That Guy: From hard-bitten news to soft-boiled eggs

Opinion

I have to say that I feel for the people who have recently lost their jobs with the sudden but inevitable demise of TV3's breakfast show Sunrise.

Market forces and a small population have conspired to terminate the show and, in a way, I can relate to their struggle because I am perhaps New Zealand's best-loved breakfast columnist, so I realise what a tough slot it can be.

It is no secret, certainly, in the industry, that the Herald on Sunday was struggling for some time to capture the breakfast audience.

Research suggested that many readers chose to read the columns after breakfast, almost closer to a time you would associate with brunch.

In some cases, columns weren't being read until a good deal after lunch, if at all.

Just as breakfast is the most important meal of the day, a breakfast column is the most important column of a newspaper.

It is on this column that everything else hinges, even the front page.

So I have to say I wasn't that surprised when, six weeks ago, I was called into the editor's office and asked whether I wanted to take over the breakfast slot.

At first I was reluctant. I am known as a hard-news kind of journo, one who is better suited to prime-time columns for prime-time readers, those who read in the late morning or after lunch.

The editor appreciated my concerns, but research had shown that, if radical changes weren't made, the breakfast column might have to be shut down altogether.

I went away and thought about it for a while. My concerns were that I would no longer be taken seriously as a journo. To be a breakfast columnist, I would need to be lighter and breezier and probably have to wear a bad taste shirt while I wrote.

On the positive side I was offered a lot more money and once I had written my breakfast column, I would be free to do what I wanted for the rest of the day.

So six weeks ago I moved from hard news and issues and set up my laptop on the breakfast bar by the coffee machine.

I had to adjust my writing style to a more conversational style, and I had to force myself to write about things that don't really matter. Gone were big topics like Bigfoot and in was relationship and fat-loss advice.

I now try to visualise my audience while I write. I want to address them directly; engage with them, if you like.

I want to come across as your friendly neighbour who chats to you while you get dressed or in some cases, while you have a shower.

Naturally this approach, combined with my shock-jock journalistic style, has polarised the readers but, as they say in general breakfast circles, you have to break a few eggs to make an omelette.

But I must have been doing something right: ratings have gone up 64 per cent in the 18 to 49-year-old breakfast-reader demographic.

In other words, people are reading more at breakfast time than after.

This is great for the advertisers, who have targeted that market, specifically your breakfast cereal manufacturers and breakfast radio stations which often take out half-page adverts.

So by and large the moving of me into the breakfast slot has been a success, but with success comes fresh concerns.

The latest research suggests that many readers are now reading the breakfast column during breakfast, but once they have finished they go and fill the dishwasher and are neglecting to read the rest of the paper.