KEY POINTS:
Telecom has increased its public relations firepower. It has moved to finally demolish a devastated corporate profile that made it loathed by the public and politicians alike. Chief executive Paul Reynolds last week appointed spin-expert and well-connected PR maestro Tina Symmans to the top communications role.
It is
expected that Symmans will keep an eye on advertising and not just public relations. Telecom now has key advisers to former Labour and National governments in charge of its spin.
Mark Watts, former press secretary to Prime Minister Helen Clark, has a handle on the Labour Government. And if National leads the next government, Symmans will have vital contacts in the new administration.
It's true that appalling press and government relations have improved since the old school of chairman Rod Deane and chief executive Theresa Gattung stood down. But they could not have got worse.
Under the Telecom of the 1990s the policy was to manipulate and harangue the journos aggrieved by the company's questionable business practices.
Sometimes that loathing was fair and sometimes it was not. The policy was tempered by generous sponsorship and advertising budgets.
So poor public relations was seen as a small downside to its lucrative anti-competitive business plan.
Just as bad were Telecom relations with the Labour Government until the fateful day when a Government messenger handed sensitive documents to Telecom - hastening regulations.
But when relations hit rock bottom, rather than saying "the game is up, we'll change our tactics", Telecom blamed its mess on bad PR.
Appointing Watts to the media relations job eased relations with the Labour Government.
The appointment of Symmans - a key communications adviser to previous National governments - sets up a strong strategic mind and potentially a close relationship with the Nats.
Respected as a PR professional and known for directness - one well-placed admirer wondered aloud if she would be a bull in a china shop - Symmans sold National Party privatisations in the 1990s.
RALSTON GROUP
At the time Symmans held sway in Wellington PR in the 1990s, media commentator Bill Ralston, another Wellington insider, was a member of the parliamentary press gallery.
Ralston and his wife, Janet Wilson, are friends of Symmans and her former journalist sister, Anna. Ralston - whose company Deadline is believed to have provided media training for National Party leader John Key - is on Companies Office records as co-director of the Wellbeing Channel with Symmans.
Symmans says the Wellbeing Channel has not been active and was formed for a venture that never went ahead.
MOUNTAIN HIGH
Filming for the movie adaptation of Maurice Gee's Under the Mountain starts on August 11 around Auckland and will conclude in October.
The film will be released in New Zealand next year by Walt Disney Studio Pictures.
Producers suspended the production on the eve of filming on May 5 after one of the investors, UK company Capitol Films, bailed out at the 11th hour.
Under the Mountain is a fantasy adventure story about teenage twins who battle dark forces hidden beneath Auckland's volcanoes.
The film industry magazine On Film reports that a new taxpayer incentive - the Screen Production Incentive Fund - helped back it.
"The SPIF has also been announced, which will obviously have an enormous positive benefit for us," said producer Richard Fletcher, of Liberty Films. "So with the combination of the existing funding we had from the Film Fund, New Zealand On Air and TVNZ [which has NZ television rights], the SPIF and the pre-sales, we now have a small gap in the finance to fill," he told On Film.
Under the Mountain is also produced by Jonathan King and Matthew Grainger of Index Films and Richard Fletcher of Liberty Films. Chris Hampson, Chris Bailey and Trevor Haysom (In My Father's Den) are the executive producers.
King most recently directed and wrote Black Sheep.
Meanwhile, Television New Zealand is reporting solid sales for its DVD reissue of the children's TV series of Under The Mountain, produced by Tom Finlayson and Chris Bailey. TVNZ said 4000 copies had been issued so far.
SHADES OF MAUVE
The brains behind National's split-screen billboard campaign says that 2005 election strategy would almost certainly not work for National this year. John Ansell said National and Labour policies were so similar that the blue for National and red for Labour would merge into "varying hues of mauve".
Ansell, who makes no secret that he is ideologically driven from the right, left National to work for Act this election. But he left, apparently because Act would not follow his advice on developing the brand. He says he is out of this year's election.
He is working on developing his interest in language - "helping young people to use bigger words, and older people to use smaller ones".
STAFF WARY
Television New Zealand is helping police with inquiries into the Tony Veitch allegations and sending a review of management practices to the TVNZ board.
TVNZ bosses are hoping that the publicity over the Veitch affair - what its executives did and did not know about the reasons for the payout to his former partner - will go away. Chief executive Rick Ellis has indicated there will be changes.
TVNZ has apparently relied on the advice of its in-house lawyers that the monetary arrangements between Veitch and his partner were a civil matter so didn't need to worry TVNZ.
There has long been a clause in contracts with on-air staff covering what happens if a staff member brings the company into disrepute.
But in this case, how many inquiries should the broadcaster have made?
And how much do legal arguments relate to the marketing impact that occurs when one of your staff admits to "lashing out"?
The political angle is even more vexing.
Helen Clark, happily egged on by journalists, waded into TVNZ affairs. TVNZ has yet to show that it acted appropriately.
An employer problem with a staff member means balancing employment law, privacy law and moral issues.
In TVNZ's case there are other issues, such as marketing and what will "her indoors" on the ninth floor of the Beehive think. Whenever something goes wrong at TVNZ, politicians are always looking for a quick headline.
