KEY POINTS:
The only surprise about Bill Ralston's resignation as head of news and current affairs at TVNZ is that it took him so long to leave.
The future has been in doubt for TVNZ's executive with "a bit of mongrel" since Ian Fraser dramatically walked out as chief executive in November 2005.
But Mr Ralston's exit seemed inevitable when Mr Fraser's predecessor, Rick Ellis was reappointed last May.
With Mr Ellis in charge, Mr Ralston no longer had free rein.
He replaced his leather jackets with business suits and spent less time with colleagues in the TVNZ drinking hole, the Empire joining the much more conservative Northern Club in Auckland.
But eyebrows were raised about the appointment of senior middle managers to roles in which they had little experience. And One News' audience just kept on moving to TV3.
Mr Ralston walks out on Friday with ratings for One News plumbing new depths and cuts being planned for news and current affairs programmes.
Sources say Sunday's budget has been cut by one-third to $2 million but more will be apparent when Mr Ellis reveals the restructuring.
The revamp is expected to cut $10 million from TVNZ budgets, with the news and current affairs operation, with a budget of around $50 million, expected to bear the brunt.
Mr Ralston is one of the few survivors from the old team of executives associated with Mr Fraser: deputy CEO Stephen Smith, TV One programmer Liz Fraser, programming boss Annemarie Duff and commissioning boss Tony Holden.
TVNZ sources said Mr Ralston had indicated he would apply for a job running the news channel planned for new free-to-air digital TV platform Freeview.
He then sought to extend his employment contract till October next year, and then suggested this year. But one source said that none of those approaches to Mr Ellis was successful and his role is expected to be restructured this week.
Mr Ralston, who enjoyed a high profile both on and off screen, was always a controversial choice to head New Zealand's largest newsroom. He was a current affairs presenter and had a reputation as a good journalist, but had virtually no background in management.
Prime Minister Helen Clark was a fan of his arts and media programme Backchat and insiders said she was unhappy when the show was canned.
Yesterday, unusually, a spokesman for the PM said: "She has a lot of respect for Bill's journalistic abilities and wishes him well."
Often amiable and sometimes larger than life, even his critics say that he should not be blamed for all the problems at TVNZ news and current affairs, including the One News ratings slide.
The marketing department has tinkered with its image - with few positive results. And the Government regularly meddled in the company, which suffered a string of management crises.
TVNZ sources said the leaking by the Prime Minister's office of Judy Bailey's $800,000 pay package to the media and the resulting negative publicity also damaged the One News and TVNZ brands.
Insiders suggest the revamped news and current affairs role - including oversight of a new news channel - has been offered to Paul Cutler.
Mr Cutler headed TVNZ in the late 1990s but left amid tension with the former controversial chairman Dr Ross Armstrong, who had been appointed by Labour to fix the culture of extravagance at TVNZ.
Mr Cutler yesterday declined to comment "on anything to do with TVNZ".
Friends said that he would be wary of taking the job while the news operation was on a downward slope and facing severe job cuts.
The other name being mentioned is Trish Carter, a former deputy to Cutler who now heads the Kuala Lumpur bureau for the Al Jazeera English-language channel.
She applied for Mr Ralston's job and when she missed out saw her job disappear.
Insiders suggest that if she came back when her contract at Al Jazeera runs out in June, it would be to a more senior strategic role at TVNZ.
Both would be back-to-the future appointments by back-to-the-future CEO Mr Ellis.
Adding to the sense of deja vu, Mr Ellis is expected to offer a new job established under his restructuring to Andrew Shaw, the head of content in his first period as CEO.
