Door open to TVNZ personalities who want to support a good cause

After all the comments about having an insular Mediaworks Telethon I thought I’d do some investigating and try and find out how realistic it might be to have some TVNZ faces appearing on the other channel.

Rumour had it early on that in fact, some TVNZ personalities had been approached to appear during the fundraising extravaganza on TV3 in August but had been given a categorical “no” by the network and told it wouldn’t happen.

This sounded a little harsh to me.  Why would the nation’s state broadcaster be eager to keep their talent off a rival channel?  Wouldn’t that be putting their faces in front of an audience that might not be familiar with them?  Commercial nonsense aside, it’s all in the name of a good cause and everyone pretty much knows who you are no matter what channel you’re on, right?

The first port of call was TV3.  Did they in fact want to have TVNZ people gracing their screens in a format other than the Qantas Awards?  Apparently, yes!

“If anyone at TVNZ feels strongly enough about the Kidscan cause, we would absolutely welcome them to become involved with the Big Night In Telethon and help support this amazing charity.” – TV3

Wow!  That’s a great start.  So what about TVNZ then?  We’re they actually as anal about their stars being involved as we’d been led to believe?  Apparently, not!

“We’re happy for a couple of our stars to make appearances on the Telethon. We haven’t been approached by them yet but we’ll talk with TV3 about it in the lead up to the show and see who we can spare given commitments to our shows and charities.” – TVNZ

Well, fantastic.  TV3 is happy to have TVNZ people and TVNZ is happy for some of their stars to be involved.  What a good day for television in New Zealand!

I guess the question now is, who would you like to see from TVNZ appearing on Telethon alongside their TV3 counterparts?  And not only that, what would they have to do to convince you to put some cash in the bucket?

About the author

Regan is one of the co-founders of Throng Media.
He's currently watching Survivor, Homeland, House, Glee and can't wait for the return of Game of Thrones.
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  • TuiKiwi

    Great article! How big of TV3 and TVNZ to say that. I look forward to checking out the Telethon :D

  • reece_555

    Very interesting reading, Might be worth watching to see who makes an appearence. Lets toss in simon & wendy or paul henry………. i think mark sainsbury would be up for it if any one seen the Jackie Brown Diaries last year.

  • Rachel

    I’d like to see Simon Dallow and Adam Rickitt for a start.

  • bobscoffee

    What happened in Jackie Brown Diaries last year? Would be more interesting if rival network personalities were involved in challenges or competitions

  • http://www.ictlaw.co.nz lawgeeknz

    Kimberly Crossman of course

  • reece_555

    On the Jacquie Brown Diaries Mark Sainsbury introduced a story about Jacquie on close up in the close up studio, on the DVD commentary the shows creators attempted to do it with TVNZ permission however were denied that instead mark said he would do it anyway. Which was very good of him.

  • TuiKiwi

    I’d like to know if that really was the case, as I can’t see how it could have been done without permission.

  • hampete

    @reece_555; It was good of him. I’ll never understand the rivelry between the two stations when there really isn’t a competition, people will always watch both equally, there’s good stuff on both. Bet he got a big telling off for helping fairfax out though!