Interesting take from Bill Ralston.
Accurate take.
Interesting times ahead in radioland.
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NZME has appointed current Head of Talk Jason Winstanley to lead the Radio content side of the business.
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MediaWorks today announced it will launch a new look talk radio brand next year (replacing Magic Talk).
The announcement comes after MediaWorks announced Tova OāBrien will be leaving the Newshub team as political editor to move into talk radio as a breakfast host.
reboot 2.5 for them
interesting choice in Tova
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Also comment from Mark Jennings on Tova which is very good.
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/comment/tova-obrien-the-new-face-of-talk-radio
Nothing in the IPONZ database under Mediaworks (Yet). Could be worth keeping an eye on it.
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Is it true that Mediaworks are going to buy newsroom?
@Michael_Eccles Probably. But Newsroom is independently owned and operated since its inception.
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Who knows what might happen down the track, but I think given Mediaworks are starting their own newsroom indicates short term they are not. Newsroom might be one of the content partners they talk about in yesterdays media release thoughā¦
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The edge went to dead air at 6:29pm until 6:32pm
Radio Live did okay, for a while, but then fell into the trap of moving to the right and trying to tempt ZBās loyal audience away from Mike, Leighton and Larry. It failed, and Mediaworks felt forced to rebrand the station. Liveās successor, Magic Talk, tried to go even further to the right. The result? An even bigger thrashing.
Did Mark actually listen to Radio Live? I donāt recall Mark Sainsbury, Wendyl Nissen, Ali Mau & Mitch Harris being an example of moving to the right.
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Exactly what I thought when I read the article too! Radio Live couldnāt have been much further to the left before it was axed
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Mark Jennings was the reason Radio Live never did well. As Head of News at TV3, he was against the merger with 3News. When they did merge the news operations it was a total failure because the TV bosses werenāt interested.
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Yep.
All very well for Mark Jennings to sit here after the fact and espouse this stuff, but he was part of the reason it failed to get going. He blocked access to reporters and talent for Live which hamstrung them.
I just genuinely donāt think Jennings has any idea how radio worksā¦heās a TV man through and through.
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@OnAir Mark Jennings, to me, is more interested in television than radio. Before Newsroom came along, he had worked in the television business across New Zealand and Australia since 1979.
Agree.
From Jenningsā article:
Question. How do you beat Newstalk ZB ās Mike Hosking? Answer: You donāt. Instead, you go for a different market and hire someone whose profile wonāt be crushed by the right wingās favourite broadcaster.
I donāt think taking on ZB in the same market was a terrible idea at all and NZME are probably breathing a sigh of relief that they are backing off their turf. If Mediaworks had given Magic Talk half the investment its next iteration is getting, they could finally be making inroads now.
After all, Sean Plunket and Peter Williams were starting as Leighton Smith & Larry Williams had recently exited ZB so there was definitely opportunity.
IMO merging talk back into Magic, moving to AM in Akl, obviously a shoe string budget and hosts that were given free rein to say what they want is why it did so poorly.
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Yeah - and what Magic - who had no one running the station who had successful experience with talk radio - failed to grasp is that people didnāt listen to Leighton and Larry because they agreed with them all the time, they listened because they were great broadcasters first and foremost. Not because they espoused certain views, obviously that plays a part but LW and LS were top of their craft.
Peter and Sean went straight for the extreme right POVs and the outrage, but sounded rather lazy on air.
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Seems like it will be the battle of TV and Radio in 2022, a return to 1990ās era of getting first to the audience. Bring it on. I think TVNZ and RNZ merger will go ahead and turn into a disaster recovery.