Paul Henry at the ACT party rally in central Auckland; Newshub and soon-to-be Stuff newsreader Samantha Hayes; Lloyd Burr. Photos / Alex Burton; Lee Howell, IDC; Stuff
Midweek Media Insider: Top Kiwi agency confirms redundancies - and new roles - as Australian telco client pulls back; TVNZ content removed from Stuff site, four weeks before rival bulletin launches; Paul Henry’s warning over costs of the new-look TV3 news.
Former TVNZ and TV3 news and current affairs host Paul Henry has sounded a warning over the new-look 6pm news on Three, saying Stuff is likely to rue taking on the contract, as it comes to terms with the costs.
Speaking to the Act party annual rally on Sunday, Henry covered a range of themes in his inimitable style - chief among them, New Zealand’s economy is “in the shit” and AI is coming for our jobs but we still have a chance to save a country brimming with potential.
But he also reserved commentary for matters close to his own professional heart, highlighting the closure of Newshub as an example of a forerunner to “revolutionary change” more generally in New Zealand.
The 6pm TV news model had changed, he said. It was not necessarily a bad thing.
“In my last book published almost five years ago, I wrote that just before Discovery purchased MediaWorks’ TV assets [in 2020], I had a meeting with TV3 executives.
“I presented my plan to save the haemorrhaging network. Item one: shutting down Newshub. They couldn’t afford to run it.”
He said he told executives that the environment would “never be as good as it is today, and today you are going broke”.
“Had they done it then, there would have been money to invest in current affairs programmes.”
He painted a somewhat pessimistic picture for Stuff, which takes over production of the bulletin in 25 days - the day after Newshub closes.
“My bet is the budget replacement 6pm news Stuff are cobbling together will be costing them far more than they anticipated.
“And if you listen very carefully now, you’ll hear the penny dropping ... as Stuff management realise it. They’re probably ruing that decision.
“A decision that just goes to prove we are still not listening to the warnings.”
People now had the news at their fingertips “every moment of every day”.
“We don’t need to congregate around a TV at 6pm to find out who’s dead or what the weather’s going to be like tomorrow.”
Media Insider revealed last month that tempers had been fraying at the highest levels of Stuff, as the media company prepares to launch the new-look bulletin.
Sources at the time said there were a lot of expensive production-related issues that Stuff had to quickly work through.
That included the budget for hair, makeup and wardrobe and to who other than newsreader Sam Hayes that applied; licences for broadcasting production systems including iNews and AVID; librarians and researchers to help with back-up footage for items, known as “B-roll”; and budget to host content on the Newshub website – if it is retained.
At the time, and in a joint statement, Stuff and Warner Bros Discovery said: “As is the case with any venture where a brand new product is being developed, there have obviously been some robust discussions between our teams, who are working closely together and are in constant contact.
“Both Stuff and WBD have embarked on pieces of work like this a lot and there are always unknowns in projects of this sort. We are both working very hard on the new bulletin and we can’t wait to share it when we go to air on July 6.”
Henry called out journalists surprised by the closure of Newshub.
“God help us. Every year they reported tens of millions of dollars in losses, the plethora of other platforms, the atrophying audience numbers.
“We were told the closure was an ‘affront to democracy’. That statement was an affront to intelligence.”
Henry said the closures of Newshub and Smith & Caughey’s were the forerunners to “revolutionary change”, driven by AI and robotics.
“That Smith and Caughey’s are shutting its doors is not the surprise. The surprise is they didn’t do it years ago.
“On top of the fact they’re located in a wasteland under an avalanche of traffic cones, all the once magnificent retailer had become was a living museum.
“Society had moved on. If today is as good as your operating environment is ever going to be and you can’t adapt, you must shut up shop.”
The 32-minute speech, peppered with plenty of Henryisms - “when David Seymour called and asked me to speak here, I thought, ‘What an inspired choice!’” - was well received by the audience.
Herald political reporter Adam Pearse reported an “entertaining and frank” speech.
The first part of Henry’s commentary was in line with a NZ Herald column he penned last year - in which he outlined his concerns National did not have the fortitude “to turn our ailing ship in the right direction” - and why he voted for Act.
He then sounded the warning of the revolutionary changes about to unfold.
Predictions of 5.5 per cent unemployment might be looked at in wonder in future, with predictions AI could take millions of jobs around the world.
Nevertheless, there was hope.
“Our economy might be in the shit ... but our country is still brimming with potential.
“More of us need to wake up to the challenges we face and speak loudly of the need to work together to advance our opportunities as a nation, not as disparate groups.
“Speak loudly of our need to reshape our economy for all of our good.
“Separatists will not be on the right side of history. They are nothing more than energy wasters and we don’t have the time for energy to waste.”
He urged offshore investment.
“We need people we need; we have plenty of people we don’t need already.
“And continue to reshape education. Our success depends on what we do now and the attitudes of our young. Let’s fill our schools with budding pioneers, enthusiastic for their own futures.”
It was only a matter of time, but a longstanding content and revenue-sharing agreement between Stuff and TVNZ appears to be over.
Stuff has published a selection of TVNZ videos on its website since 2016. According to an announcement at the time, the two companies would share advertising revenue from the videos.
In more recent years, Stuff has had a carousel of 1 News videos on its homepage.
When Stuff was announced as the new producer of Three’s 6pm news - going head to head with TVNZ from Saturday, July 6 - it was inevitable that its deal with the state broadcaster would end.
The carousel was there a week ago but has not been on Stuff’s homepage for several days.
An opportunity for the Herald and TVNZ to come to a deal, perhaps?
AM host Lloyd Burr - who strived hard to save the breakfast show on Three - is now joining Stuff.
The media company announced in a statement this morning that Burr had been appointed ‘explainer editor’.
It’s been a somewhat tumultuous time for Burr - he lost his job when Today FM closed in March 2023, but bounced back quickly, joining Warner Bros Discovery and the Newshub political gallery team. He replaced Ryan Bridge on the AM show earlier this year, before Newshub’s closure was announced.
Special New Zealand is always at, or the near, the top of the honours list, when it comes to the plethora of awards ceremonies in the advertising and PR industries.
In May, Special was named Large PR agency of the Year for the second year running at the annual PRINZ Awards and last week it was named the most effective agency in New Zealand by Global Effies.
But it’s also not immune to the massive changes in the media landscape - or clients wanting to change things up.
Special has confirmed it has made four roles redundant as it faces up to challenges confronting every commercial media business.
Special New Zealand will lose the roles as a result of “a shift in the capability our clients request from us”, Special PR managing director Kelly Grindle told Media Insider.
Chief amongst those, it seems, is a cutback in work on its Optus advertising account.
“Four years ago Special New Zealand was appointed to the creative agency roster for Optus – the first time a New Zealand agency has ever been appointed to a major Australian telco,” said Grindle in an emailed response to questions.
He said the agency remained on Optus’ creative agency roster.
“However, we do acknowledge there has been a change in the cadence of marketing activity with the departure of Optus’ CEO and CMO and new leadership recruited for these roles.”
He said there had been “a shift in the capability our clients request from us, so we took the opportunity to tweak our structure”.
Four roles had been made redundant.
Nevertheless, it wasn’t all “doom and gloom”, he said, with three roles coming in, “with a focus on operations, PR, CX and technology partnerships”.
“Despite unfortunately saying goodbye to some valued colleagues, our headcount today is higher than it was at the start of the year.”
Over the past 12 months, every mainstream media company - including NZME, Stuff and TVNZ - have cut roles or rearranged their structures to reflect audience or client demand. Newshub is closing in its entirety.
Never one to let an opportunity pass by, Grindle said Special was “still leading our Kiwi peers in key areas of importance on the world stage”.
He then ran off a number of their big awards.
Next week, Special New Zealand has been shortlisted as Global Creative Agency of the Year by Campaign in the UK. “Hope you have your fingers crossed for us.”
Talking of awards, congratulations to all the finalists announced yesterday for this year’s Beacons Awards. The awards will be unveiled at a ceremony on July 4.
Amongst the 23 categories are four big ones - sales team of the year, media business of the year, media agency of the year and inspiring individual.
Sales team of the year
Are Media
Go Media
NZME
oOh!media
Media business of the year
Are Media
Go Media
NZME
Shout Media
TVNZ
Media agency of the year
Hearts & Science
PHD
Spark Foundry
Together
Inspiring individual
Alice Franklin, EssenceMediacom
Annabelle Wilkinson, MBM
Charlotte Lobo, MBM
Deborah Brown, MBM
Duncan Collins, Mindshare
Karen Booth, EssenceMediacom
Manjit Singh, GroupM
Susan Newman, GroupM
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.
Campbell asks if interview is 'weaponised'; Act says it's giving viewers the full picture.