Posts by Damian Christie
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Hard News: About Campbell Live, in reply to Bart Janssen,
Logic might suggest that if they wasted less time and money on live crosses they could deliver more news.
A couple of years ago I would've agreed with you, but I think we've actually pulled back from Peak Live Cross, which was when we started to see the 'Brady Bunch' of reporters stacked in the corner of the screen all waiting to be crossed to on one topic.
Last night for instance, on One News, I can see there was ONE live cross - to Corrin Dann talking about the budget - I'd argue that these are the sort of live crosses we want to keep, where ideally (*ideally*) we get some analysis around the story.
In terms of news, there was 22 minutes. No animal stories, but one track at the bottom of the bulletin on the Kardashians, so take out 1'30" for that. The first story was also about the big dump of snow down South, but I'll save that fight for another day :)
22 mins = a commercial half hour. The rest is taken up with sports, weather, re-caps, promos, intros all that sort of stuff.
I'm not saying that's AMAZING, WORLD BEATING etc, but just adding some actual numbers to the mix.
I'm not sure that 3 News is particularly different from One in terms of that breakdown, I'd be surprised if it was markedly so.
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Hard News: About Campbell Live, in reply to Alfie,
While I have credibility problems with the way Mana presented their tale, I have no doubt that this is what went on behind the scenes.
Occam's Razor guides me here. It's possible, just possible, that given the CEO with a head for figures (and a mandate apparently to tart up the company for sale), it didn't require a call from the PM for him to decide to scrap a beloved but long underperforming show that was taking up 150 minutes of primetime each week.
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There's as much lack of proof in that Mana article as there is lack of proof-reading, and neither give me any confidence in the claims.
To be honest Sacha, poor ratings is a good enough explanation.
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Just a question about one of your statements regarding ratings:
"By contrast to Seven Sharp, it holds on to most of its lead-in news viewers and occasionally does better."
Does it? That's not my understanding - I can only look at last week's ratings, but even last week on average it lost around 20% of its viewers from 3 News. Yes that's better than Seven Sharp as a percentage, but it should be noted that 3 News is doing really, really badly in the ratings at the moment. Back when 3 News used to give One News a good run for its money, the drop off to Campbell Live was even more dramatic (and certainly more than Close Up dropped).
I hasten to add that none of this relates to whether or not Campbell Live is a good show, or should be dropped, or any of that. But I've read a few questionable things regarding ratings etc recently, such as this in the Herald:
"But where five years ago Campbell Live lorded it over TV One in the crucial 25-54 age bracket..."
Five years ago was when I blogged about the first rumours Campbell Live was for the chop. And it wasn't because they were lording it over anyone in the ratings. The only time Campbell Live has been consistently threatening as far as I can recall was the first year of Seven Sharp.
Likewise, Mark Jennings' comments about 'viewer engagement'. There may be a sense of the people being moved more by Campbell Live's stories, and that wouldn't surprise me. But if you're looking at Facebook likes, comments, shares etc... nope.
If we're going to have a discussion about this, then there aren't too many figures where Campbell Live is going to beat the opposition. That's part of the problem: It's hard to show people as figures-oriented as Mark Weldon and Julie Christie all the ways in which Campbell Live absolutely trounces the competition, and why it matters.
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OnPoint: Sunlight Resistance, in reply to CJM,
I thought The Herald giving its whole front page (large border around three sides, large square advertisement within actual page) to the National party on its online edition on friday before the election was pretty nakedly partisan.
Yeah that's called advertising it - they sell it, someone buys it - stuff.co.nz had EXACTLY the same takeover on exactly the same day. Either we ban political advertising (which some say we should) or that's totally okay. I don't think there was anyone saying "okay guys we can't write anything bad about National today because they bought an ad here".
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Hard News: Dirty Politics, in reply to Greg Dawson,
And the followup is *totally* legit:
Just an idea – if you’re going to take my twitter pic, maybe include the original tweet and hashtag (#akshuallyfake) that I used when I wrote it – it’s now got a life of its own without people being aware of its intended fakeness.
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Do you think it's unreasonable for someone to assume that maybe KDC enjoys making ambiguous statements - effectively "I hacked the German Chancellor because I didn't like him... I don't like John Key either". It's the same as can be seen in the winky face I-wonder-who-hacked-Whaleoil message he allegedly sent to Wayne Tempero. Even if it's not true, he seems to like creating an inference.
I wasn't there, I didn't hear any more of the speech than that Chancellor quote pulled for the news, but it would seem either mischievous or just plain stupid given recent events.
If Kim Dotcom didn't want the Internet Mana event to be derailed, he could've left it to the actual candidates - I keep being told by IM people that "Kim's really keen to step out of the spotlight" but I'm yet to see any evidence of it, and today it indirectly (with the media's help of course) cost them positive coverage of the issues.
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Cracker: The Colorado Experiment, in reply to Steve Curtis,
So thats the law enforcement angle covered …right
I've got no interest in (and I'm contractually prohibited from) going into further details of who I did and didn't speak to Steve, and I'm well aware of the jurisdiction of CDOT and the State Patrol, as well as everyone else I interviewed, thanks. I was just pointing out that I was doing a hell of a lot more than just 'soaking up the vibes' or whatever your original dismissive statement was.
Perhaps rather than scoff, you could add something constructive to the discussion with some firm evidence about the negative impacts of legalisation in Colorado thus far?
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Cracker: The Colorado Experiment, in reply to Steve Curtis,
Your [sic] welcome. Maybe you could have said more of your itinerary in the main story than this -
Okay Sherlock. Perhaps you missed my oh-so-subtle clues, like...
“No trouble” seems to largely sum up Colorado’s cannabis experiment – a process being watched from within the US and around the world. I spoke to a State Trooper, and to the Department of Transportation.
Or perhaps the fact I spoke about travelling with a crew of non-pot-smokers as part of a project I'm engaged with - I don't expect you to know much about me, but perhaps you know that my *job* is a journalist?
With reading comprehension levels like yours, it's probably best you're not a smoker. If you don't like the conversation around these parts, perhaps you might feel more at home at Stuff Nation.
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Cracker: The Colorado Experiment, in reply to Sue,
what i find amazing about Colorado is that nobody who grows or sells... can open a bank account
Not so, Sue - I did ask the biggest of the growers about this. Many banks are working on a 'don't ask, don't tell' policy at the moment, but it's still fraught, so every six months or so they change banks. But she did say they try and pay all their suppliers in cash wherever possible...