John Drinnan: Henry the radio star a hard sell

Paul Henry. Photo / NZME.

A combined breakfast show on TV3 and RadioLive will be a massive change to the breakfast media landscape.

It makes good sense.

But my prediction is that it will be hard to make Paul Henry's TV hi-jinks work on radio as well.

The radio and television double-up resolves problems at MediaWorks with the stable but low-key Marcus Lush on RadioLive, and Sacha McNeil and Michael Wilson on Firstline. The trio were never going to win the breakfast ratings.

Lush is a talented broadcaster and a great alternative for breakfast radio. But he is not mainstream enough and never challenged Mike Hosking on Newstalk ZB.

Likewise Firstline was never going to challenge the soft fodder on TVNZ's Breakfast.

The departure of both MediaWorks shows will lessen choice for the audience, and the double up of Henry and Hosking creates a right-wing bias on breakfast radio.The change could boost Morning Report.

The double-up resolves a third problem for MediaWorks: how to get better value for money from Henry.

News host Henry already has a lot of concessions from MediaWorks, and is wasted on TV in the The Paul Henry Show at the fag end of the day. Some viewers will lament his return to breakfast, then watch him to be infuriated.

In breakfast his regular set-piece outrages and antics will set the agenda for news cycles during the rest of the day.

Some will be lamenting Henry's return, remembering the incident that led to his resignation from TVNZ's Breakfast. MediaWorks won't comment on the future of Lush, McNeil or Wilson.