Former MediaWorks chief executive Mark Weldon.
Controversial former MediaWorks chief executive Mark Weldon says TV3′s newsroom might have thought of itself as a family – “the problem is that the family had in the year prior to my starting lost $25 million of other people’s money”.
Journalistic vandal or visionary? A deathly Darth Vader-like character, or a wise Yoda?
As TV3 news counts down its final days on air, one of the most influential people in its 35-year history has broken a long-held silence.
Influential can be read positively and negatively, and certainly former MediaWorks chief executive Mark Weldon was generally loathed in the newsroom and loved in the boardroom – that polarisation came to the fore when he axed Campbell Live in 2015, lost a slew of high-profile staff, and doubled down on entertainment and gossip content at the company.
But even some of his fiercest critics concede he was ahead of the curve in recognising the decline of terrestrial television and the need to attract and retain audiences whose news habits were shifting rapidly to digital and mobile phone screens, in particular.
The launch of the Newshub brand in February 2016 was a masterstroke – a fresh, integrated approach to news across digital, social, and television. It was a modern brand, even if a digital-first ethos was initially slow to take hold.
In a fascinating two-part podcast and video series for The Detail, senior Newshub reporter Adam Hollingworth charts the rise and decline of TV3 news, speaking to former and current staff – and even managing to elicit comment from the previously elusive Weldon.
Perhaps the quote of the podcast goes to the irrepressible Angus Gillies, one of the production pillars of TV3 news: “When Weldon walked into the newsroom, it was like Darth Vader. He just kind of strolled in... the vibe just kind of changed and you just wondered if at any moment he was going to reach over and start lifting you up and slowly choking you. He had that kind of vibe.”
Former TV3 news boss Mark Jennings also makes no secret on the podcast of his dislike for Weldon and says he was the reason he quit in 2016.
“Weldon was different. He was a McKinsey consultant. He was head of the NZX and New Zealand Stock Exchange. He had no media experience,” Jennings said.
“So it was very different from that point of view and he also, I think, didn’t really understand things like editorial independence and newsrooms and he was soon, I guess, on a collision course with the newsroom.
“He was also politically aligned. He used to tell me he was a friend of John Key’s.
“We had a board who had directors who were aligned with the National Party. In the end, they did not like our current affairs journalists.
“They saw them almost as the enemy and Mark Weldon really wanted to bring change and of course, that put me on a collision course with him.”
Newsreader Mike McRoberts was one of a number of senior staff who wrote to the board, seeking to oust Weldon.
The board stood by Weldon, and told McRoberts that. “I thought my career was over,” McRoberts told Hollingworth.
But the next day – four months after the launch of Newshub and a year after Campbell Live’s demise – Weldon elected to quit, despite continuing to enjoy his board’s support.
“I have come to a decision that the personal cost is now too high to continue in this role,” he said at the time.
Since then, there has been very little public comment from Weldon, the co-founder of Central Otago winery Terra Sancta.
He did not return a message this week but in a statement to Hollingworth, it’s clear he still holds strong views of his time at Newshub, and what he faced.
Weldon said: “One senior MWL news team member said ‘Your problem is that you think news is a business. It is not. It is a family. And one of our family values is omerta/utu. Mess with the family and they will get you’.
“The problem with this is that the ‘family’ had, in the year prior to my starting, lost $25 million of other people’s money, put the entire business – including radio and entertainment – into bankruptcy and yet were unwilling to change or even recognise the need for change.
“As to the National Party comment, yes, I was friends with John Key and I did a lot of work with John and would do so again.
“I also worked closely with [Labour ministers] Michael Cullen and Lianne Dalziel amongst others and was on Helen Clark’s climate change leadership forum.
“In terms of external views of TV3, have a read of Jacinda Ardern’s ‘Open letter to Mark Weldon’ on the front page of the Sunday Star-Times [in 2016].
“Apart from being fundamentally inappropriate for a politician to get involved in the operations of a private business, it shows pretty clearly that the Labour Party thought TV3 news was its vassal.”
I looked up that open letter – Ardern, then an Opposition MP and more than a year before her elevation to Labour leader and eventually Prime Minister, certainly pulled no punches.
“I usually start with some kind of pithy greeting, but I barely know where to begin,” wrote Ardern.
“What subject line should I even use, re: your destruction of TV3? And yet that’s exactly what I want to say – I feel like I have watched you single-handedly destroy a brand that I and many other Kiwis had a great affinity for, and I am not sure why.”
With Warner Bros Discovery closing Newshub on Friday – and the launch of Stuff’s new 6pm news bulletin on Saturday – a battle for TV advertising revenue has been reignited.
Under its new 6pm TV news arrangements, Warner Bros Discovery will pay Stuff a flat fee to provide the new bulletin on Three – understood to be in the range of $6 million to $8m a year.
That leaves Warner Bros Discovery free to gather as much advertising revenue as possible in and around the bulletin - and retain the lot.
Unshackled from running an expensive newsroom, it has been offering some big cut-price advertising deals for July-September – in some cases between 35%-45% off its normal rate card, according to Media Insider sources.
As demand has grown, it is understood those rates have returned somewhat closer to normal levels more recently.
Warner Bros Discovery would not confirm specifics this week but a spokesman said: “We regularly assess and update our rate card by looking across our full range of broadcast and streaming platforms. This means rate card base rates tend to fluctuate depending on a wide variety of elements, such as viewer behaviour, the current state of the wider market and economy, and even seasonal factors.”
TVNZ is also said to be competing strongly for advertising revenue, although one senior source said its rate card concessions were in single-figure percentages.
The big question remains just how the 6pm bulletins will perform, ratings wise, in coming weeks - and how much advertising revenue will be up for grabs by the end of the year in a very subdued economy.
NZ Herald publisher NZME has confirmed this morning it is cutting almost a dozen roles from its regional and community newsrooms, to redirect resources to other areas of its news operation.
“This morning we met with our regional and community newsroom teams to confirm changes we had earlier proposed to our newsroom structure,” said NZME editor-in-chief Murray Kirkness.
“The changes will ensure those newsrooms have the appropriate resourcing to produce the right mix of high-quality content that better connects with our print subscribers and local communities, while continuing to serve our digital audiences.”
Overall, said Kirkness, there would be a reduction of 11.7 fulltime-equivalent (FTE) roles across the company’s regional and community news network.
“Those affected by this change have the opportunity to apply for new roles within the structure. In addition, we have five existing vacancies across our regional and community newsrooms and will soon advertise journalism roles in Christchurch and Wellington,” said Kirkness.
NZME has previously stated its moves are cost-neutral, as it looks to build resources in those two cities, as well as specialist areas such as business and political journalism, to reflect audience demand.
Just one month ago, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said he was “neutral” on the Fair Digital News Bargaining Bill.
But even that comment was a clear indication the Government was softening its position on the proposed legislation – before the election, Luxon and the National Party were totally opposed to the idea of tech giants being forced to pay for the news content that helps drive their business models.
Since assuming the Media and Communications ministerial portfolio, however, Paul Goldsmith has listened intently to all sides of the debate – and has now acted.
National and NZ First are now supporters of the bill and they are set to be backed by Labour – who originally introduced the proposed legislation when it was in Government – to have it passed through Parliament later this year.
Both the Act Party and several right-wing commentators are vehemently opposed.
“This is both an unprincipled and a stupid decision. I can handle principled stupid decisions and even unprincipled smart decisions but this is neither,” wrote Kiwiblog founder David Farrar.
“It is unprincipled because it is forcing successful companies in one industry (social networks and search engines) to fund failing companies in another industry (media). The only rationale for this is that Google and Meta have money and Stuff doesn’t. Will we see Netflix levied money to fund home video rental stores? Will we see Foodstuffs levied money to fund Whitcoulls?”
Farrar conveniently misses the point that one reason companies like Google and Meta are successful is their reliance on news content from media companies to help drive their content machines, advertising revenue and business models.
Nothing comes for free – NZME has to pay fees, for instance, to play music on its radio stations – and this law simply ensures the digital tech giants pay a fair fee for the content on their social and search engine platforms.
The Fair Digital News Bargaining Bill does not cover whether – or how – Artificial Intelligence (AI) companies should compensate news media companies for the journalism and other content their platforms rely upon.
AI considerations are for down the track, says Goldsmith, who says he’ll be watching overseas developments closely.
Let’s just go straight to the source.
Inspired by some of my colleagues’ recent interactions, I turned to Facebook owner Meta’s own AI platform to get the definitive position.
Editor-at-Large Shayne Currie is one of New Zealand’s most experienced senior journalists and media leaders. He has held executive and senior editorial roles at NZME including Managing Editor, NZ Herald Editor and Herald on Sunday Editor and has a small shareholding in NZME.
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