KEY POINTS:
Scrapping the chief operating officer role at Fairfax New Zealand is part of a bigger shake-up for the owner of the Sunday Star-Times, Dominion Post and the Press.
The incumbent Number 2 at Fairfax New Zealand - Peter O'Hara - is leaving next Friday after seven years with
the country's biggest print publisher and its predecessor, Independent Newspapers.
The axing of his role this week came just a few weeks after his return from a whistlestop tour with chief executive Joan Withers looking at newsrooms in Britain, Europe and the United States.
Withers announced on Monday that O'Hara's role was being replaced with two jobs covering his former duties - group editorial director and group publishing director.
She said O'Hara decided not to apply for either of the roles because the joint role overseeing the operational and editorial side of the business had suited him so well.
A source close to O'Hara said he was offered the group editorial director role but decided not to take it.
O'Hara said the parting was amicable and Withers said it was decided in New Zealand, not at the company's head office in Sydney.
Australian sources say the Fairfax group is going through a period of change following last year's merger with Rural Press.
In Australia, Rural Press has a reputation for a close focus on costs while Fairfax is built on the credibility of its two major metropolitan newspapers, the Sydney Morning Herald and the Age in Melbourne. Former Rural Press chief executive Brian McCarthy is deputy CEO overseeing Australian publishing and the Rural Press culture is said to be apparent at Fairfax.
Bloody Sundays
Insiders say O'Hara has been spending a significant amount of his time overseeing the Sunday newspapers division that looks after the Sunday Star-Times and Sunday News.
The Sundays have been at the pointy end of the competition with its APN-owned rival The Herald on Sunday. O'Hara has been filling the gap left when the Sundays' general manager David MacKenzie resigned about six months ago.
Barry Leitch, the longtime chief executive of Fairfax's successful Suburban Newspapers chain, said this week he would be leaving at the end of the year.
Renowned for a tough, uncompromising management style, Leitch will be ending 24 years with the chain that includes 15 community newspapers in Auckland.
His resignation is unrelated to O'Hara's departure.
The future for the suburbans is not clear but it is understood Fairfax has previously looked at options for combining the resources of its suburban papers.
Leitch, 64, says he intends to return to his background in commercial printing.
Free-to-air TV dying
TV2 seems intent on killing off free-to-air TV. Take Ugly Betty, for instance. Programmers have turned what was a hit show at the start of this year into an also-ran.
The story of a smart but not-so-gorgeous publishing assistant started well in January.
The show was given heavy promotion and developed a strong audience in its first season.
But in April TV2 took it off air, 13 episodes into an 18-episode series, so it did not compete with Dancing With The Stars.
Ugly Betty came back on June 19 with 100,000 fewer viewers and with its audience share reduced from around 28 per cent of the people watching TV to around 19 per cent.
The approach of splitting up the series was famously used for The Sopranos after eight episodes of the 13-episode series.
The penultimate show was to screen last night but that was delayed for the netball.
TVNZ insists it has not hurt ratings.
But it has damaged two top properties, including a top cult series.
No wonder people cannot be bothered with free-to-air TV.
Breakfast of champs?
Advertising media buyers are expecting good things from the new TV3 breakfast show Sunrise, expected to launch late next month or early September.
The new programme runs from 6.30am to 8.30am and will include news bulletins as well as entertainment.
And TV3 notes that breakfast TV is an oasis of growth in the free-to-air market. Advertising people say it will affect TVNZ and radio, but it must be different from Breakfast on TV One if it is going to increase the total audience.
Total Media managing director Martin Gillman noted that the big breakthrough for breakfast TV in the UK was not a serious news show, but Channel 4's The Big Breakfast - an anarchic party show more akin to bFM than National Radio.
Typically the TV One Breakfast programme is viewed by 2 per cent of the TV audience at any one time.
Fifteen to 20 per cent are believed to watch at least once a week and 30 to 35 per cent watch the show over a month, according to Total Media figures.
Breakfast on TV One rates approx 3.5 per cent of the 25- to 54-year-old audience, TV One's target demographic. Of those viewing at that time, 55 to 60 per cent watch Breakfast.
Weetbix kids
A few names are being mentioned as potential presenters for Sunrise, with the focus so far being on the female half of the inevitable double act.
TV3 head of news Mark Jennings says former Breakfast presenter Kate Hawkesby is not a contender, but he would say that, wouldn't he?
The focus so far appears to be in-house and eyebrows have been raised over Jennings' decision to fly freelance broadcaster and sometime celebrity interviewer Belinda Henley from London for an audition.
Newsreader Rebecca Singh is striking but probably too much of a serious newsreader. The Breeze radio newsreader Jeanette Thomas has a face that looks like a cardboard cut-out image of what you expect from a breakfast show presenter and is believed to be a contender.
And what about former Breakfast host Alison Mau, who seems to be between jobs. Would she be racy enough for TV3?
Kids are all right
Sunrise will replace cartoons and other kids' shows on TV3 but it will not be a big loss. Kids' shows have been cheap so TV3 has not needed a lot of ad revenue from toys, lollies and fast food to make the time slot pay.
But as OMD media buying boss Kath Watson notes, advertising aimed at children has not been very profitable. Older kids aged 8-plus are spending less time watching television and campaigns against child obesity have made food advertisers wary.
And the under-5s are verboten for advertisers nowadays. TV3 still runs afternoon and weekend kids' shows but the change may be a bonus for TV2.
Watson says the loss of TV3 mornings will reduce an oversupply of kids' programming. TV3 will lose some ad revenue around school holidays and TV2 will pick up a little more.
Flying doctors
Whatever happened to Nigel Milan, the former Radio New Zealand chief executive who was involved in the sell-off of commercial radio stations into what is now The Radio Network?
Milan - a bow-tied Londoner who made his name in Aussie - has a penchant for cultural institutions and was chief executive of public service radio and TV company SBS for several years.
Nowadays he is chief executive of the Flying Doctor Service, another antipodean icon which enjoys taxpayer grants.
