On Wednesday night, Belinda MacDonald and Neena Truscott, dubbed the Modern Day Hippies, were crowned the first winners of My Kitchen Rules New Zealand. This moment concluded the battle for New Zealand’s latest food porn crown, while simultaneously bringing an end to a ratings battle that has waged since TVNZ first decided to schedule its programme against MediaWorks’ The Block NZ. StopPress takes a look at how the two formats fared against each other.
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If Nielsen’s World Cup ratings are anything to go by, then it seems that the Kiwi appetite for football has grown over the last four years. On 13 June, 215,000 Kiwis tuned into TV One to watch the opening match of the tournament, a significant jump up from the 61,000 that tuned in for the 2010 opener in South Africa.
Following on from last year’s elaborate faux real estate campaign for Agent Anna’s first season, TVNZ’s in-house agency Blacksand has again tapped into the fake reality theme for the promotion of the dramedy’s second season. Shot in an actual rental home, the stunt features Robyn Malcolm in character as klutzy Anna Kingston showing real visitors—and potential tenants—around a home, which has been set up with a variety of booby traps that result in some awkward interactions.
Earlier this week, TVNZ caught 12 staff members off guard by announcing that the current affairs show 20/20 would no longer be airing local content from the end of June this year—giving those working on the show just over a month’s notice of the change in direction. PLUS: see what TVNZ had to say about the NZ Herald article by John Drinnan.