What it takes to be NZ's next TV presenter

Kanoa Lloyd from The Project. Photo / Guy Coombes

Greg Bruce followed Bravo's quest for a new host, and heard some brutal tips from a presenting coach.

The collection of audition videos for Bravo's new host are a reasonably complete shambles.

The channel had, at the time of writing, posted four separate video montages of the auditions and one audition in its entirety, which belonged to Ling, one of the brothers from the most recent season of The Block.

Given the footage to review and critique, presenting coach Paulus Romijn took a particularly dim view of Ling's audition video, noting first its extremely low camera angle. "His bloody balls are almost hanging out."

He was also critical of Ling's diction and the fact that he presented himself as a comedian but had nothing funny to say.

Having viewed the other audition videos, Romijn shared some thoughts, and they were generally not positive:

About a young woman sitting on a couch, also shot from a low angle: "Looked like she was sitting on the toilet."

About the large number of auditionees telling Bravo to choose them for the role: "Always a wasted comment."

About the large number of those auditioning, saying they love Bravo: "It doesn't matter. We want to see you present."

About the large number of those auditioning, saying they've been wanting to present since they were children: "Well why haven't you been doing it?"

Presenting is no joke to Romijn. His business, Presenters' Platform, has been running for 13 years and during that time he's helped thousands improve their presenting skills. It's a thing you can learn to be good at, he says, and practice and preparation are the keys.

One New Zealand presenter Romijn rates highly is The Project's Kanoa Lloyd.

"She's lovely," he says. "She's just got that nature, She's very open. She has a kind of lightness about her. She looks smart. She doesn't look as if she's trying to prove herself. That's a critical thing."

When asked about her own success, Lloyd says, "For the record, I would very much like to say that I still very much feel like I'm making it up as I go along."

She says that, on camera, she often imagines herself talking to her mum, a trick that somebody who has paid even the smallest amount of attention to the massive curdled nest of "How to be a presenter" clips on YouTube will know.

But when told about the prevalence of this online advice, Lloyd says. "Really? You're kind of breaking my heart and blowing my mind at the same time because I thought that was like my original thing."

And that kind of guileless naivety is no doubt another of the factors contributing to her success.

The Bravo audition videos show people mostly around their homes or office, with recordings of varying quality: some reasonably slick, most not. One woman apologises for her performance; others project bravado they clearly don't feel.

One of the clips Romijn found most memorable was of a young woman performing her audition underneath a sign for some toilets. Somebody had stencilled, "Mean Cat" beneath the sign. The woman talks in a monotone. She says, "I thought 'Mean Cat' was a little bit captivating." She goes on, "Excuse my outfit, but these holes are fashion. Look it up." She doesn't seem like a typical presenter, with the enthusiasm and exuberance, which is possibly the point.

Romijn says, "I thought that was a little bit different. She tried something different rather than the cliched stuff of 'I love Bravo.' You know: Present! Have an opinion! Say something!

"The 'Mean Cat' thing, it's quirky, good on her for doing something different. She's thought about it."

Other things Romijn says are important for a presenter: openness, vulnerability, a good voice, fluency, but he says what really matters is experience, practice, a strong CV and dedication to the job. It's unlikely that anyone will just walk into the Bravo job off the street with no experience and really nail this role.

Lloyd says, "Fake it till you make it" has been a personal motto, and that she's always trying to improve.

"You just do it and then afterwards like 'okay, nobody died, I didn't break television or ruin that person's life so we're okay, maybe I'll just go with it again tomorrow'."

When asked, she claims that she is where she is because of other people, but when pushed, she says: "Maybe it's that I like coming to work. That's a big part of the experience, is liking television. It's a real privilege and a pleasure to be doing what I'm doing because I do. I guess I'm quick to laugh and quick to find the positive side of the story because I'm like, 'Hey, this is fun, this is cool.' Maybe that's what it is."

PAST AND PRESENT

And the best presenter awards go to ...

1 Dougal Stevenson: Even if you're too young to know the deeply authoritative voice that set the tone for generations of New Zealand broadcasters, that name alone tells you this is someone who's not messing around.

2 Selwyn Toogood: Warm and grandly avuncular, he will forever be known for the sheer number of "By hokey"s he racked up during his iconic run as host of It's In the Bag, but he also had a good spell as the male figurehead on the poorly conceived 80s panel show Beauty and the Beast.

3 John Hawkesby: The Winston Peters of New Zealand broadcasting, oozing creepy charm, able to smile with his whole face, The Hawker was an all-rounder - not just a gifted, extravagantly-paid newsreader, but stepped out of Toogood's shadow to host It's In the Bag and also went on to write erudite columns about wine.

4 Belinda Todd: She was partly a product of the innovative and crazy late night TV3 news show on which she made her name, but mostly she was the reason it made its name. She was bigger than New Zealand broadcasting for a while there, before she ended up cast in New Zealand's most derided comedy mistake, Melody Rules.

5 Paul Holmes: A colossus who bestrode these tiny isles with his mix of warmth, humour, eccentricity and a very occasional world-class broadcasting disaster.

6 Miriama Kamo: Serious, smart, assured, and that rare combination of an award-winning broadcast journalist and a talented and evocative writer.

7 Judy Bailey: The night she finished up as TVNZ's leading newsreader feels, in retrospect, like the last time television news really mattered. Her tears, our tears, she left the building and we turned on the internet.

8 Jason Gunn: On screen for nearly 30 years but still yet to reach puberty. Much of his early career was spent in the shadow of his long-time co-host Thingy.

9 Jeremy Wells: It's bizarre now to think that he was ever "Newsboy", the sensationally attractive, but mostly silent, on-screen offsider to 80s rock star Mikey Havoc. His wry humour and total comfort in his sexual vibrancy have made him the go-to guy for basically anything, to which he'll say yes.

10 Karen Hay: Her dusty voice and musical alt-authoritativeness helped a generation find themselves in the stifling sameness of Muldoon-era New Zealand television.