KEY POINTS:
State-owned phone company Kordia has cut the cord with Hollywood.
The SOE - which has a key role in running Freeview - has shelved plans for a new Internet Protocol TV service through its internet service provider Orcon.
Orcon chief executive Scott Bartlett was proudly talking about potential
for its new IPTV - programming downloaded off the internet - using new faster broadband. He showed it using new Apple TV hardware to get programming from the web from computer on to a TV set.
That was in March, and it appeared that when Kordia bought Orcon for $23.2 million this time last year it was behind the IPTV plan.
But Kordia chief executive Geoff Hunt said the company had pulled back from the IPTV idea.
"It's now on a list of things that could occur in the future. It takes a lot of broadband and there were no signs how it was going to deliver a commercial return or where it had done so overseas."
An issue for the service would have been obtaining the copyright to films and TV shows which would require IPTV rights.
Sky Television has been actively buying up IPTV rights for programmes including those it screens on Sky and Prime.
Bartlett had indicated that talks with US programme supplies were relatively advanced.
But Hunt said that the plans had not got to the point of securing programming.
Hollywood studios have been keen to have a legal download site to counter the growth of illegal downloads.
But as the Business Herald revealed, Sky TV has signed a deal with movie studios for its own IPTV site.
BREAKFAST SPONSOR
Insurance company NZI is sponsoring the business programme on TVNZ's Breakfast.
Breakfast has been rating well after losing its key sponsor ASB Bank to the TV3 breakfast show Sunrise, which has rated poorly. I'll bet the ASB is feeling morning sick.
WEBSITE CHANGES
NZX and Fairfax will be making changes to their new venture with the NZX website. Public relations firm Spice wrote to the Business Herald saying it liked new features on the site.
"But we felt that there may also be confusion about what was news released by the company v media commentary" in what was supposed to be an objective site. The NZX has agreed to make changes. In a statement to the Business Herald it confirmed changes are afoot: "Yes the 'related news' items will soon be removed from the company security summary pages on NZX.com.
"The related news items will still be available under the 'News' heading on the company security summary page. The adjustment is currently being made by the site developers. In the interim, if a company contacts us with a specific concern we will take immediate action to address that concern," the NZX said.
BACK TO THE FUTURE
Fairfax unveiled its latest revamp of its weekly business newspaper, which has dropped its short-lived title the Independent Financial Review and reverted to the old title of the Independent.
The title's founder journalist Jenni McManus - who owned the paper with Warren Berryman then sold it to Fairfax - was welcomed back from a period with the Sunday Star Times with a full-page advertisement featuring a watchdog collar saying "Jenni's Back".
The new Indie was missing the old content from Fairfax's Australian Financial Review but it did have content from news service Bloomberg. The paper featured a front page cartoon by Bromhead featuring The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.
WRITER DROPS PEN
Author and arts aficionado Hamish Keith has resigned from the New Zealand Society of Authors - the local arm of international authors' body and free speech campaigners PEN.
Keith said he resigned over the society's lack of support for broadcaster and writer Gordon McLauchlan and he was unhappy about anonymous comments by society members in a books blog.
The Herald's Brian Rudman revealed in March that the society had nominated McLauchlan to be on the management committee for the Montana New Zealand Book Awards.
The nomination was rejected after McLauchlan criticised the way the judges were selected and the Wellington-centric focus of the awards and the books and arts world.
In this month's Metro, McLauchlan argues that the society was anxious not to bite the hands of Wellington bodies that dispensed grants and favours.
Keith said the society should have challenged the rejection and he was not happy at the "climate" of anonymous criticism of McLauchlan.
"I'm not happy to be a member of the society," he said.
The book awards - whose finalists are to be announced next week - are administered by Booksellers NZ.
The president of the New Zealand Writers Society, Paul Smith, could not be reached for comment about Keith's signing off.
Previously he told the Herald of the McLauchlan issue: "It's a simple process of them wanting somebody else, this one wasn't suitable. We'll find someone suitable for them from Auckland"
Smith, by the way, is well known around the television world.
A former broadcasting commentator he is a member of the Government appointed board for the funding agency New Zealand On Air which allocates around $70 million of taxpayer grants each year.
Smith is a former director of Television New Zealand during the era when it was chaired by Ross Armstrong.
PRANG BRANDS
Car company Ford NZ complained bitterly when a Land Transport New Zealand commercial featured a car careering off a hillside, saying LTNZ had breached an agreement by using an identifiable brand in safety ads.
So we were intrigued by the latest ads featuring a grotesque carnival of characters monitoring crashes at an intersection. Did they go out of their way not to offend?
LTNZ and its ad agency Clemenger BBDO said they used a Volvo, two Nissans, Honda, Toyota, and a Jaguar.
"We tried to match them to what our featured drivers would typically drive, ie, family (Volvo) , older guy (Nissan) , young women (Honda). All cars were de-badged as is normal practice."
But what of the crashing car? I'm picking the pranger was a Jaguar, but I can't make out the prangee.
STARS IN THE SCHEDULE
Imagination Television, producers of the local version of Stars in Their Eyes, is advertising for contestants for a new series even before the old one is complete.
But TVNZ says no final decision has been made yet on on a second series for the TV One show.
It looks like a safe bet.
The show - featuring people imitating their favourite stars - has been a huge ratings success and delivered strong advertising returns.
Like any entertainment show it is expensive to make, but will be cheaper than Dancing with the Stars.
Among total audiences aged over 5, the first six episodes of Stars in Their Eyes drew 739,000 and 44 per cent of viewers compared with 780,000 for DWTS.
It was closer in TV One's target market of 25 to 54-year- olds: DWTS took 41 per cent of the audience compared with 40 per cent for Stars in Their Eyes.
A PETROLHEAD WRITES
"I just watched Top Gear on Prime to discover the buggers are cutting out entire segments of the show. Not just the links between bits, which is bad enough, but whole segments.
"The voiceover at the start said 'Tonight we drive the new Aston Martin' but there wasn't an Aston to be seen.
"Last night the credits rolled with a special guest star listed, but no guest appeared," complained the motoring PR man.
International distributors for Top Gear confirmed that BBC Worldwide delivers Prime an international version of the BBC show that is cut. This is because they do not hold the copyright clearance outside Britain.
A spokeswoman said continuity problems were usually addressed, but there was one case they knew of where that had not occurred with Top Gear.
