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.
Browsing: TVNZ
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.
Tux, TVNZ and Greenpeace raise their bats and ackowledge the crowd this week.
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.
On 25 May, after screening the first episode of the second season of House of Cards, MediaWorks made all the episodes for the show available for online viewing via its on-demand service, 3NOW. The new season of the popular Netflix show will be available for 28 days from the release date, giving binge viewers four weeks to squeeze in all 13 episodes. But does this move make sense, given that television has traditionally relied on keeping viewers hooked all the way through? And what is TVNZ doing in this area?
As brands aim to ensure consumers’ see their ads on TV rather than take the time to make a cup of tea, go to the toilet, check their phones or push fast forward, they’re inserting themselves into TV shows and creating new content platforms. And that means integration is becoming increasingly important—and adding more to the coffers of the world’s broadcasters. But it’s a fairly new development and it’s a rapidly evolving sphere, so TVNZ has kicked off a restructure of its Media Solutions and Insights team “in order to deliver better solutions to clients”.
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?
StopPress understands that .99 has won the FIFA U20 World Cup account after a competitive pitch that involved what is thought to have been four agencies. But it isn’t all good news at the agency at the moment. It has also been confirmed that .99, like its fellow Clemenger-owned agency Colenso BBDO, is currently in the process of letting some staff members go. PLUS: TVNZ wins rights to broadcast 22 games during for the 2014 FIFA World Cup.
It has been talked about for years—and experimented with from time to time—but, in what could be seen as the opposite of pull my finger, mall wanderers who push a button on a billboard will get to sample the smell of homemade cooking as part of a new campaign by oOh! Media and TVNZ to promote the new season of My Kitchen Rules Australia. PLUS: the numbers for the show’s first week.
Moves and shakes at Interbrand, TVNZ, Tangible Media, New Zealand Story and Vena.
As the curtains were drawn on the fifth season of MasterChef NZ, the TVNZ team could tap each other on the back for once again dominating the ratings for the duration of the hit show. And this accomplishment will taste even sweeter given that it came in year when MediaWorks attempted take over the food porn throne with its bold—and at first confusing—The Great Food Race.
For some, industry awards are about acknowledging excellence. For many others, they’re more of an excuse to get loose. And, to celebrate last night’s inaugural Beacons, the trio from Auckland Daze put that sentiment into song—and used the power of opera to give those who take their jobs a bit too seriously a prod.
Although the release of last week’s ad spend figures by the ASA served to confirm trends that have been obvious for quite some time, a general consensus among those in the industry is that the figures don’t give an accurate reflection of changes that are occurring in the industry. Several senior industry figures share their thoughts on the structure of the annual ad spend report.
Kiwi players are trying different models to grab on demand eyeballs as the use of the platforms grows exponentially. TVNZ expects shows offered ‘first and fast’ will come to join its top on demand content, Sky
has its eye on more live streamed channels and MediaWorks is gaining traction with 3Now.
New Zealand on Air says a Netflix deal to stream Rhys Darby comedy Short Poppies, which it funded, is great for the Kiwi content. The eight part series will be offered to offshore Netflix subscribers and is also on the schedule for TVNZ’s 2014 season.
Around the world, broadcasters are using their talents to make more than just promos for their own shows or idents for their own channels. And TVNZ’s Blacksand is no exception. So should agencies be concerned by the multi-skilled employees, the quick turnaround, the increasing interaction with clients and the improving output of this inhouse creative department? Or can everyone get along?
This week there were moves and shakes at MediaWorks, CAANZ, TVNZ, Image Centre, Idealog, Intelligent Ink, LiveSport and AD2ONE
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.
TVNZ is having a fairly rough time of it at the moment in terms of PR, with the Shane Taurima saga, the fake abuse own goal, Brian Edwards’ attack on Fair Go and, adding salt into its wounds, even a bit of a slap from overseas with calls from an ex-head of TVNZ telling the BBC not to replicate New Zealand’s public broadcasting model. But, according to its half-year earnings report, the finances aren’t looking too bad at the state broadcaster, with a net profit after tax of $20.8 million for the six months to 31 December, up 47 percent on the same period last year. Plus: TVNZ’s disappearing Igloo?
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.
Social media has given normal humans the chance to bypass the gatekeepers and hear directly from sports stars, actors and others in the public eye. It’s also given them the chance to hurl some extremely harsh online abuse, which means having thick skin is nigh-on essential. And, in a similar style to Jimmy Kimmel’s Celebrities Read Mean Tweets (and Y&R’s love letter to DDB), a few TVNZ reporters and presenters have taken to film in an effort to draw attention to online bullying by reading out some of the bile that gets directed at them.
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.
New romances blossom at TVNZ, MediaWorks, InWaiting, Xero, Breakfast, Blockhead and PR Partners.
Attitude Pictures is taking to its website to stream video after securing broadcast rights to their year’s Paralympics. Attitudelive.com, built by Pitch, has features that cater for an audience that includes those with disability.
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?
The corporate shuffle continues at Scoop, Bauer, Lily & Louis, The Radio Network, the Public Relations Institute of New Zealand and TVNZ.
Starring Toyota, TVNZ, Andy Lark, Andy Williams, Jennifer Duval-Smith and Nicholas O’Flaherty, Pandora, Beryl, Harald van Heerde, Bauer, Belowtheline, Kea and More FM.
Sky, Vend and TVNZ each leave a memorable imprint on another week in adland.
Generally speaking, humans try to steer clear of anything related to exploding number twos. But TVNZ has fully embraced them in a series of new channel idents for TV2 via Blacksand.
On 27 January a new-look Seven Sharp will see Mike Hosking and Toni Street joining the sole survivor of last year’s Christmas shuffle, Jesse Mulligan, as they take to Kiwi televisions for the first time. But Mulligan isn’t the only one returning to the Seven Sharp fray, because TVNZ has also announced that RaboDirect, the online bank, has re-signed its sponsorship agreement with the show.