Over the course of the last few weeks, TVNZ has been riling up support of the Kiwi masses via a serious of humorous TVCs in anticipation of the cross-Tasman battle that will soon see team from New Zealand take on Australia in the latest rendering of The Amazing Race. The campaign has now been shifted into its next stage, which features a cross-Tasman tug of war and a mini Amazing Race featuring local celebs. PLUS: see which records were broken by the premiere of Resurrection.
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Many of those who drove to work at the right time on 14 July claim to have found the Kiwi roads free of the traffic jams that usually typify the morning commute. This fortunate state of the road was largely attributable due to the nation’s universities and schools being closed for the winter break, but the fact that 419,000 people (according to Nielsen TAM) tuned in to TV One to watch Germany take on Argentina in the final of the World Cup definitely also played a part.
When it comes to reaching New Zealanders, ye olde traditional broadcast media is still on top, with the results of NZ On Air’s independent media consumption study showing the majority of Kiwis are still consuming lots of linear television and live radio every day. But music audiences, the young and the Asian community are leading the charge to digital platforms.
Sussan Turner has brought her 30-year career at MediaWorks to a close by announcing her resignation from the group chief executive role.
Since the World Cup kicked off on 13 June, TVNZ has clocked up over 230,000 streams of the content available via its online hub dedicated to the event. And, according to Jason Foden, the broadcaster’s general manager of on-demand, this level of engagement matches that which TVNZ had during the preliminary rounds of the America’s Cup.
Telecom has revealed its new online TV serviceLightbox, offering a 30 day trial followed by a $15 per 30-day charge on signup.
TRN has announced the launch of a new Auckland-based radio station and the extension of the ZM radio brand onto TV in the same week that MediaWorks is set to unveil the Edge TV. We chatted to chief content officer Dean Buchanan about these moves. PLUS: Radio Sport relegated to AM and TRN crashes The Edge TV launch party.
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.
Up against an international field of broadcasting heavyweights at the Promax Global Excellence awards in New York last week, TVNZ Blacksand and Sky TV have both walked away with gold and bronze gongs.
For a large number of Kiwis, settling in for some couch time on Friday night is a weekly ritual. And MediaWorks is aiming to draw attention to the return of 7 Days and Jono & Ben at 10 this Friday with some online content and other fun and games.
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.
As Jeff Bezos says in his book The Everything Store, there are two types of companies: those that exist to raise prices and those to exist to try and lower them. Amazon is in the latter category, of course, whereas most media companies would be in the former. But Q3 has proven to be something of an anomaly, because TVNZ has decreased its ratecard prices while MediaWorks has increased them. So what’s the rationale behind those decisions?
After 11 years with Mr Smith, Ron Sneddon has cut the ribbon on his own independent media agency, Super, which has a heavy focus on digital media and branded content. And, after a small experiment involving GoPro cameras and a few Kiwi families showed him that traditional thinking around media consumption wasn’t keeping up with the reality, he says it was time for a different approach.
The wait for mobile viewing is over for Sky subscribers who don’t own iPads, as the broadcaster has just announced the launch of a new version of the Sky Go app that’s compatible on certain versions of Samsung Galaxy smartphones and tablets. Since launching in December last year, the Sky Go app has only been available to subscribers via Apple’s products—and the popularity of this initial release has led Sky to increase the inclusivity of its offering. Updated with statistics from Nielsen and with comments from TVNZ’s general manager of on-demand Jason Foden.
MediaWorks announced yesterday that it would be extending its radio brand The Edge onto television by launching a new TV channel on the Freeview and Sky platforms later this year. Described by The Edge programme director Leon Wratt as “radio with pictures on steroids,” the Edge TV will feature Jay-Jay Feeney, Mike Puru, Dom Harvey, Guy Williams, Sharyn Casey, Clint Roberts and other presenters on a daily basis. Updated with comments from MediaWorks group comms manager Rachel Lorimer and MediaWorks radio group programme director Andrew Szusterman.
You can tell by the particularly un-Kiwi job title on Ross Howard’s business card (Senior Vice President of Product & Design) that BuzzDial, the fledgling tech start-up he co-founded with similarly accomplished digital media bods Tom Cotter and Geoff Devereux, is looking much further afield than the small local market. And with M-Com’s Adam Clark coming on board as chairman, Stephen Tindall’s K1W1 fund investing in the business and positive responses to the product from a number of global broadcasters, it seems to be off to a pretty good start.
Like previous years, TVNZ shows made up the vast majority of the top 20 most-watched programmes list for last year, with a magician, a talent show and two current affairs offerings luring the most eyeballs in 2013.
Fair Go is one of the great survivors in the world of TV and it kicks off its new season tonight at the new time of 8pm. But while the ratings remain solid, not everyone’s enamoured with the show, with Brian Edwards writing a scathing piece and offering some advice to those who come in for some unwanted attention.
Viewers could’ve been forgiven for believing that the food cooking format had reached its capacity on Kiwi TV with the addition The Great Food Race. But the networks beg to differ, and TVNZ recently announced that it has acquired the rights from Endemol to produce a New Zealand version of My Kitchen Rules, the popular Australia show that enters its fifth season this year. Plus: find out which shows are being dropped by the broadcaster.
There was a fair bit of chatter in the market last year after the Great Ratings Drop of 2013, something the broadcasters and their research partner Nielsen put down to a range of factors, including an improving economy, a mild winter and changing media consumption habits. Not surprisingly, the broadcasters remained confident that TV was an effective—and cost-effective—option for advertisers. But, in an age of supposed accountability and measurability, why don’t they release minute-by-minute ratings data to the market to prove it?
Last night, the inaugural episodes of The Great Food Race and the fifth season of Masterchef New Zealand aired on TV3 and TV One, respectively. And with this started what could potentially turn into a ratings battle for food format supremacy in 2014.
It’s the height of TV promo season, as evidenced by the recent launch of campaigns for The Great Food Race and MasterChef NZ. And, as the major news and current affairs shows return to air for 2013—and one new show announces its arrival—here’s what they’re doing to drum up some interest.
Viewership of broadcast TV is declining here and around the world. And, in correlation, some consumers appear to have largely checked out of advertising altogether, writes Andrew Lewis. So a reliance on brand-led communications to drive engagement will be found wanting.
After cancelling its expensive output deal with 20th Century Fox, just as it had with the other big studios, MediaWorks was forced to stop screening some of its most popular shows in November last year. But in late December it announced it had struck up a new relationship with the big US studio that will see many of the shows it lost returning this year, although they won’t all be back, because Sky has nabbed some of the studio’s big shows for itself.
SkyTV, one of New Zealand’s biggest broadcasters, has followed in TVNZ’s footsteps by launching SkyGo, an iOS app that enables Sky subscribers to stream content on compatible laptops, mobiles or tablets. But rather than including an on-demand streaming feature, the new app limits viewers to pre-recorded content and live channels. While this is sure to be hit with sports fans, it will do little to appease those who want an on-demand mobile option.
Last year, New Zealand’s Got Talent (NZGT) enjoyed an average viewership of 839,209 over the course of 13 weeks, but the follow-up season couldn’t even match that amount in the final episode, with only 726,900 viewers tuning in on Sunday night to see season-ending episode. These results from Nielsen bring a disappointing end to the second season of TVNZ’s show, which was originally tipped for further success when it was announced.
There’s been plenty of pomp, ceremony and brio in recent weeks at the new season launch announcements for MediaWorks and TVNZ. But behind-the-scenes, all is not quite so rosy, with a sharp drop in TV viewership since the middle of the year creating some concern.
As the rise of content marketing changes the way some clients are choosing to advertise, integration/media solutions/native advertising/branded content/advertorial/*insert another buzzword here*, is a big growth area for TV networks—and other media. And TVNZ has referenced that shift by appointing Lyndsey Francis as general manager of media solutions and customer insights and adding some more research firepower to the team.
The first instalment of TVNZ’s Future Now series, which aims to showcase some of the company’s big broadcasting brains, Dominic Corry interviewed head of digital Tom Cotter to find out how technology was changing the face of TV. And next on the list is Andrew Shaw, the straight-shooting general manager of commissioning, production and acquisitions, who waxes lyrical about TV content trends and the reinvestment in high concept, cinematic drama series in the US.