Yesterday’s new season launch was Paul Maher ninth day in his third stint at TVNZ, and he says he hopes this is the last stop in his career. We chat to him about the notion that TV’s dead.
TVNZ has announced the appointment of Paul Maher to the executive role of commercial director.
Former MediaWorks TV chief executive Paul Maher will be joining Ogilvy & Mather early next year in an executive capacity that will see him working closely alongside managing director Greg Partington.
Last week, MediaWorks continued its restructuring process by announcing it would operate one newsroom across its TV, radio and online assets, with Mark Jennings taking on the top role. It also announced the integration of digital across the business and, as a result of these changes, the roles of TV chief executive Paul Maher and head of interactive Siobhan McKenna were disestablished. Chief executive Mark Weldon said there would be no more job losses in TV and interactive. But it’s thought two more long-serving senior MediaWorks staff members are also set to depart: senior legal counsel/company secretary Clare Bradley, who has been with the company since 2000, and chief financial officer and director of technology Peter Crossan, who has been with the company since 1999.
Late afternoon on 8 December, MediaWorks sent out a release announcing a significant reshuffling of the business, which included three major changes.
MediaWorks has had a fairly rough ride over the past few years. But the big guns were all smiles last night at the new season launch. We sat down with two of them—chief executive of MediaWorks TV Paul Maher and group head of revenue Liz Fraser—for a chat about the company’s content strategy, results and evolution.
If you’re in show business, you’ve got to put on show and MediaWorks, a company with a new chief executive, a new sense of confidence after negotiating a receivership and plenty of big new shows to crow about, put one on last night for its new season launch at Shed 10 in Auckland. So should it be exuding this much optimism?
ANZ holds around one third of the country’s home loan market and it’s made a concerted push to retain that—and presumably improve that—recently with a new campaign showing the frisson of buying property at auction. Last year it put its name beside TVNZ’s Art of the Architect and now it’s backing the other team, signing on as a production partner for the upcoming New Zealand version of Grand Designs New Zealand.
News from the sponsorship desk, as Sonny Bill Williams dons the denim for Just Jeans, The Warriors re-sign with Canterbury and X Factor NZ announces its commercial partners, minus a couple from last time.
Last night, the launch of the third season of The Block NZ kicked off a ratings war that will see the DIY-themed show take on TVNZ’s My Kitchen Rules over the next few months. And the overnight figures seem to indicate the first battle has gone to the side of DIY porn, with The Block NZ winning the lion’s share of the audience in the key demographic categories.
Last night, in a big shed down on the docks of Auckland town, Jeremy Corbett and Hillary Barry helped launch MediaWorks new season line-up. And, with the return of most of its local shows, some big-rating new international numbers and a couple of new branded content initiatives, director of sales and marketing Liz Fraser is confident it can continue its solid run of form in 2013 next year.
Apparently New Zealand hasn’t run out of talent just yet, because not long after MediaWorks’ big talent show wound up, TVNZ’s big talent show gets set to start.
It’s goodbye to the O’Connors, Caulton and MediaWorks go steady, Adshel welcomes a new marketing manager, Haystac adds three to the pile, The Sweet Shop focuses on features with big new partnership, Spark PR and Activate joins The Collective and Aamplify raamps it up with a new hire.
Saatchi & Saatchi snaffles a digi-boffin, a word from our X Factor sponsors, the Media Design School kids are alright, Adshel brings in a chief organiser, DB stalwart steps down, Gopher adds one to the burrow and Murray Lindsay swaps stations.
Kim Hill gets a big international plaudit, Colenso gets greedy, Geoff Devereux goes indie, New Zealand Blood goes digital with Young & Shand, MediaWorks swipes another TVNZer, TVNZ’s new 7pm show gets going, Hayley Holt heads to More FM and Jason Willis lights his Fuse.
What do you get when you cross glitter canons, cheerleaders showing their bums, overly dramatic sound tracks, media types eating all the nibbles and Paul Henry? A new season TV launch, of course. And first cab off the rank for 2013 was MediaWorks, which announced some of the goodies it will be showing on TV3 and Four at Sky City, interviewed some of 2012’s stars on the couch and introduced the first X Factor NZ judge, Stan Walker.
The TV industry, here and around the world, is currently dealing with some major challenges, but all that serious business was mostly forgotten on Saturday night as the stars—from in front of and from behind the camera—of the local industry turned up to accentuate the positive at the 2012 New Zealand Television Awards. And in the annual (mostly) two horse race, it was MediaWorks that wrested the big news prizes off TVNZ, and TVNZ that took home most of the prizes in the drama and reality sections.
MediaWorks TV said goodbye to its director of sales Linda Farrelly earlier this year. And it’s found an able replacement in the form of Liz Fraser, up until recently the general manager of MSN NZ and chair of IAB NZ, who will take on the newly created role of director of sales and marketing.
After the defection of TVNZ’s ex-head of sales and marketing Paul Maher to MediaWorks recently, general manager of media solutions Jeremy O’Brien has taken over half of that role and been announced as the new head of sales.
Following in the footsteps of Jason Paris, who shifted from TVNZ to take up the role of MediaWorks TV chief executive, TVNZ’s director of sales and marketing Paul Maher has switched sides after almost two years to become the new chief executive of television at MediaWorks. But that’s not all he’ll have on his plate, because as well as leading TV3, TV3+1, FOUR and C4, he will also assume the responsibilities of the outgoing director of sales for MediaWorks TV, Linda Farrelly.
In February, TVNZ and NZ on Air announced they would be adding to the cacophony of reality talent competitions on TV with a multi-million dollar production of New Zealand’s Got Talent. NZ On Air committed $1.6 million in funding and TVNZ went hunting for commercial partners to add to its own $1.6 million contribution. And the first major sponsor has been announced, with Toyota signing up as a key commercial partner.
MediaWorks revealed its new season line-up in fairly understated fashion last week. But TVNZ was ‘avin it large on Wednesday night and took it back to the good old days with a big, expensive, Hollywood-esque launch event for its 2012 season.
Perhaps it’s just us, but the year seems to be flying by and between the Rugby World Cup, Christmas and that little ‘ole thing called the general election, the second half will inevitably go faster. And if you’re an advertiser, ThinkTV says it’s you who’d better speed up to get “plum” advertising positioning.
Aside from a couple of very well-publicised PR disasters and a host of aggrieved agency folk who seemed mightily pissed off about the halving of their 20 percent commissions, TVNZ had a stellar year in 2010, with solid ratings, steadily increasing ad revenue and an array of impressive innovations—both for viewers and advertisers. It also welcomed new sales director Paul Maher into the fold in August and, while he thinks it will be slow and steady as she goes this year, he’s confident TVNZ can repeat—and maybe even exceed—the performance of 2010.
There was an impressive haka, there was cheese (literally and, with Pippa Wetzell and some guy in orange overalls to open proceedings, figuratively), there were 560 RSVPs and there was a solid dose of market leader mentality on display as the national broadcaster launched its New Season 2011 line up for ONE and TV2 last night.
TVNZ’s Ondemand is all about choice; about giving viewers the opportunity to watch content when (and increasingly where) they want to. And, with the help of TVNZ’s latest online advertising innovation, Ad Selector, they now have the ability to choose what ads they want to watch.
TVNZ has announced it will be reducing the January rate card by 11.1 percent from its 2010 rates to reflect the controversial drop in agency commission from 20 percent to 10 percent on 2 January 2011. So, according to mathematical sources who apparently know how to use calculators, that appears to be an overall rate increase of 0.1 percent.
TVNZ and MediaWorks trade recruitment blows; Saatchi’s creates a new role in an effort to ramp up ‘irresistability’; a man who struck fear into the hearts of marketing shysters hangs up his boots; and Omnigraphics, Villa Maria and Supply Design bolster their staff offerings.
Dave Walker, TVNZ’s well-regarded head of advertising sales, has resigned and will effectively be replaced by new sales and marketing boss Paul Maher.
Starcom MediaVest group executive vice president Paul Maher, who has had a long history with the company having been general manager TVNZ agency sales around ten years ago and being involved in late 2006 in helping develop the company’s strategic plan, “Inspiring New Zealanders On Every Screen”, has been named TVNZ’s head of sales and marketing.