Panel discussion tonight on Media7: Close Up vs Campbell Live

Last night I was part of a panel discussion filmed for Media7′s first episode of 2010 on the ratings battle at 7pm: Campbell Live vs Close Up.

The other panellists are media consultant Brian Edwards and Matt Nippert from the Herald on Sunday – the reporter behind the recent speculation that Campbell Live may face the axe.

I had a great time and it was great to meet Brian after having recently exchanged comments on the same topic on his blog.  There’s a funny recent summary of stories on both programmes at the start.

The good news: TV3 have confirmed that Campbell Live will definitely not be axed this year.

The half hour show airs at 9:10pm tonight on TVNZ7 and is repeated at the same time on Monday and is also available on demand. 

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Co-founder of Throng. Favourite TV shows recently: Homeland, Revenge, House.
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  • wichard van oosterbosch

    just watched the discussion about ” current affairs” programmes on TV7 and I disagree with your view that it is good news that CampbellLive won’t be axed, it would be the kindest thing they could do at TV3. I used to be a fan of John, an enormously talented and intelligent guy, and when the programme started the expectations were that he would give Holmes a run for his money and for a while he did but the last year it has gone down hill fast to the point that I , as a 50 year old viewer of average intelligence feel insulted by what TV3 puts in front of me and expects me to swallow it without too much thinking.

    Mark sainsbury has probably reached the pinnacle in his career presenting fluffy stuff but John campbell is fast eroding his reputation as a real journalist, I don’t know whether he has decided that giggling away with actors and singers who are full of self importance is an easy wat to make a living or that he is put on a chain by his bosses.

    I support the idea that half an hour of real news is more than enough, to be followed by half an hour of in depth coverage of the main stories, I think this should be done from 8- 9pm when everyone is home from work and the small kids are in bed, you only have to look at the traffic jams in auckland at 6pm to know where the potential viewers are.

    Anyway with the government hell bent on screwing radio NZ, the future for decent and in depth news coverage looks bleak . One only has to look at the fact that we don’t have $10 a year per citizen for national radio but we did have $11 per person to give to the Avatar producers to add to their billion dollar profits.

    Finally , it really irritated me that the panel members on Media 7 agreed that showing items such as Robin brooke’s groping was a good decision because people are interested in it. i would argue that the media make it a story in the first place, no one is really interested in what that guy did, it happens in a pub near you every weekend, we are just bored and respond to the repetitive promo’s that run before the programme starts.

     

     

  • bobscoffee

    completely agree with your comments

  • Rachel

    wichard van oosterbosch: Thanks for your comments.  You know I agree with you on the Robin Brooke story (if you saw my earlier comments on Throng, you’d know I have very little interest in the All Blacks at the best of times heh) and at the end of the day, it didn’t pull in massive ratings for them – Campbell Live relatively did better.  It just seems that these stories are hyped in the media but not necessarily correlated at all to ratings and what people are interested in.

    Although, seeing the most popular stories on Stuff and the NZ Herald often makes me wonder about the future of news if that’s what people are interested in (celebs and weirdness).

  • someone

    This is one of the many reasons I dont have freeview yet.

  • Miles Lacey

    I think most people want real news coverage that tells us what’s going on and to see informed interviews with people who actually know what they’re talking about rather than the talking suits, lobbyists and whinging mothers who know even less than the suits and the lobbyists we’re used to seeing.   Neither Campbell Live nor Close Up offer us anything but tedious fluffy stuff and childish adults abusing each other while saying nothing of importance or relevance.

    Even more depressing is that the media panel shows that look at the media rarely bring up the fact we’re not getting good quality news coverage because of the quasi-religious importance put on opinion polls and ratings that claim we all want the dumbed-down news and bum fluff current affairs shows.

     

     

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