, said Naden was not a “sensitive flower” who couldn’t handle ordinary sledging.
“He was subjected to abuse that included a racial element,” he said.
According to The Australian, Sibtain told the court a cameraman heard the group yelling racial slurs at Naden.
Naden complained to several officials after he heard a noise that sounded like a traditional Aboriginal sound coming from the group.
“The use of that sound makes the abuse worse. It shifts it into a different universe of abuse. It’s shifted into cultural,” he said.
Several broadcasts were played in the court, which showed presenters criticising the fans for allegedly racially abusing Naden and calling the behaviour “absolutely unacceptable”.
The case continues.
There are many elusive things in life – among them, the Mexican burrowing toad, the Loch Ness Monster, and an Eddie Jones Wallabies rugby victory. Add to the list the National Party’s broadcasting and media policy.
This week, I managed to ferret out four lines from Christopher Luxon’s office, none of which gave any surprising insight into the party’s views.
RNZ, however, might well feel a little nervous - National won’t commit to the public broadcaster’s ongoing budget boost delivered by Broadcasting Minister Willie Jackson this year.
“Future funding will be decided as part of the usual Budget process,” said the National statement, attributed to broadcasting spokeswoman Melissa Lee.
And many commercial media firms will be infuriated that National, as expected, will get rid of the Digital News Bargaining Bill which came before Parliament just before it rose for the election. The bill would force digital giants such as Google and Meta to negotiate fair deals for media companies’ content used on their platforms.
“We do not support the Digital News Bargaining Bill,” says Lee.
She cited Canada as an example where legislation hadn’t worked. “Facebook has responded to a similar law change by preventing users from viewing or sharing news content.”
My attempts to secure a copy of the full National Party policy stretch back to August 1.
“You are just going to have to wait for it,” Lee said that day.
“It’s already sorted. All of our policies have actually gone through the process – writing it, and having a discussion. It’s actually gone to the leadership. I can’t tell you all the details. It takes time for them to announce and decide what to announce and I can’t preempt that.”
On September 28, I attempted to speak to Lee again, to try to locate the policy. She texted me back to say she’d get the press team to call.
A spokesman for Luxon then emailed me a statement to written questions I had sent him: “At this stage, we may not be providing a broadcasting policy. The focus of the National Party is on rebuilding the economy and we have not committed to releasing policy in all areas.”
Lee declined an invitation to a public debate with other parties last week to discuss their broadcasting and media policies.
I wrote to her this week, and she responded with a standard PR line: “The focus of the National Party is on rebuilding the economy and we have not committed to releasing policy in all areas. And since we haven’t released our Broadcasting & Media policy, I am not able to share it with you.”
They did send through a couple of other crumbs to specific questions - there are no plans for a partial sell-off of TVNZ, and unlike New Zealand First they have no plans to have a Royal Commission into media bias.
I gave it one more crack yesterday.
“National does not have a specific broadcasting and media policy at this election. We will not be enacting major reforms to the media sector,” said a spokesman for Luxon.
“With respect to your question on RNZ, we are not committed to further funding above what has already been announced by the government. That is not unusual.
“On the digital news bill, our concerns have been well articulated already.”
This week, we reach out to NZ Herald science reporter Jamie Morton, for the definitive answer on one of the campaign’s biggest questions.
Several weeks ago, I had a surprisingly convivial lunch with political candidates Brian and Hannah Tamaki. Brian, especially did not hold back on his views of the media.
Over lunch at Leo Molloy’s HQ – the Tamakis’ choice – Brian was extremely charming; Hannah warm and smart. Their personalities up close and personal were a lot different from what I was expecting, and certainly how they sometimes present and are portrayed in front of bigger crowds.
Virginia Fallon, in a recent excellent article on The Post website, wrote: “The problem with interviewing Tamaki is whether it’s right to interview him in the first place, to give him both another platform and another opportunity to upset.”
Fallon also quoted The Disinformation Project’s Kate Hannah. “They’re here now, they’re part of our political landscape, and they’re influencing things,” Hannah said. “It’s probably important for the media to not perpetrate a lie they promote. You know: ‘Look at the mainstream media – they’re ignoring us’.”
While their political policies are not for me, I was keen to get a better understanding of their position.
You can read the full interview with the Tamakis here.
Otago Daily Times court reporter Rob Kidd reveals one defence lawyer’s innovative but ultimately fruitless bid to seek suppression.
Don’t miss NZME’s full coverage of election night 2023, live from 7pm Saturday on nzherald.co.nz and through Newstalk ZB.
Madison Reidy and I will be hosting the Herald’s live stream coverage, with special guests including political and business commentators Matthew Hooton, Shane Te Pou and Fran O’Sullivan as well as a full range of expert journalists and editors.
And we’ll be crossing throughout the night to the Newstalk ZB studio for live coverage, hosted by Mike Hosking, Kate Hawkesby, Heather du Plessis-Allan and Barry Soper, back from his heart operation.
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