After rent week: we know renting in NZ is a disaster. But it can be fixed

Spinoff editor Duncan Greive looks back at rent week, a pop-up campaign which laid bare the numerous and vicious problems with renting in New Zealand. We first mooted a Spinoff ‘rent week’ in late 2016. It was based on the idea that the stories of home ownership were being told constantly, but the challenges and … Read more

Rent week: Why we’re devoting a series to the reality of renting a NZ home in 2017

Renting in New Zealand is now the way most of us live. Unfortunately, in many ways, it sucks. Spinoff editor Duncan Greive explains why we’re dedicating a week to the issue. A couple of weeks ago Arthur Grimes, the former chair of the Reserve Bank, was interviewed on Nine to Noon by Kathryn Ryan. The … Read more

The incremental radical: Bill English meets the Spinoff

After eight years watching John Key from the deputy’s seat, Bill English was thrust into leadership late last year. In the first in a series of election-year interviews with our political leaders, Duncan Greive goes to the ballet with the prime minister, and chews over his new job and how he plans to keep it. Photography … Read more

Investment legend Brian Gaynor on stepping back, the housing crisis and why Bill English is a born number two

After a clear decade running one of the country’s best-performing investment funds, and two writing one of its best-read business columns, Brian Gaynor is stepping back from day-to-day fund management. Duncan Greive asks him why. I don’t know when I first started reading Brian Gaynor. It would have been a decade ago at least. Probably … Read more

Sensing Murder is back on TV and somehow even worse than before

New Zealand’s most fucked up show is back on the air after a merciful hiatus. Duncan Greive says that Sensing Murder is a crime against television – and now, due to a big format change, even worse than it was the first time around. Sensing Murder, one of the most preposterous shows in New Zealand … Read more

The Project, fumbles and fuck ups and all, is state of the art current affairs TV

Failed presenter Duncan Greive reviews the first episode of The Project, Three’s new 7pm current affairs show. The lights came on and, after two weeks of as-live rehearsals, they really were speaking to the nation. Even for the show’s guest Rove McManus, who has spent most of his adult life on live television, it was a big … Read more

Garage Project’s Jos Ruffell on the Tuatara sale and the future of NZ craft beer

Are all the craft brewers going to be bought by the big guys? Garage Project’s Jos Ruffell tells Duncan Greive that, despite the sale of Panhead and Tuatara, they’re doubling down on the independent route. A couple of weeks ago it was announced that Tuatara had been sold to the Heineken-owned DB Breweries, the latest … Read more

Under the Bridge: the story behind the dazzling Herald project a year in the making

This media era is characterised as one of disastrous clickbait and diminishing journalistic standards. But Kirsty Johnston and the Herald’s new project Under the Bridge shows that passionate, paradigm-shifting investigative journalism is alive and well in New Zealand. Duncan Greive spoke to Johnston about creating journalism that matters. “I’m pretty much your classic young female … Read more

Veronica Mars is a mystery wrapped in a comedy inside a teen drama

The ’00s are rightly remembered as a golden age for the hour-long teen-centric drama, thanks to The OC and Gilmore Girls. But Duncan Greive says Veronica Mars is the very best. The kids of Neptune High dress like absolute idiots. Platinum blonde hair feathered at every extremity, tartan bootcut pants, all the earth tones on Earth … Read more

Why is The Crowd Goes Wild the only topical 7pm show on during the apocalypse?

Duncan Greive finds some sweet reprieve in the shambles of The Crowd Goes Wild, the only seven o’clock show New Zealand can count on right now.  In these times of dread and chaos it’s hard to know what induces more anxiety: being away from a constant supply of breathless reporting, or mainlining it ceaselessly. On … Read more

Announcing The Spinoff app

Today sees the launch of one of the biggest developments in Spinoff history: a mobile app for Apple and Android. Editor and publisher Duncan Greive tells you why you should download it now. One of the most persistent questions since the dawn of Spinoff time in AD 2014 has been “do u have an app?” … Read more

Alan Greenspan: unique financial genius or the man who destroyed the world?

Is Alan Greenspan the demon author of the GFC, or a true immortal of central banking? A monumental new biography persuasively argues he was neither – but that his latter-day critics have got him wrong, writes Duncan Greive. There are two Alan Greenspans in popular mythology, each in direct contradiction to the other. The first … Read more

No news is bad news: power ranking the high summer morning shows of our key news broadcasters

It’s been a long, lazy summer for many of our morning news outlets, which are finally set to return on Monday after a month off air. But who provided the best holiday cover for Hosking, Ferguson, Barry and the rest? Duncan Greive grades the breakfast news stand-ins. Thanks to the internet and aeroplanes and probably My … Read more

Summer reissue: ‘Rock music: I don’t know what’s wrong with it’: An interview with Street Chant’s Emily Edrosa

Back in April Duncan Greive interviewed Emily Edrosa as Street Chant’s long-delayed second album Hauora was released. The pair discussed the often-grim realities of life as a woman in the New Zealand music industry. Content warning: contains discussion of sexual assault. Originally published April 27, 2016 I met with Emily Edrosa twice in April. We went … Read more

Summer reissue: The real problem with New Zealand TV drama

When Duncan Greive reviewed Filthy Rich earlier this year he was overwhelmed with messages from a depressed New Zealand TV industry. Here he summarises what they had to say. Part of an ongoing series assessing our publicly funded television. Read part two, comparing TVNZ with the BBC, here. Originally published February 29, 2016 A couple of weeks … Read more

‘It was sort of like two MBAs rolled into one’: Cowan Finch on how an Asia OE changed his life

New Zealand’s social, cultural and economic pivot to Asia is well-documented, yet when we head off on an OE London remains the default destination. In the first of a two part series on The Asia OE, Duncan Greive speaks to a young New Zealand entrepreneur for whom Asia called and changed his life. Cowan Finch … Read more

Why is Gareth Morgan standing outside John Key’s house, shouting about Donald Trump and tax?

He wants to be a tax-raising and lowering, eat-the-rich Trump-but-not-like-that of the political centre. Duncan Greive heads to Parnell for the Gareth Morgan party’s very odd first policy launch. “Make New Zealand fair again,” says Gareth Morgan, more than once for emphasis, on a street in a suburb which has always and only and accurately … Read more

Gower gasps and Hosking weeps: how TV news covered John Key’s resignation

Every night the television news happens at 6pm and current affairs shows happen at 7pm. Normally nothing much has happened. Yesterday though, John Key resigned, so Duncan Greive watched our nation’s finest broadcasters try and figure out what it all meant. Yesterday – you may have heard – our prime minister resigned after eight fun-filled … Read more

Docu-drama Pike River is a labour of extraordinary love and care

Duncan Greive reviews the NZ on Air-funded Pike River, a docu-drama blending dramatic recreations and interviews with those most affected by the 2010 tragedy.  “29 men died on the 19th of November. Is that OK? How can that be,” she asks, “in the 21st century, in New Zealand?” These are questions posed by Kath Monk … Read more

Ratings show people under 50 are abandoning television. So what are NZ on Air going to do about it?

A call for submissions on a new NZ on Air television funding strategy closes today. Duncan Greive looks at the familiar biases hidden in the new strategy – most notably a continuing bias towards television, a medium which ratings numbers sourced by The Spinoff show is plummeting in popularity for younger audiences. A few months ago NZ … Read more

Another catastrophic week for Mediaworks could yet mark the start of its resurgence

The exit of Paul Henry and the dumping of Story make for another miserable glut of headlines. But the talent that does remain, Duncan Garner and Guy Williams especially, lends hope that the darkest hour is before the dawn, writes Duncan Greive. Over the past 18 months, there have been a number of disastrous periods … Read more

Bauer CEO Paul Dykzeul on Paperboy, Metro and why Gavin Ellis needs to show them some respect

Duncan Greive sits down with Bauer CEO Paul Dykzeul and publisher Brendon Hill to talk about the state of its business, and their double down bet on print in the digital era. Bauer, by far the country’s biggest magazine publisher, is in the midst of another of its regular spasms of change. Last month it announced … Read more

Employment hit a record high today. Here’s why National should worry – and what they can do about it.

The unemployment numbers came out today, showing a job market in its best state since the GFC hit eight years ago. While this is undeniably good for the National government, Duncan Greive argues they shouldn’t expect the good times to last – but suggests one weird trick which might help them do so. In The Rise … Read more

The Naked and Famous by Numbers

By Numbers is a new regular feature examining a musical artist and their work as a business through a series of numbers. First up: The Naked and Famous. “We feel like an American band now,” says Thom Powers, the songwriter, guitarist and most reliably aggro interviewee in The Naked and Famous. They’re so American that they won’t … Read more