Now and then: Belinda Todd today, and as she appeared on Nightline in the early 1990s.
‘My life is in absolute flux’ - colourful broadcasting legend’s NZ visit; Burger King ad enrages group of viewers over loud eating noises; Newshub staff ‘deeply frustrated’ over website uncertainty; Big AT advertising deal redrafted; Who owns your regional newspaper now?; Media Minister plots a new course.
The trailblazing, one-time wild child of night-time television news has been back in New Zealand, mourning the loss of TV3′s newsroom and contemplating a fulltime return to the country.
The hair is a little straighter but the sassiness and mischief are still evident as Belinda Todd recalls the crazy, seat-of-your-pants years as Nightline host on TV3 in the early 1990s.
A unique and terrific broadcasting talent, Todd has been in New Zealand on a brief trip and even planned to visit her former TV3 newsroom in Flower St this week. “It’s been decades, decades, decades! So that’ll be weird.”
She describes the closure of Three’s newsroom - and Newshub - in seven weeks as “terribly sad”.
“The shrinkage of journalism is global. It’s certainly not only here,” says Todd.
“Once upon a time you used to have some qualifications or certainly something legitimate to say to put your opinion out to the world. Now anyone can do it. Anyone can get a Twitter account.
“You can also find now the television news you agree with, certainly in the States - because television there is all privately owned. If you’re a Trump supporter, you can go to Fox News and they’re going to tell you exactly what you already believe in.
“The Fourth Estate is an endangered animal.”
Todd has spent the best part of two decades away from New Zealand, mainly in Los Angeles but more recently in Brazil where she built and developed a hotel with her partner.
That relationship, however, has suddenly ended - “my life is in absolute flux” - and she’s returned to New Zealand to catch up with friends.
She senses the country is doing it tough.
“Covid knocked people around. There is a sense that everybody is pushing to make it better but things like TV3 don’t help. The shrinkage of opportunity doesn’t help - we are such a small country. If you lose your job, maybe there isn’t another one.”
While her exit from Brazil was “pretty extreme” she finds comfort in being home.
“Everybody’s so lovely. We’re such charming people to be amongst. When you’re a New Zealander and you come home from a long time overseas, there is a tribal element that is very comforting.”
Todd has fond memories of her time in front of the camera and behind the microphone.
She enjoyed various roles early in her media career, including as an advertising copywriter and then a breakfast show traffic announcer on Radio Hauraki.
She paid a whistlestop visit to NZME’s Hauraki studios on Wednesday.
“It was a lot more sex, drugs and rock and roll - it doesn’t seem to be that now,” she says of New Zealand media more generally.
“[Hauraki host] Kevin Black would literally stagger into breakfast after a complete night on the town. ‘Good morning Kevin!’.
“He’d still be in evening attire that he popped out in the night before.”
After a stint hosting Communicado’s That’s Fairly Interesting on TVNZ, she travelled to New York on a backpacking OE in 1989 before the fledgling TV3 channel came calling.
TV3 news boss Rod Pedersen wanted her to present the weather on the primetime news. She appeared on the first bulletin in November 1989.
But as TV3 struggled through its opening months, it was the late-night news show Nightline where Todd stamped her imprimatur when it launched six months later, in April 1990.
The Listener described Todd as TV3′s “secret weapon” and a “dayglo personality on the rampage”.
Nightline, wrote the magazine, carried stories “based extremely loosely on fact, about things like bovine flatulence and the greenhouse effect, exploding sheep, and the mysterious disappearance of Phar Lap’s genitals”.
She tells Media Insider: “Nightline was the birth child of all the cancellations of the other news shows.
“The flotsam and jetsam of the newsroom that didn’t have a show to work on ended up on Nightline and they asked me - because I was doing the weather - whether I wanted to do late news.
“I said, I will if you give me a segment. So we had sensible news for two-thirds of the show ... and then we have me and this amazing group of people who had come from various other shows.”
Nightline - and Todd, in particular - broke the mould. The show’s zany, often manic, pieces set a new tone and course for the channel. It was unashamedly unique and developed a cult following.
Despite all that, it didn’t keep the receivers from the door. A month after Nightline launched, TV3 went into receivership.
In one of her most famous and zaniest Nightline pieces, Todd accompanied the Grim Reaper around the TV3 offices, identifying savings and items to hock off.
The piece helped drive home to viewers what was at stake.
“We were in receivership, which was oddly the best thing that could have happened to TV3 because, all of a sudden, people cared.
“It was like, oh my God, if we don’t support this, it’s going to go away and we’re going to be back to a monopoly.”
She recalls TVNZ had snapped up all the best shows and movies before TV3 had launched.
“You only started getting the better programmes on TVNZ with the advent of TV3 because all of a sudden they had to compete.
“Before that they could play any old thing and that was your choice - you watched it or you went out and did the garden.”
On another occasion - annoyed their show was delayed by live sport - Todd and Nightline co-host Joanna Paul broadcast from a bed.
When Canadian firm CanWest invested in TV3 in 1992, the show’s producers found a massive horse prop, and Todd dressed up as a mountie.
“We had no budget really, and we were on five nights a week.
“So we’d all get there and go, ‘What the hell are we going to put on for half an hour tonight?’”
She remembers the public was generous in loaning props and locations.
“Everybody said yes because it was that feeling - all of a sudden people cared about TV3 when they thought they were going to lose it.”
She knows firsthand how expensive television news is to produce - “that’s why it’s the first casualty”.
Todd moved to Los Angeles and has been living overseas for the past 17 years.
We talk about how on earth she ended up building and running a hotel in the northeast of Brazil.
She recalls being three days into a holiday in Brazil - her ex-partner is Brazillian - when her father suffered a stroke and later a heart attack in New Zealand.
Todd returned home at the time to help rehabilitate him through that phase and a subsequent heart attack.
The hotel plan followed that.
“I was very sad that I knew he could never have any of the adventures he might have planned for his old age.
“He’d left it too late and I think I wanted to have an adventure for him.
“I think it was a little bit of, OK Dad, I’ll go do it for you.”
The hotel, she reports, is “lovely” and doing well, but with her relationship over, she’s back in New Zealand and may return here fulltime eventually.
Todd had been close to her parents - they have both now died.
She describes her sadness - like so many other New Zealanders - at not being able to return to the country when her father died three years ago.
“I’m sure there are a lot of New Zealanders that have that sort of story as well but it was heartbreaking and I will never actually recover from that.”
She’s still processing her relationship break-up and contemplating next steps. She does have to return to LA in coming days.
“I’m sure at my age I should - and I did - have a game plan.”
She’s not sure if she’ll return to media one day. “Make me an offer I can’t refuse!”
The laughter is still present.
Newshub’s digital news staff are “deeply frustrated” about what they consider a lack of communication from Stuff over the future of the Newshub website.
Stuff takes over production of Newshub’s 6pm TV news bulletin in 50 days - Saturday, July 6 - and, as part of the deal, the publishing company also inherits the Newshub website.
It’s hardly a free steak knife - the Newshub website has a hefty audience.
It’s often enjoyed the third highest monthly audience for news websites, behind traditional runaway leaders Stuff and NZ Herald.
In March, Newshub slipped slightly. Nielsen figures show Stuff had an audience of 2.15 million, the NZ Herald 1.95 million, RNZ 1.22 million, Newshub 1.17 million and 1 News (TVNZ) 776,000.
A Newshub source said the company’s specialised digital team - some 13 people - was “deeply frustrated with a lack of comms from Stuff on the future of the high-performing Newshub website”.
They said there had been no word on whether the website continued as is, whether it would be reshaped - perhaps as a video portal - or if its content “just gets absorbed into Stuff”.
”We’ve been asking our management, who say they know nothing. We were beating both RNZ and 1 News most of last year and early 2024. RNZ has beaten us the past two months, though, as our staffing numbers collapse.”
A Warner Bros Discovery spokesman said: “The future of the Newshub website is still being discussed.”
Stuff did not respond to a list of questions, including what it planned to do with the website, whether it would be talking to the Newshub team and its response to their frustrations.
A Burger King advertisement has been subject to 17 official complaints over the way it depicts loud, mouth-crunching noises - with one complainant saying their husband was so triggered, he hurled the remote at the television, breaking the screen.
The Advertising Standards Authority says the ad for the Crunchy BBQ Whopper Burger does not breach any of its standards - nevertheless, Burger King has apologised for the distress it has caused some viewers.
Complainants variously described the TV, radio and digital ad as “horrible”, “highly offensive”, “disgusting” and “revolting”, and several specifically cited the health condition misophonia, the hatred of certain loud noises, including - in many cases - loud crunching noises while eating.
“The Burger King advert features loud chewing and eating noises,” said one ASA complainant.
“My husband suffers from misophonia, and the sound of this ad is so distressing for him, he has to mute the TV or leave the room. In this instance, he has tried to mute the ad but the remote batteries had gone flat.
“He impulsively threw the remote at the TV, his primal reaction to just silence the noise. Our television now has a hole in the screen and no longer works.”
Another complainant said hearing someone eating with their mouth open was “disgusting”.
“Hearing someone eat like that makes me want to vomit and is extremely triggering. I feel sorry for everyone who suffers from misophonia.”
Burger King also received flak about the ad on its social media channels.
Burger King’s NZ operator Antares Restaurant Group Ltd told the ASA that it took the feedback and complaints seriously and recognised that misophonia “can significantly impact individuals’ experiences”.
The company apologised for any distress caused, the ASA reported, and would take the feedback into account for future advertising.
The ASA considered the complaint against two of its principles - social responsibility and decency and offensiveness.
It said its complaints board discussed at length what constituted harm, or serious or widespread offence, in the advertising standards code.
“It agreed the loud crunching sounds in the advertisement, while offensive and harmful to the complainants, did not reach the threshold to breach ... the Advertising Standards Code.”
It also said the ads were socially responsible.
Antares said it “sincerely” apologised for “any distress our advertisement may have caused”.
“We will take this feedback into account and as always strive to strike a balance between engaging storytelling and sensitivity to varying audience needs.”
WATCH THE AD* HERE:
*Trigger warning - for the very reasons cited above, do not watch this ad if you suffer from misophonia.
This week, we catch up with Allen & Unwin publisher Michelle Hurley, as the Auckland Writers Festival gets under way and as the publishing industry reels from redundancies at Penguin, including the loss of head of publishing Claire Murdoch and non-fiction publisher Rachel Eadie.
New Media and Communications Minister Paul Goldsmith is wasting no time in organising meetings with media company bosses, with a round of sessions this month to hear directly about their concerns and challenges.
TVNZ, Stuff, RNZ, NZME, MediaWorks and Warner Bros Discovery chief executives have had - or are about to have - sessions with the minister.
With myriad challenges - and various opinions on how to overcome them - the minister appears to be manoeuvring a careful course.
He will play the biggest role in determining whether the National Party supports the smooth passage of the previous Government’s Fair Digital News Bargaining Bill through Parliament.
If it does progress, the Bill will need some strong additions around AI and other technology.
The National Party has previously opposed the Bill - which will force the likes of Google and Meta to help pay for the journalism that contributes to their content feeds and business models - but that stance may now be softening.
“I am currently taking stock of the Fair Digital News Bargaining Bill, and gathering a range of perspectives from the sector on all of the options and levers available to the Government,” said Goldsmith. “We will consider those, and make decisions in due course.”
It is expected the likes of TVNZ and Warner Bros Discovery will also receive some small relief very soon, with a change in legislation to allow them to screen advertising on TV channels on Sunday mornings.
It’s hardly a game-changer, but an important principle to ensure they have the same ability to take ads on a Sunday morning, in line with radio, newspapers and digital channels.
Similarly, broader media companies will be pushing for advertising 365 days a year - just as Google and Meta can do 24/7. Right now, the likes of the NZ Herald cannot carry advertisements on Christmas Day or Good Friday if they choose to print newspapers on those days.
One of this country’s biggest advertising tenders - one that will dictate the future of various outdoor advertising businesses - is being reshaped.
Auckland Transport’s multi-million-dollar advertising outdoor contracts are up for grabs from next year - they’re deciding which companies can look after all the advertising and marketing deals on the likes of buses and at bus shelters, transport hubs, billboards and for promotional activations.
The five separate contracts have been described by AT as “the largest media procurement in New Zealand history”.
They might all go to one company or - more than likely - be shared around a small group of outdoor advertising companies.
As Media Insider reported last June, it is a “transformational contract” that has sent the outdoor companies into “a frenzy”.
One source called it “the biggest pitch” in media right now. Another insider said everyone had something to gain, and possibly something to lose, depending on how AT ultimately lands on the contracts.
All the big players are in the mix including oOh!media, which has the current contract for bus shelters, and MediaWorks, which has the contract for bus exteriors and some billboards; as well as the likes of Lumo, JCDecaux and Go Media.
In July last year, AT released a registration of interest (ROI) process for “appropriately qualified” participants for a second stage, closed RFP.
But AT issued a new update this week, saying it was suspending that process, as there had been a “material change” to the scope of the street furniture asset portfolio.
According to the update, the street furniture portfolio definition now covers bus shelters, bike shelters, pedestrian shelters, free-standing units, electric cars and bike charging units, and other similar items or additional assets by agreement.
“Additionally, as AT will allow bundled offers for the five media asset portfolios including street furniture, then all five media asset portfolios will be offered again to the open market via this RFP.”
It means we might see some of those aforementioned outdoor firms thinking innovatively about how they could team up with partners - including other media companies - to put forward their pitches.
AT is confident the process is still on track.
AT head of partnerships and experience Simon Soulsby said outdoor companies had given “resounding feedback” that they wanted the same exclusivity on street furniture as the incumbent. Previously, AT was planning some carve-outs.
“We took that on board and we went away to work out the best way forward. The only way that we can do that is, we can’t just suddenly change the definition of that asset portfolio and not give the wider market the opportunity to come back in again.
“So we’ve had to open the whole thing back up again.”
Soulsy was confident the process was on track with contracts now set to be awarded in August/September.
“This isn’t just about Auckland Transport extracting as much revenue out of the market as possible. It’s about a win-win long-term partnership that’s going to work for everybody. And if the partners are making a financial commitment to a 10-year contract, then we’ve got to make it fair, and we’ve got to work it in a way that suits them.”
With Stuff’s purchase of the Wairarapa Times-Age, and NZME’s recent acquisition of the Gisborne Herald, there are just four smaller, independently owned cover-price newspapers left in New Zealand - the Whakatane Beacon, Opotiki News, Westport News and Ashburton Guardian.
Three big companies dominate the rest of the line-up - NZME, publisher of the NZ Herald and a range of North Island dailies; Stuff, publisher of The Post, The Press and a suite of other titles; and Allied Press, publisher of the Otago Daily Times.
All three of these bigger companies also publish a wide range of free, community newspaper titles. Ownership of smaller, free community titles is a lot more varied, with a suite of individual owners and operators.
But in terms of paid newspapers - those with a cover price - there are, by my count, 27 left in New Zealand - published either Monday-Friday or on Sunday, or a mixture of days.
I don’t buy into the fear that big companies like NZME and Stuff will undermine local newspapers.
They’re actually likely to have given them a longer lifespan, as single operators struggle in the current economic landscape with high overheads and faltering revenue.
That’s not to say some cutbacks might be required to get the papers to a point of acceptable profitability.
But the big companies would be crazy to suddenly cut big numbers out of newsrooms - not only do those journalists bring unique stories (and therefore advertising and subscription revenue) to the table, but they also represent an important component of future digital strategies.
Same with local sales reps - it’s critical that advertising teams have ‘boots on the ground’ to develop relationships with clients, even if automation might play a bigger role in future.
The big companies also bring scale to local businesses - many internal operations and duties such as payroll, marketing, financial and legal support can all be performed by the parent company’s head office.
I looked at a range of the 27 papers yesterday.
They continue to have a strong number of local news and sport pages - the ones I looked at, from both the NZME and Stuff stables, had anywhere between 24 and 40 pages.
There are certainly a lot of ‘shared’ pages within each company - mainly world news, opinion, sport, business and national news pages. The likes of NZME is also inserting its Travel magazine into the Gisborne Herald each week, further boosting its appeal.
By and large most of the newspapers had a sizeable chunk of local news.
Hawke’s Bay Today - which published an award-winning free edition at the peak of Cyclone Gabrielle last year - is a classic example of how these regional newspapers are a lifeline for their communities.
One question for some of these publishers is whether they can sustain five or six-day publications. Some have already come down to three or four days a week.
Our very own Madison Reidy has been named one of Forbes’ top 30 under-30 performers in the Asia media, marketing and advertising industry.
“Wtf is this real?!” she tweeted yesterday.
The list honours young professionals “defining and driving the ever-shifting world of news and content”.
Forbes citation for Reidy - the only New Zealander on the list - reads: “The 28-year-old is host and executive producer of Markets with Madison, a news podcast for investors. Since it launched in February 2023, the twice-weekly show streamed by New Zealand Media and Entertainment has garnered over 750,000 views. Reidy has talked to business leaders like New Zealand’s Reserve Bank governor Adrian Orr, Rocket Lab CEO Peter Beck and Ark Invest founder Cathie Wood on topics such as AI, monetary policy and cryptocurrency.”
Meanwhile, overnight, another young New Zealand journalist, Pete McKenzie, has been announced as one of 14 global recipients of the 2024 Ochberg Fellowship.
“Established in 1999 for journalists wishing to deepen their knowledge of trauma science and improve their reporting on traumatic events and their aftermath, the Ochberg Fellowships are awarded to outstanding senior and mid-career journalists working across the world in all media who specialise in covering violence, conflict and tragedy on every scale, from street crime and family violence to disaster, war, terrorism, conflict and genocide,” says the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma at Columbia University’s graduate school of journalism in New York.
The week-long fellowship includes seminars led by experts and journalism practitioners, exploring psychological trauma and discussing ethical and craft challenges raised by the journalists’ work.
McKenzie - who writes about New Zealand and the Pacific for The New York Times and other outlets - won the Reporter of the Year award at the annual Voyager Media Awards last year.
He has a master’s degree in global politics from Columbia University, which he attended as a Fulbright scholar, and a law degree with first-class honours from Victoria University.
Editor-at-Large Shayne Currie is one of New Zealand’s most experienced senior journalists and media leaders. He has held executive and senior editorial roles at NZME including Managing Editor, NZ Herald Editor and Herald on Sunday Editor and has a small shareholding in NZME.
'I can imagine people being outraged that TVNZ signed a deal with me.'