An intriguing little item appears in this morning’s Herald. It’s about a question Radio Live’s Martin Devlin put to Dennis Conner in a phone interview at the weekend: Was there a chance that, when he attends an America’s Cup Legends charity dinner in Auckland this month, he might ‘make complete peace with Paul Holmes’.

Holmes was due to front the event, but was dropped after Conner, though not demanding that he be replaced, had expressed discomfort with the arrangement.

Conner’s reply to Devlin’s question was: ‘I don’t really remember that. Never say never to anything but certainly not high on my agenda.’

 And then, without pause: ‘Thank you, have a nice day and thanks for the call.’ And he was gone. A walkout of a sort and a minor re-run of the end of the original Holmes interview.

Devlin commented: ‘Hmm. He doesn’t remember, eh? Remembers enough though to insist that the bloke isn’t going to be the MC.’

Not according to David Higgins, one of the organisers of  the event,  who told the Herald that  Conner had not specifically said he didn’t want Holmes as MC:

“I gathered that probably wasn’t the right way to go… I like Paul. I have a lot of time for him but I spoke to Dennis on the phone and he actually came across as sharp.’

Holmes was quoted in the Herald on Sunday as having said it was ‘pathetic’ a person could hold on to something for 21 years.

Devlin is probably right that it’s barely credible that Conner can’t remember his interview with Holmes, given his response to Higgins. I suspect the truth is that he would find a public appearance with Holmes uncomfortable and that he doesn’t want to revisit or discuss an unpleasant episode in New Zealand 21 years ago when he’s returning to speak at a function to raise funds for Asthma New Zealand. He was an asthma sufferer himself as a child and it’s a cause close to his heart.

It might have been better if he’d just said so. But Conner is clearly someone who, both in a physical and a metaphorical sense, ‘walks away from’ disagreeable situations. I have some sympathy for him, I’m a bit like that myself.    Read the rest of this entry »

While we’re in the mood for a little TV nostalgia…

We went for nearly 10 years without regular local drama in the 80s. Yes, I’m talking soap opera – that’s how actors learn TV acting, crews learn their craft, directors learn how they look with grey hair. 

The 80s gave us Gloss, with its big hair and matching shoulder pads – it was slick and it was funny and it was one of the best things NZ had ever made.

But no soap. And no soap meant that for a decade actors hadn’t worked on fast-turnaround drama. And it showed.

I’m not sure of the current penalties for encouraging people into acts of masochism, but here it is – the very first episode of Shortland Street. Hilarious!

Shortland Street -Episode One

Here’s a spot of nostalgia for those of you who remember the early days of television – and a bit of a shock for those who don’t, I imagine!

Herald on Sunday

Interpretation of television ratings to suit one’s own purposes has become something of a PR art form. There’s bound to be a demographic somewhere where your channel is ahead, if only among insomniac devotees of geriatric movies. 

But I suspect Richards is correct. Leaving aside the fact that there is no competing programme on TV3 for viewers to defect to, weekday early morning TV shows are rarely appointment viewing. 

I became particularly aware of this when staying with relatives in Britain. As mum bustled around making breakfast, getting the kids ready for school, finding dad’s cufflinks and generally transforming chaos into some semblance of order, television sets in the living room, kitchen, master and teenagers’ bedrooms sprayed news, weather, traffic information and chat to anyone who cared to listen and watch. 

Breakfast is a chaotic time for most families, making concentrated viewing of anything on TV difficult. So, other than for the unemployed or  retired, breakfast viewing is distracted viewing. Audiences do not so much ‘watch’ the programme, as ‘catch’ snatches of information relevant to their areas of interest or to the forthcoming day. The often complained of cyclical repetition of news headlines, weather forecasts and traffic reports makes absolute sense since it increases the chances that an individual member of the household will get the information they want while commuting from bedroom to bathroom or kitchen to living room. Weather forecasts are worldwide the highest rating programmes on television, a sobering thought perhaps for programme makers and the stars who appear on the programmes. 

All of this may mean that the hosts of breakfast TV programmes play a somewhat less significant role in attracting and retaining viewers than they would in prime time. There is, after all, very little difference between breakfast television formats world wide: attractive female presenter and (at least passable) male presenter chat, make jokes, occasionally flirt, do serious and not-so-serious short interviews on topical issues, read emails and texts, throw to news headlines, weather and traffic reports and cross live to hyperactive field reporters with the latest quirky, offbeat, sad/happy human interest story in town.  Read the rest of this entry »

Sarah Ivey/NZ Herald

I spend a fair amout of time on this site taking the New Zealand television networks to task for their generally abysmal prime-time coverage of public affairs. So it’s appropriate to be equally generous in praise when they get it right.

Following David Tamihere’s release from prison, Monday’s Close Up featured a background report by Hannah Ockelford on the murder of the Swedish tourists, the subsequent arrest,  trial and conviction of Tamihere, his unsuccessful appeal to the Privy Council to overturn his conviction and his 20-year imprisonment during which he continued to assert his innocence.

This was not a long item, perhaps five or six minutes, but it was a model of television storytelling. I have long been an admirer or Hannah Ockelford, who is an excellent interviewer, brings a quiet maturity to her reporting and, as a bonus, both looks and sounds good. Her report included archival footage of the police hunt for Tamihere, who was then on the run, a summary of the evidence both for and against him, and interviews with Tamihere’s wife Kristine, his son Jon and journalist Pat Booth. All three impressed.

Pat Booth is without question the most admired  investigative journalist in New Zealand.  He is a crusader for justice. And, as it happens, he understands the art of persuasive communication, no better illustrated than in his interview with Ockelford. At a technical level, he sits forward, holds intense eye-contact with his interviewer, speaks quietly – this is an intimate format – and listens intently to the questions. I doubt that he thinks about any of this. It’s instinctual. He presents his case entirely without hyperbole or histrionics. He is utterly reasonable. And, most important of all, he willingly concedes any weakness in his argument. When accused by the interviewer of having just as blinkered a view of the case as the police, he simply replies, ‘Oh yes, yes, I agree. We are all victims of our environment and what we know.’   The effect is not to undermine but to enhance his credibility. This is an object lesson in the art of the interview.

At the end of the five or six minutes, I feel that I have been given a clear, concise, low-key and even-handed summary of the issues surrounding the arrest, trial,  conviction and imprisonment of David Tamihere. I have been informed. And I have been left to make up my own mind on where the truth actually lies. That is what I mean by ‘getting it right’.

Take another look

And look for the line of the week – Pat Booth talking about hard-line detective John Hughes, who headed the investigation: ‘He was known in the underworld as The Gardener, because he planted so well.’

New Zealand’s Next Top Model is my trash-telly fix of the week. I’m addicted. Will Danielle get to scare model agencies in New York? Will someone punch out Dakota’s lights? Will spending so much time with the twins give everyone diabetes?

Last night the leggy ingénues got to model a new line of underwear  - in St. Matthew’s in the City.

Although the Church and I parted company decades ago, it made me distinctly uncomfortable. And if I was uncomfortable I can only imagine what religious viewers were feeling. A couple of the girls, who are professed Christians, must have seen their wee souls heading straight for purgatory.

It’s not the first time St. Matthew’s has set out to shock. A few months ago a couple of tongue-in-cheek billboards created a nation-wide fuss and upset someone so much they were defaced. So I can’t help thinking that hiring out the church for a bevy of teenagers to strut their stuff up and down the aisle in nothing but a few wisps of lace might have been pushing the envelope a tad too far.

 Am I being a prude, or was this completely inappropriate?

Herald On Sunday

I am reluctant to return to the topic of Paul Henry. In talking about him at all one pays him a degree of attention which he almost certainly does not deserve. But he is employed by the state broadcaster as an entertainer and is well rewarded for his efforts. And it is this aspect of the debate that I wish to address.

The central question concerning Henry, it seems to me, ought to be: Does Television New Zealand accept responsibility for Henry’s regular abuses of his privileged position as a broadcaster on national television? Or does it take the view that his ratings – and potential ratings if he is given his own prime-time show – more than compensate for the insult that he so cheerfully pays to so many groups and so many viewers? And is the censure of the generally weak-kneed Broadcasting Standards Authority, with its totally inadequate penalties, actually a convenient way for TVNZ to absolve itself of responsibility for Henry’s uncivilised opinions?

It might be thought that none of this matters since Henry is the co-host of a breakfast show which, by definition, has a very small audience. But common sense dictates that the only reason for TVNZ to put up with the regular fallout from their host’s disagreeable utterances is the substantial future revenue which it might expect to generate from the high viewing figures which any show designed to offend public sentiment will be guaranteed to attract. For the simple fact of the matter is that if the mooted prime-time Henry programme proves to be inoffensive, it will disappoint and fail.   Read the rest of this entry »

Reporters I like (not a complete list):

Jane Luscombe – 3 News: strong English accent,  highly  professional

Kim Chisnall – 3 News Europe correspondent: good voice, highly professional

Simon Shepherd – 3 News: professional low-key reporter; good newsreader

Hilary Barry & Mike McRoberts – 3 News: best in the business

Vicki Wilkinson Baker – One News Christchurch reporter: the consummate professional

Tsehai Tiffin – One News Queenstown reporter: good voice, highly professional

Lorelei Mason One News Health reporter: simply brilliant. She should be paid heaps.

Barbara Dreaver – One News Pacific reporter: See Lorelei Mason

Donna Marie Lever – One News reporter: Good voice, highly professional

And Programmes, People and Practices I like (not a complete list):

The Gruen Transfer – Comedy Central: Amusing and informative Australian programme on advertising.

Reel Late with Kate – TV3’s new movie show with Kate Rodger. Despite the sponsor promotion and the giveaways, a really welcome addition to our screens. And Kate Rodger is just great. (But see below)

Thank God You’re Here TV2 – Aussie theatre-sports-style show: Very clever and great fun.

Nurse Jackie – TV3 after Outrageous Fortune: Drug-dependant hospital nurse having affair with hospital pharmacist. The distaff answer to House. Wonderful

Mike Hosking fronting Close Up

[Brickbats follow]  Read the rest of this entry »

When you’re freezing your butt off doing vox pops in the street, this is the woman you want to meet!

Last Friday, in its regular segment featuring the on-line editor’s selection of items from the channel’s website,  TV3 returned to the topic of Chris Carter:

“How to have dinner with MP Chris Carter: Find out how you can have dinner with Labour MP Chris Carter. He’s promising lots of wine.”

Viewers who went to the site, could read the following post:

Dinner with Carter, Kaiser – BYO flowers, masseuse

Trade Me bidders can win dinner with troubled Labour MP Chris Carter and his partner Peter Kaiser, but they are adamant that gifts of flowers are at the public’s expense.   

 Mr Carter and Mr Kaiser will entertain the successful bidder at their home in Te Atatu South, providing food and a “generous amount” of wine. 

On the post the pair make fun of Mr Carter’s recent problem with inappropriate spending on his ministerial credit card.

“Chris and Peter accept flowers – at your expense,” they write.

 Massages and flights to and from Auckland are also at the bidder’s expense.

In the ‘Question and Answers’ section of the post one potential bidder asks whether Mr Carter would be paying for the dinner on his Government credit card.

The pair evade the question; writing: “It’s a charity auction. Feel happy to bid if you like.”

All funds from the auction, listed on Trade Me, will go to the GABA Charitable Trust – a fund set up to support the health and welfare of New Zealand’s gay community.

Bidding for the dinner - to be held on a date agreed between the two parties - is currently at $100.

The only problem with this story is  that the following statements are entirely untrue:

- they are adamant that gifts of flowers are at the public’s expense. 

 - On the post the pair make fun of Mr Carter’s recent problem with inappropriate spending on his ministerial credit card.

 - “Chris and Peter accept flowers – at your expense,” they write.

- The pair evade the question, writing, “It’s a charity auction. Feel happy to bid if you like.” Read the rest of this entry »

Many years ago, when I was running the television modules at the AUT,  I invited Tom Parkinson, former Head of Entertainment with TVNZ and one of the driving forces behind TV3, to give a guest lecture to some of my senior students. I assumed he would talk about Light Entertainment, but his theme was the remarkable similarity in structure between network television news and the  old time  music hall.  It was mostly about placement: where in the programme you put the starring acts (major stories), second tier acts (less major stories), intermissions (commercial breaks), comedy acts (funny stories), high wire acts (dramatic stories), pre-intermission acts (teasers),  heart-warming acts (human interest stories) and so on.  ‘Make ‘em laugh, make ‘em cry, make ‘em wait.’ It was a fascinating lecture and the exactness of the analogy was remarkable.

I don’t think it was Tom’s intention to suggest that the actual content of the television news bulletin should be the same as the content of a music hall bill, but I’m starting to feel that that is where we are inexorably going. Our news-reading duos increasingly look like comedy double acts. Read the rest of this entry »

A copy of the complete script of the final episode of Outrageous Fortune was discovered this morning by a vagrant fossicking through the Henderson tip.  In  an extraordinary piece of serendipity, the vagrant turned out to be a close relative of mine and passed the script on to me. He naturally expected a reward, so I gave him the money for a trim flat white and sent him on his way. My offer to return the script unread to South Pacific Pictures in return for a part as a gynaecologist in Shortland Street was rejected, so I am publishing the main points of the script here:  Read the rest of this entry »

scoop.co.nz

Mike Hosking was standing in for Mark Sainsbury on last night’s Close Up. I haven’t always been a fan of Mr Hosking’s interviewing style, but each time he appears on Close Up my respect for him grows.

A useful litmus test for judging a television host or interviewer is how comfortable they make you feel watching them. If their presentation or questioning make you feel as though you’re watching an amateur high-wire walker making his debut between two New York skyscrapers in a high wind, you can be reasonably certain that the interviewer really isn’t very good and his career may  fall to earth sooner rather than later.

If, on the other hand, your sense of being in safe hands allows you to concentrate fully on the subject of the debate or interview, rather than on how the host is doing, you can be reasonably certain that you’re watching a skilled professional. This is the feeling I get with Mike Hosking – nothing is going to go wrong.  Read the rest of this entry »

I’m not finished with Duncan Garner yet. Having just caught up with TV3’s Political Editor hosting Saturday’s (and Sunday’s) The Nation, I’ve got quite a lot more to say about the man whose interviewing skills I dismissed as nonexistent a couple of months ago and whose suitability for his job I have more recently questioned.

On the basis of his showing on The Nation over the weekend, I conclude:

*That Garner is extremely good ‘to camera’. He looks comfortable and relaxed and conveys a natural authority. He ‘comes through the lens’. These are rare enough qualities among television presenters and both TV1 and TV3 currently have newsreaders less professional  in their delivery than Garner.  Read the rest of this entry »

With more than 100 comments posted , I am putting a full stop to this debate. I will not publish any more comments. Too many contain little more than abuse of one party or the other.

The incontrovertible facts are as follows:

*Garner and Carter had a confrontation in the Auckland Koru Club roughly 11 months ago.

*Carter claims that later, on the plane, Garner said to him: I am going to fucking get you, Carter. If it takes me to Christmas I am going to fucking destroy you.

*Garner responds:  I ’swear’ I did not say to Chris, “I am going to fucking get you, if it takes me to Christmas I am going to destroy you.”

*Whatever the actual words used by Garner, they were overheard by Dame Margaret Bazley who was seated directly behind Carter.  Dame Margaret was appalled by whatever it was she heard and said to Carter:  What a disgraceful man. You don’t have to put up with rubbish like that on a plane, Mr Carter.

We will leave it there.

Picture: NZPA

Picture: TV3

It will come as no surprise to readers of this blog that I am no fan of TV3′s Political Editor, Duncan Garner. I have written several posts about him. They include a post on April 7 in which I raised the question: Should TV3 be considering  whether their Political Editor is fit to hold the job?  I headed the post Duncan Garner on Chris Carter – Journalism or Personal Campaign?  I believe I now have the answer to that question and it comes from Garner’s own lips. 

But first a little history. It is no secret around Parliament  that, roughly 11 months ago,  Garner and Carter had a verbal stoush in the Auckland Koru Club.  Following the release of the report detailing the 2008 travel expenses of Labour Ministers, Garner had run a TV3 story alleging that Carter was a big-spending Minister whose travel could not be justified in what was essentially a domestic portfolio – Education. The story also referred to Carter’s long-time partner and travelling companion, Peter Kaiser, and included the name of the primary school of which Kaiser is principal.  

Not surprisingly, there was bad blood between the two men. Carter and Darren Hughes were in the Koru Club waiting for their flight to Wellington to be called when Garner approached them. He is reported as having said, ‘Travelling on the fucking taxpayer again, Chris.’ Carter told him to ‘fuck off!’  Read the rest of this entry »

Watching the unedifying spectacle of a group of primarily television reporters and cameramen chasing Chris Carter down the corridors of Parliament, like a pack of hounds baying for the fox’s blood, I was reminded why journalists are competing with politicians, used-car dealers and parking officers for the title of New Zealand’s most despised profession. The comparison is unfair both to the politicians, used-car dealers and parking officers and to a large section of those in the journalism trade itself, primarily the print media.

The difference between print and television journalists is an expression of the differing approach each group has to their trade. Print journalists in my experience are more idealistic about their function in society, seeing the role of the fourth estate as worthwhile, positive, concerned with truth, perhaps even noble. Few become household names, and those who do are likely to have made the transition, often via radio, to the small screen.

The television journalist, in common with pretty well everyone else on television, is primarily motivated by a desire for public recognition – to be seen, noticed, recognised, admired, famous, loved. Among the applause industries, television offers the most accessible entree to all of that.  The newspaper by-line cannot compete.    Read the rest of this entry »

Email from Andi Brotherston, TVNZ News and Current Affairs Public Relations Manager, in response to a complaint about the programme from regular contributor to this website, Merv Lowe:

Thanks for your email.
 
I appreciate that you didn’t like it. I also appreciate that you have very strong views on what the show should have looked like.
Our programmers disagree with you and decided to do something different. They did so and it worked. 760,000 people watched it.
Ratings are our benchmark and I don’t believe there is a better one.
 
Prime TV is doing a series of documentaries later in the month. They may well prove to be similar to what you had anticipated.
It will be interesting to see how many people watch them.
 
As you know TVNZ has to make money today. The only way to do that is to achieve high ratings. You may not like it, you may not be alone in not liking it but that is an issue for Government not an issue for us. We are doing what our shareholder requires us to do.
 
Andi

Email from Andi Brotherston to me, in response to my previous post:

Cheers to 50 Years of Television is one of the highest rating programmes in the last 50 Years of TV.  There’s few others that have held such a large audience over such a long time. It won every 15 minute slot between 8:30pm-10:30pm.
 
I have spent my entire career in private radio and private TV (until now) where we valued and respected our audience and never thought we knew better than them. So my view is that it’s extremely patronising to say 760,000 people are wrong.
 
Surely so many people can’t be that wrong? Added to that, we’re starting to receive calls from people wanting us to repeat the programme or to buy it on DVD.

Andi

Read the rest of this entry »

The critics have been saying it for years.  The ivory tower intellectuals have been saying it for years. Lots and lots and lots of ordinary viewers have been saying it for years. But now, at last, we have it from the horse’s mouth, the official word on what New Zealand television is all about.

On Tuesday TVNZ ‘celebrated’ a half century of television in New Zealand with two hours of something called Cheers to 50 Years of Television.  There appears to have been general agreement that the ‘something’ was, as the Herald reported, ‘crap’ and ‘a pile of dog turds’. A gentler, though still unflattering assessment on Public Address was that the show was ‘the equivalent of offering some chips and a litre of orange juice at someone’s 50th anniversary on the job.’

On the whole, I thought these assessments were generous,  but it is not my intention to add insult to injury by contributing to the contumely that has already been heaped on TVNZ’s head. I want to congratulate them. And in particular I want to congratulate  the company’s spokesperson Andi Brotherston. We do not normally associate the art of public relations with telling it like it is, with delivering the unvarnished truth. But that is what Andi has done. She has told it like it is, she has delivered the unvarnished truth, the official word on what New Zealand television is all about.

She could have dissimulated. She could have used honeyed PR words to deny that the programme was ‘crap’ and ‘a pile of dog turds’. To her credit, she did not. Accepting that Cheers to 50 Years of Television had received ‘mixed reviews’ – presumably as in ‘some terrible, some diabolical’ – she is reported as having added that ‘what was important was the excellent ratings’. Bravo! Cheers! Well done! For that is indeed the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.  Read the rest of this entry »

Fair Go (TV1) – Despite the OTT set, had returned to its knitting – sorting out viewer complaints – by programme 3. The yellow circles were gone and none of the stories were split into two or three parts to increase the tension and keep you watching.

Sunday (TV1)  - A really excellent programme which I’ve neglected to praise in the past. Cameron Bennett is the consummate professional and enough time is given to issues at home and abroad to make you feel you’ve had a satisfying meal and not just a side-salad.

Comedy Central – for Live at the Apollo, Saturday Night Live and The Jon Stewart Show (But see below!)

And Comedy Central again for The Gruen Transfer, an entertaining and somewhat enlightening Aussie show on advertising, though host Wil Anderson makes my flesh creep.

7 Days (TV3)  - irreverent humour in the worst possible taste. Perfect.

Desperate Housewives (TV2) and The Graham Norton Show (UKTV) – Oh, you are awful, but I like you!

The Panel on RNZ’s Afternoons with Jim Mora – Great listening and not just because I’m often on it. Well, partly because of that.

Toms Scott’s cartoons in the Dominion Post. Things of beauty and a joy forever.

Throng – ‘New Zealand’s TV watching community’. The essential website for anyone interested in New Zealand television. Find it at http://www.throng.co.nz/

  Read the rest of this entry »