By JAMES GARDINER
Bitter hostilities have broken out between rival Television New Zealand programmes as staff wait for the axe to fall on more colleagues.
Budget cuts across the company and changes demanded in a rejuvenation drive by the new chief of news and current affairs, Bill Ralston, took their first casualties this week.
A further cull will begin on Tuesday when Ralston meets staff from the current affairs shows Sunday and Assignment. They expect to be told that up to 10 of the 30 editorial jobs will go and Assignment will be scrapped.
Breakfast television staff were the first to feel the heat this week. News reader Peter Williams and weather presenter Mike Hall are being dumped and co-host Kate Hawkesby will do both their jobs.
About a third of the Breakfast reporter and producer jobs will disappear during a 28-day consultation.
"It's like a morgue in here," said one staffer in the Auckland headquarters, and even TVNZ corporate spokeswoman Zara Potts admitted the mood was "not good".
Two shows with uncertain futures are the early morning Telstra Business, which has no guarantee of a sponsor from the end of the year, and the late news show The Last Word, which was repackaged this week and will be further reviewed in October.
One News and Holmes are the likely winners. Ralston has told their staff he wants them to break more stories and take more risks.
Paul Holmes, due back at work on Monday after an overseas holiday, said he had talked extensively with Ralston and chief executive Ian Fraser and they agreed that all the resources directed towards "flash new programmes" had begun to starve his show.
"I think that there is an understanding between Ian and Bill and me that resources for Holmes really need to be looked at," he said.
An Assignment staff member said killing the programme would mean "the end of investigative journalism on TVNZ. You're talking about the most experienced journalists in the organisation".
It was galling to have it cut when Pam Corkery's low-rating The Last Word survived and the British dating programme that replaced it on Thursday nights did not rate either.
The Herald reported this week that Ralston, just two weeks into his job, has to cut his budget by $4 million as part of a 3 per cent spending reduction demanded by the TVNZ board so it can pay a dividend to the Government.
This is despite the former state-owned enterprise being turned into a less commercially driven Crown company this year and it not necessarily being required to produce a dividend.
Some of the highest-paid stars, such as Richard Long, Judy Bailey, Simon Dallow and Alison Mau, may be offered different roles or shown the door as Ralston considers ways to put more resources into news gathering and possibly returning a single-newsreader format to the 6pm news.
Ralston said yesterday: "I've had several programmes shot out from underneath me over the years. It's the nature of television.
"You pick yourself up, dust yourself off and wander on again and find another one."
He said he was aware of large numbers of staff who wanted the option of being made redundant.
"They feel they've done their dash, they've put in the years, so every programme area has somebody who's got a hand up saying, 'Could that be me, please'."
The Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union and the Public Service Association have members in the 1000-strong TVNZ workforce. Both met management yesterday.
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