Jason Paris’ switcheroo from the head of digital media and marketing at TVNZ to chief executive of MediaWorks in March created, quite understandably, a fair swag of industry chatter. And, while he’s learning quickly about the differences between working for a company owned by a private equity firm and one that’s owned by the government, he’s still grappling with a lot of the same televisual issues and the social changes that are influencing them. And, in his presentation at the Death, Taxes and TVCs event last week, he agreed wholeheartedly with Colenso BBDO’s planning director James Hurman that, despite many assertions to the contrary, mass media is still alive and kicking. In fact, he says “television has never been more popular”.