TVNZ signs up Kim Hill

By LOUISA CLEAVE

Kim Hill has been given her own television interview show on TV One next year.

TVNZ has signed Hill for 30 episodes of the weekly half-hour programme, currently titled Face to Face with Kim Hill.

Hill, National Radio's Saturday morning presenter, fronted three election specials for TVNZ this year.

The new show will also feature one-on-one interviews, but Hill will interview a range of people.

Heaton Dyer, the head of news and current affairs at TVNZ, said the show would screen mid-to-late week to respond to major news events.

Hill would play a major role in its preparation.

"My perception is that Kim has been a little sceptical of television ... so we've been keen to develop something that is appropriate for her," Mr Dyer said.

It will be filmed at Avalon studios in Wellington but no decision has been made on whether the show will screen live.

Meanwhile, TVNZ is slashing the number of Assignment programmes from its current 26 a year to 10 one-hour programmes next year, and merging the Assignment and Sunday teams.

Mr Dyer said he wanted to inject more resources into the Sunday programme, which will screen only local programmes and run for 40 weeks instead of its current 38.

Mike Hosking will continue to present Sunday.

TVNZ is also introducing a new half-hour series, Foreign Assignment, which will run across 30 weeks and screen stories from overseas broadcasters such as the BBC, Australia's ABC and Canada's CBC.

Mr Dyer said the reshuffle would result in the same number, if not more, hours of local current affairs next year.

However, Foreign Assignment would provide the bulk of the extra hours of current affairs being trumpeted by TVNZ.

Mr Dyer said he wanted to build on the success of Sunday by moving more resources into the weekend show.

"Within the Assignment run there have been stories that didn't need to play as a one-hour documentary. They could have worked even more effectively as a 20-minute one or two part [story] on Sunday."

A TVNZ spokesman said the "friendly merger" of Assignment and Sunday teams would not result in any redundancies, although if staff left it was possible they would not be replaced.

Reporters and producers will mainly work on their respective programmes but there would be some cross-over, the spokesman said.

Mr Dyer was currently working through how the merger of the two programmes would affect senior management.

Assignment is run by Colin McRae while David Lomas and Max Adams hold senior producing roles with Sunday.