Throng

Paul Henry, charming as always: "You have a foetus in you?"

TV ONE’s Breakfast co-host, Pippa Wetzell has announced this morning that she is expecting her third child.

Pippa's baby is due in early February 2011 and everyone at TVNZ wishes her a very healthy pregnancy.

Pippa and her husband, Torrin Crowther have two daughters Brodie (3) and Cameron (15 months).  At this stage Pippa plans to co-host Breakfast with Paul Henry through until the end of 2010.

No decision has been made yet about who will fill-in for Pippa next year or when she will return from maternity leave.

The Broadcasting Standards Authority has ruled that TVNZ took “insufficient” action in condemning Breakfast host Paul Henry’s comments last year regarding singer Susan Boyle.

Henry called the British singer “retarded” on air last November and while TVNZ ruled that the host had “gone too far” and breached good taste and decency standards they didn’t admit to breaching standards regarding discrimination and denigration.

The BSA has ruled that TVNZ did not do enough to set the record straight despite a Henry apology via public statement.

A total of eleven complaints were submitted to the BSA regarding the incident on an episode of TV One’s Breakfast show last year where Henry said Boyle was “retarded” because she was starved of oxygen and suffered a mild form of intellectual disability. He then proceeded to hold up a magazine photo of the singer and said “if you look carefully you can make it out, can’t you?”

Breakfast has had its biggest increase in average audience since 1999. Ratings were 20% higher for the first six months of this year compared to the same time last year.

Between January – June this year Breakfast has had an average audience of 174,000 viewers per morning compared to 122,000 viewers during the same time period in 2009.

Men make up 60% of this growth and women 40%.

Breakfast’s audience has increased by 52,000 viewers  a morning but that growth can only be partly attributed to Breakfast picking up Sunrise viewers following TV3’s morning programme being dumped in April because Sunrise only had just over 20,000 viewers.

For the second June in a row viewers are turning on TV ONE news and current affairs programmes in huge numbers.

ONE News at 6pm continues to lead the charge – 700,000 viewers watched the flagship news bulletin every night last month, on average.

TV ONE’s late night news show consistently out-rated TV3’s in June.  On average 200,000 watched Tonight with Greg Boyed and Renee Wright  – 40,000 more viewers per evening than Nightline.

Close Up, Fair Go & Sunday continue to dominate the current affairs landscape, attracting over half a million viewers per episode last month.

Close Up’s commitment to breaking stories has been rewarded in June. The show had an extra 88,000 viewers per night than in May.

Breakfast had yet another notable audience increase last month 180,000 people watching on average every morning – 20,000 more a morning than May and almost 50,000 extra viewers a day than in June 2009.

"Banal" and "Unwatchable".  The two words Paul Henry has used to describe the shows his employer TVNZ puts to air.  And as for the viewing public, he's questioning their intelligence.

Ahead of tonight's 50 years of TV News, the Sunday Star Times spoke to the host of TV One's breakfast who seemed eager criticise the content of TVNZ.

Both Close Up and Campbell Live were lambasted as being "banal" despite them being some of the most-watched and most commented on shows on Television.

"I sometimes see stuff and personally despair, and I think: is that current affairs? But it actually is."

When asked if programme-makers were underestimating or overestimating the intelligence of the New Zealand public, Henry giggled and said: "I seriously worry we might be overestimating it."

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On Wednesday morning after the All Whites drew with Slovakia, TVNZ’s Breakfast show achieved its highest average audience ever.

Breakfast began 13 years ago and until Wednesday only one programme had attracted an audience over 200,000 – that was on Monday the 1st of September 1997, the morning after Princess Diana died.

212,120 watched Breakfast on Wednesday, 202, 590 watched the Diana episode.

Spielberg eyes down under

Steven Spielberg is eyeing up Queensland as the filming location of his new big budget series Terra Nova. The Hollywood heavyweight sang the praises of Australia after shooting war drama The Pacific in Melbourne and is looking at the far North this time to provide the backdrop for his new dinosaur series which is said to cost around $150 million.

Pro-whaling comedian says more on the way

The comedian who duped Breakfast host Paul Henry earlier in the week pretending to be a pro-whaling supporter has sent out a gentle warning of more pranks on the horizon. Guy Williams is a part of C4 show The Jono Project whose goal it was to make it onto a live interview on the rival broadcaster’s news and current affairs show as a joke.