Losing the Aussie soap was the fault of MediaWorks, which did not want to make a long-term commitment to the show. TVNZ has since put Home and Away on TV2, not as a lead-in to One News.
"What we get now is a more candid appraisal of what the public wants from its news," says Kenrick.
Certainly, TVNZ is having a dream run with its combination of One News and Seven Sharp. Kenrick says TVNZ has consistently won news ratings because it is seen as familiar by New Zealanders. TVNZ says that over the past seven days, One News drew an average of 715,000 viewers aged 5-plus, more than three times the audience for 3 News (217,000).
I asked if TVNZ was winning by default, and suggested its news was more bland and less willing to take risks.
Kenrick says the advent of Seven Sharp two years ago had clearly been a risk, but One News had always led ratings because of its familiarity. One News' renewed dominance in the ratings has been good for TVNZ's bottom line.
He notes that news is expensive to produce but says it pays its way.
"Well ultimately you look at the yield, what does it cost versus what does it earn? I think on that basis news really holds its own very strongly."
• MediaWorks last week confirmed it had appointed the London-based news consultancy Deloitte to look at its news operations, amid plans for a big revamp at the end of the year.
Whether or not you agree with the idea of state TV as a commercial entity with no cultural obligations, its clear-cut focus on profit has made it a happier ship.
Some say improved morale at TVNZ is because staff have given up the battle, but the reality is that dissent about management is more subdued than it was five years ago, and much, much less than at TV3.
Kenrick has a simple explanation for what is said to be a marked improvement in the culture at TVNZ - because it is winning the ratings battle. "Winners are grinners."
For decades, TVNZ had a reputation as a dysfunctional and unhappy place to work, and TV3 had a reputation as the opposite.
TVNZ chairwoman Joan Withers acknowledges that culture had been an issue for the board. She says Kenrick deserves a lot of credit for the change, which the board recognises.
Brand NZ
Beehive announcements last week for the All Blacks squad and the four alternative flags show Prime Minister John Key is directing the future of Brand New Zealand.
Not that anybody in business will be complaining about Government support for a national brand.
There is a strange link between the two occasions - one attaching the Government's brand to the All Blacks, and the other reflecting a policy to rebrand the country's ensign.
Talking to TV3 at the All Blacks squad launch, captain Richie McCaw made a connection between the two.
Having worn the silver fern, he'd like to see it on the new flag, said McCaw, whose popularity eclipses even Key's.
Since then, the All Blacks appear to have been told to keep quiet about the flag. A news report from Nelson had an All Blacks representative saying the team did not want to influence the debate.
However McCaw was clearly on the same track as the flag committee, which included three silver ferns on the short list of four.
Maybe this fandom for the fern - and the Beehive venue - had something to do with NZ Trade and Enterprise becoming a sponsor of the All Blacks, whose fern logo seems to be the model for three of the alternatives. The last time rugby and the National Party were so clearly simpatico was probably in 1981, when PM Rob Muldoon and Rugby Union chairman Ces Blazey were of like mind over the Springbok tour.
Those were the days when the Rugby Union insisted New Zealand must keep politics out of sport.
Flag committee chairman John Burrows says he and committee members were aware there would be a negative reaction from some about the choice of the final four flags to go up against the existing ensign.
He rejects suggestions that the colouring of some of the options and the use of the Southern Cross - also used on the National party logo - have any political overtones. The blue on some of the flags represents the sea and continuity, he says, while the red represents New Zealand's colonial past, not the Labour Party.
- An earlier version of this story indicated TV news bulletins don't hold their own commercially. This has been changed to accurately reflect Kevin Kenrick's belief and intended comment that they do hold their own.
