KEY POINTS:
TVNZ news chief Bill Ralston has quit as the recently-appointed TVNZ chief executive Rick Ellis introduces a new-look management team.
What do you think of TVNZ's ratings woes? Has the programming got better or worse? Has the 6pm news got better or have you settled on TV3's news or Prime's 5.30pm newscast?
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This debate is now closed
Here is a selection of your views:
Dean
I tuned out from TV years ago when reality shows arrived. Sometimes, when I wish to relax quietly, I make the mistake of turning TV back on again, and quickly realise my mistake. I get my news and entertainment from bloggers and the internet, where I can choose the content I imbibe. Celebrities issues are as boringly pathetic as the people who think they're important. The programmes we make are cheap, and trash. The stuff we buy in is just as bad. Reality tv is not good programming, it generates a pack of voyeuristic morons with no life of their own.
Much better to have a life, methinks, than sit through the visual valium that is TV.
Roger Hawkins
I believe the Ralston regime has ruined TNZ News. Who watches it these days - I certainly dont. 6.00PM is too early for the news and 10.30PM for the late news is too late (Some NZers actually work for a living), so if you miss the early news and don't want to sit up for the late news - what do you do. The answer is....shift channels (to Pay TV or Triangle). "Cat stuck up a tree" and "local interest" stories such as those carried by TVNZ now just dont cut it against BBC quality news items of global news and emerging news stories of real significance from the BBC and US news organisations. The stories are too short and way to lightweight. I prefer PBS on Triangle - at 10.00 PM. A limited number of solid, really substantial issues, with great interviews and enough detail to get your teeth into far outweighs the current "News Lite" service of TVNZ. I am a news junkie - but lightweight stories by lightweight TVNZ journalists are not of any interest to me (Newstalk ZB is also losing it by the way)I now prefer BBC News on both TV and Radio. Mark Sainsbury may be a nice guy but he also does not interest me as a current affairs presenter - and as a result, I am "gone and will not be back" as a TVNZ viewer until there are substantial improvements. If you ask me it all went to pot when Richard Long, Judy Bailey, Melanie Jones and Paul Holmes left. Bring em back and they may get a better result.
Brett
TVNZ has an obligation to the charter. Remember its a taxpayer funded creation which like others (Telecom in particular)needs to retain some focus and energy on areas neglected as they fail a commercial viability test. Media ownership grows ever more concentrated particularly with recent changes in Australia that impact us directly. Having worked in a public broadcaster its easy to see why TVNZ has issues, it thinks its more a business than a broadcaster with charter obligations. It sees fit to shelve episodes of NZ productions paid for by the taxpayer, jerk viewers around with poor programming decisions, cutting shows mid-season and seemingly running every piece of drama the BBC can offer....or anything with Robson Green in it. A term I heard alot in the news room was intellectual rigour i.e. add some extra perspective to what the newspapers and others have already done yet are they capable of that? Sadly the high ground in TV news/current affairs has been vacated, TV3 could have grabbed it but making quality pieces takes time and money, or the lawyers will bring you down. TV3 has chosen to chase the youth market, a valid commercial decision but sad for the person who relies on these services to inform, stimulate and debate issues. So what we have got now is a vacuous news presence where newspapers and feeds from satellites dictate the agenda as shooting, editing, researching costs money and its easier to grab a feed, cut it up, put it to air. You only have to observe the proximity to the start of a bulletin (the first 4 stories) to see where editors priorities are and how long before you discover (if you do) what happened in the world.
TVNZ is a sad story indeed, but lets not kid ourselves about Fraser/Ralston etc being the reason, the rot goes way back as the charter should have been a condition of the creation of TVNZ.
Jill Semmens
Much prefer TVNZ news always have done! But get that Sainsbury off Close UP!! In future will be watching John Campbell on tv 3! Just for once can those of us have a halfway decent front person on our half hour news!! Try Jeremy Wells if you want a fresh face with a bit of humour!
Frank van der Zwaag
Clearly the government propaganda machine has failed and now we see 200 capable people lose their jobs as a result. My advice: get a cheapy airfare on Emirates Airlines to Australia and get a job where you will be appreciated for your skills and insights.
Y Pilmore
What an abysmal legacy Ralston leaves TVNZ. It beggars belief one person can do the damage that has been done, and get away with it. How about a bit of investigative journalism into just who got the chop and why and when with Ralston? [eg look back as far as one of the best weather presenters we ever had, Jim Hickey, and go from there]. So many excellent TV news readers and presenters gone, and the ratings gone with them.These people are assets that TVNZ no longer has. What a loss! What a waste!
RossNZ
Hugh doesnt understand why the government should own a TV network. The answer is simple, with a bit of winking and nudging (bonuses or gardening leave) the government gets the channels to provide free sympathetic propaganda. Radio NZ follows the same pattern of predominantly socialist presenters and guests.
Bruce Young
No wonder TVNZ News ratings are falling, Everytime I see a person to be interviewed walking across the room or speaking to the receptionist I change channels to TV3. Monotonous & boring. Also the slant on news stories seems very negative & biased toward the Government, Should I be surprised that the state-funded broadcaster has people with that bias.? Suppose not, but its a bit obvious.
TB
TVNZ has become a soft target for every would-be "media commentator" (or is that disser) in this country. Most people are unaware of the huge costs involved in producing local television, and the enormous work behind the scenes in the production community to bring a show to air. NZ is a small country and here we pay no license fee, unlike countries like the UK. TVNZ does an admirable job with a limited budget, and contrary to public perception, is largely a self-funding entity. It has to balance charter obligations with commercial reality. Cheap pot-shots from the Herald every second day does nothing but de-stabilize a company who is trying to reflect our national identity.
Ollie
I think TVNZ has been guilty of sitting back on its laurels and pandering to its loyal middle-aged/elderly audience for too long in the Richard and Judy era. Then they realised this and abruptly made wholesale changes to try and lure a younger audience of people like me who grew up on the breath-of-fresh-air TV3 approach. A news station should never be the news, but this is what happened to TVNZ, and TV3 viewers had a box seat view of it unfolding. They were joined by ruffled TVNZ refugees. Would you rather watch the sinking ship or be on it?
Murray
TVNZs culture is of the gutter. We left New Zealand because of what was happening to the countrys culture. A mixture of American sleeze and Polynesian rubbish. Why dont you do a proper investigation into why the government allows this world famous rubbish to continue. New Zealand has the worst television in the world.
Stephen Smith
The restructuring of TVNZ has been on the cards for a while now and it primarily reflects the new digital services being developed. This morning on Breakfast Wayne Hope made some useful observations regarding some of the issues which underpin TVNZ' problems. These include the negative media coverage of TVNZs performance (even though it remains the market leader) and the problem that it has to deliver the Charter AND pay dividends to the Treasury. I still think the Charter is a good idea, but for some reason the government seems to think it can have its cake and eat it.
Christopher Miles
Re TVOnes breakfast: The manner of speech of whoever it is who delivers the weather forecast is appalling, even to the extent that I am barely able to understand her.My highly educated Philippines wife speaks English as to the proverbial manor born. Perfect degrees of articulation, enunciation, diction and semantic correctness are her norms.
Paul Allen
I dont think Bill Ralston should shoulder too much responsibility for the decline of One News' ratings. This was always going to happen over time for one simple reason; TVNZs audience is quite literally dying. TV One has long been the fogeys channel, as any cursory glance at the ratings and their BBC heavy line-up will confirm. It harks back to the days when NZ had only one channel. Old habits are hard to break. TV3 meanwhile has always been strong with the younger audience, and its persistence with youth is now paying off. TVNZ needed to reach out to that younger audience, and thats what Mr Ralstons changes were all about. Unfortunately, TVNZ needed to do this about 10 years ago. They have allowed TV3 to steal a march by resting on their laurels for too long. Judy Bailey, Paul Holmes and all the rest needed to go. They were overpaid for what is in reality a pretty simple job. And this is something the audience needs to get to grips with. Reading an autocue competently does require skill and experience, but it isnt rocket science. Despite this, the audience does form irrational attachments with certain presenters, attaching values such as honesty and credibility to them. Its similar to the sort of bond a small child might form with a blanket or soft toy. Mr Ralston is no fool and did what needed to be done to try and lever the network into an audience with huge discretionary spending that they had been missing out on. However, that product was already available on TV3, and those who remained loyal to TV One were not ready to move on. This is also strange audience behaviour, because the two products have only ever been superficially different. Anyone who has access to two televisions should try watching the shows simultaneously. Usually the top stories are the same, and on once occasion I witnessed TV3 and TV One go almost shot for shot for the first eight minutes. This essential similarity is also evident in both networks persistence with one hour of news, seven days per week. New Zealand is a tiny country, with a population smaller than most average sized cities. Nothing much of any major significance happens, and certainly not enough to justify a full 60 minutes of News. This is why the bulletins, especially on weekends, look extremely thin and contain some pretty weak material. However, people do genuinely seem to think they are getting a better product simply because there is more of it. I am sorry, but thats a load of garbage, and it is time the audience came to grips with that.
A true reformer at TVNZ would do the following. Slash One News to 30 minutes, and broadcast it at 8pm with a single presenter. At 6pm, a large chunk of the potential audience is either still at work, fighting Auckland traffic, at the supermarket, or trying to cook dinner. An 8pm start time would provide a true alternative to the competition. However, such a quantum shift would almost certainly be suicide. If the audience flees in droves simply because a pleasant mumsy newsreader is replaced by someone a bit younger reading essentially the same scripts, then anything more radical would probably generate suicide bombings on Symonds Street. Which would at least make a decent story.
Dusty Miller
No doubt Bill will have negotiated a very health golden handshake to ease his passing. Why is it that senior people can stuff things up completely and still warrant a very nice separation package?
Mike
Ralston was best on TV3s Nightline programe. Funny edgy and ahead ofg his time. He should go back on air. If TVNZ had been smart, they would have put him on Close Up but I guess that was Ralsons call!
Darian Klein
Does anyone know if they have got new people in charge of One News this year? The story selection has been much better over the last few weeks. Better than TV3 who our family mostly watched last year, some good new reporters too.
Tom Drummond
I am very pleased that Ralston has gone from TVNZ. The decline in the credibility of TV1 news on his watch has been breathtaking. Labour promised us a Public Service standard broadcaster up there with the BBC and ABC. What we have is lip gloss and trivia presented as serious news. The whole outfit is all about style over substance designed to pull in the dosh for advertisers. Good riddance to the man!
John Taylor
Bill Ralston leaving is the best thing that can happen to TVNZ.
Christine Laws
Much is being made of the effect of viewer numbers on advertising revenues, but has anyone thought about the effect of advertising on viewers? Our family switched to TV3 because we couldn't bear Family Health Diary any more. We watched through the coughs, sniffles, vitamin deficiencies, and even ED, but "jock itch" - at dinnertime - was too much. Whereas on TV3 we might see Ira Goldstein, or one of those Tui ads. In these days of saturation advertising, its part of the programming.
Andrea
He should have never have got the job Im glad to see the back of him.
Hugh
The losses incurred by TVNZ can be blamed on the Labour Government for bringing in the ridiculous charter. TVNZ are a business and should be able to decide for themselves what they want to show. If New Zealand made programmes are good enough they will be bought by either TVNZ or TV3 and played and advertisers will be happy to buy advertising. I still don't understand why the government should own a TV station.
Lewis Bradly
If TVNZ is in trouble then the management should look ar their programing. TV1 especially lost my patronage some time ago as my wife and I got sick and tired of almost continuous English programs that in no way reflected my culture being that of a New Zealander. My wife and I are pakehas and have no interest in programing that is based on a now foreign from Britian culture that has no meaning to us.
Ian Lunam
TVNZ news and current affairs used to be raved about by old biddies and intellectuals. Now it is all pathetic sound bites about celebrities or shallow items off the feed from other organisations. Iam glad Ralston got rid of the expensive deadwood, but the replacements are just as bad. I have given up and get all my news from the internet.
Grant Diggle
Bill Ralstons departure from TVNZ comes as no surprise. He broke up a top performing partnership in Bailey and Long and the equally well performed Holmes. He also appeared to have a people management problem and in this he is unfortunately not alone.Too many NZ executives are graduates of the KGB School of Charm and Deportment with Oak Leave Cluster.Ian Fraser famously described him as bringing a "bit of mongrel" to TVNZ.The same TVNZ is now a case study is how not to govern and manage a business organistion.
Kay
If TVNZ wants to re climb the news ladder they have already completed step one by allowing Bill Ralston to go. Step two,employ someone in his place that cares about their employees. Step three,stop making "Film Stars" of the presenters. Step four, apologise to Alison Mau and get her back with her man on the news...the ratings will soar I guarantee that. They are good to watch even without the news! Step five,keep Mark Sainsbury right where he is..well at least they got something right. Step five and last but not least, give Peter Williams an award for being the best dressed on TV and get others to follow his lead. And lets see more of him.
Pauline Reid
TV One News deteriorated for us with the loss of the Simon Dallow/Alison Mau team. We had waited in hope that they would replace Judy Bailey and Richard Long. They were both very credible newsreaders (who also respected other languages sufficiently to be sure to pronounce them correctly), and were easy on the ear, particularly Alison. What a loss when she left. As to now. Two things have resulted in us frequently switching to TV3 News or swithching off - Wendy Petries voice; and the incessant rubbish TV One tries to pass off as leading news: murders, crimes, assaults, car crashes, etc. Its just a huge turn-off, while substantial news such as social and political issues, and whats going on in other parts of the world, are relegated to brief soundbites later in the bulletin, by which time we are often no longer watching.
Nick
TV is an opinionated plethora of programming that cannot and will never cater for everyone. TVNZs woes are a matter of public opinion which is fickle. TVNZ may get it right in for some people and wrong for others, the bottom line being there will always be someone to complain. In the end One News was voted Best News at the Qantas Media Awards, as New Zealanders we should be proud of the usually unbiased and professional media ecosystem we have in New Zealand. We are lucky but we are ungrateful.
Lynley Littlejohn
I think the clean out of Judy Bailey and Paul Holmes was long overdue as they turned people away from TVNZ. I am always sorry that more serious programmes like Agenda were buried away in morning spots and rubbish like Martha were on in the afternoons. As for the Xmas programming - dont you realise that most people take a TV on holiday and then there are the ones who have to work over the break who like myself would love to view up to date stuff not endless second or third grade repeats. Spend less on the big salaries and put it into progamming. Thanks for the opportunity.
Luke Mason
The hatchet man has done all the slicing and dicing of old TVNZ driftwood that had to go and now so does he. The job is done and it's time for him to move on. TVNZ can now open the doors to a new digital generation free of conservative egos and obnoxious personalities, fingers crossed that intelligent content will rules the airways once more!
Carl Forster
We watch TV 3 and sometimes Prime. As for TV ONEs News it sucks and I will not be going back any time in the near future.
Hamish Elliott
Just imagine if TVNZ was the National Radio of television in NZ - a superb, intellectually stimulating broadcaster that provides NZ-focused news, sports, art, music, politics etc to a wide audience of all ages. With so many cultural, sporting, scientific, and intellectual talent in NZ, why do we tolerate a state funded broadcaster that feeds us so much rubbishy British, American and Australian pop reality TV programmes? Sure, it is understandable that TVNZ struggles to compete in the commercial sports market and we happily pay for that from other providers, but what about broadcasting the NZSO, NZ Opera, NZ Ballet, NZ Youth Choir, Voices NZ, the wonderful Arts Festivals, Big Day Out, theatre, NZ writers, poets, artists, bands, hip hop artists, break dancers etc?? Why cant a state broadcaster present home-grown talent to our widely distributed population instead of using tax payer dollars to tell us how stoned Britney Spears got in the weekend?
Instead, we continue with the cardboard trash that continues to dumb our society. Bill Ralston - we don't care if Paris Hiltons lost her dog, we don't care if Victoria Beckhams broken a finger nail. Stop focusing on the dollars and feeding the market "popular" trash, start focusing on the NZ content and working to enlighten the market and transform them from cardboard junkies. If they need to know what the Osbournes had for breakfast they can pay for it - that is, after all, the business model behind pay-TV. Shame on TVNZ!
Graham W. Wolf
"What goes 'round, come 'round". Not exactly unexpected... but, did he jump, or was he pushed? Hopefully, the end of a very stormy era for TVNZ. Will Ralston attempt to re-join CanWest? Watch this space!
Joe
At last, I am glad we might just see something more exciting soon. This resignation is long overdue.
Eggbert Clump
Im telling you all, its those NZ Idols reality shows which every year come back to torture us...aarrrghhhh!! No more NZ Idol Pleasssse!!!
The show "Celebrity Treasure Island", I get the runs after only seeing the ads for it - let alone the show. And as for Shortland Street, same stories just new faces...please TVNZ get some new ideas and some new shows.
Tim Spooner
How many of these idiots do we have to put up with? Their appointments are always controversial and time always proves the objectors correct. When will this nonsense come to an end and real professional managers of people be put in place?
Rodger Williams
I think it was time for him to go I would not even have him as a tea maker! Richard Long or Judy Bailey should be the new person in charge of TVNZ*I also think it is time for new movies!
Ian
About time! I have been emailing TVNZ for 2 yrs to sack him.
Tim Jones
Every dictator falls eventually. The question is what can be found in the rubble?
Micheal Warren
Great job he has gone!
Glen McCauley
Given the large slip in TVNZ news ratings since the departure of Judy Bailey, Richard Long, Paul Holmes and others, surely TVNZ and its Government owners must not acknowledge that the salaries paid to those stars really were worth it.
Ben Picard
Clearly the quality of the programmes on TVNZ have lost the interest of our family and in discussion with others, we found the consensus of opinion is the same,its rubbish. Last nights programme on Why America Sucks is a typical example of that and after a short time of watching it, we switched that off. Is this what the programming gurus are capable of? If there is no one who does a check on opinions of the viewers and the calibre of these programmes then the downward slide of TVNZs popularity is bound to go below zero.
Steve
The fox has certainly cleaned out the chicken run.
Brian
Seldom watch it, but when I do, I cant believe how bad it is.
