Best of the Blogs: Paul Casserly: The great Breakfast shuffle

Herald online

1 Jan, 2015 09:00 PM3 mins to read

Fletch, Vaughan and Megan have moved to ZM, while Polly and Grant are now on The Hits.

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Between punching rappers and biting political commentary, the new breakfast radio shows on The Hits and ZM have surprised Paul Casserly.

There's a lot going in the world of the wireless. Geoff Robinson has gone from Radio New Zealand National while Wallace Chapman has set up shop on Sunday mornings, and that true gentleman of the medium, Jim Mora, is on the move to drive time for an improbable marriage with our fiercest broadcaster, Mary Wilson. Meanwhile, Simon Mercep becomes the new Mora at 1pm. There will be letters to The Listener.

Commercial radio is in a state of flux too, with new voices making their mark. This includes a flock of TV refugees, including, Mark Sainsbury and Alison Mau on Radio Live, Guy Williams on The Edge, and Wells, Heath, Havoc and Leigh Hart on Hauraki. Hugh Sundae is back on the radio too, with a great new show on Kiwi FM (Tuesday 6pm).

At ZM there's been an outbreak of 'out with the old and in with the new'. Polly and Grant are out, while former The Edge stars, Fletch, Vaughan and Megan, are in. Although in this case 'out' means a shift only of stations, as Polly and Grant shuffle sideways to the re-branded Classic Hits, which is now, and henceforth to be known as The Hits.

Polly Gillespie and Grant Kereama have ruled the ZM breakfast slot since before written records have been kept. But when the hosts become older than the target demographic, advertisers begin to twitch. The resulting convulsion has delivered Fletch, Vaughan and Megan to the ZM breakfast slot, where they seem to be enjoying themselves, and can be heard chirping away madly like a nest of happy little birds.

Angry Birds, on the other hand, was the inspiration for the first thing I heard when I tuned in. It was that breakfast show staple, the 'quiz'. Correct answers on "Angry Words", the quiz, came accompanied by sound effects from Angry Birds, the game, with a prize of $50 per correct answer. Clue: "You travel in this under water". Answer: "A submarine". Easy money. The woman I heard took home $300.

A familiar set up of the breakfast show seems to be two well-known stars and a third wheel or sidekick who probably doesn't even get a car park. The third name, if they're lucky, comes after an 'and'. In this case it's "and Megan", while on The Hits, Polly and Grant share the airwaves with Marc Peard, aka New Hot Guy - although he doesn't get his name on the marquee, which is simply The Polly and Grant Show.

I'm guessing that either Megan makes less money than the others on ZM, or she's a problem gambler, because a good part of the show was spent dissecting her issues with credit card debt. Callers were even brought in to make suggestions: "Cancel the card, say it was stolen, then at least you won't be able to buy anything for a week," said one. ...