In a world where players have unfettered access to fans through Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, it raises the question of whether traditional media still has a role to play. But as Scotty Stevenson explains, a player-driven model powered by social media can only go so far. Among the many weird and wonderful tales of the … Read more
Last night New Zealand witnessed one of the most exhilarating, confronting political stories to air on national television. Hayden Donnell has watched it several hundred times. Newshub at 6 opened last night with a back-and-forth between presenters Samantha Hayes and Mike McRoberts. After an intro from Hayes, McRoberts set the scene for a drama inside … Read more
When Stuff’s parent company Nine sold up in a management buyout, the sale price for the whole business was $1. So what does it actually mean when businesses are sold for a buck? When local media giant Stuff was sold earlier this week to CEO Sinead Boucher, one of the biggest talking points was the … Read more
The big media companies just want to get married. Duncan Greive makes the case for dozens of divorces instead. For the last few years, all the talk in New Zealand’s media has been of a need for consolidation. That our big for-profit media companies – TVNZ, Sky, MediaWorks, NZME and Stuff – all needed to … Read more
Duncan Greive assesses an extraordinary morning for New Zealand’s media. In the space of a tumultuous half hour New Zealand’s media landscape has been utterly transformed, with Stuff CEO Sinead Boucher completing an audacious management buyout from its Australian owners Nine, while hundreds of staff are about to be laid off at MediaWorks. The two … Read more
A bill is currently being read in parliament that could radically shift employee rights in the screen and gaming industries. Mickey Treadwell writes on the implications of the bill. On March 3, the innocuous sounding Screen Industry Workers Bill quietly passed its first reading. The bill, which has garnered little attention outside of game development … Read more
NZME asked the commerce commission for urgent approval to buy Stuff for $1. Minutes later, Stuff’s owner said it was no longer in talks with NZME. In the space of a chaotic few hours, the long-running courtship between print media giants NZME and Stuff dramatically escalated, as NZME informed the sharemarket that it was seeking … Read more
A newly established position within our vitally important commercial partnerships team. We’re seeking an account manager to join The Spinoff’s small commercial team. Our ideal applicant would be someone who’s been in an advertising or marketing role for a year or two, and knows their way around those worlds. This is a junior role which … Read more
For the past week, we’ve been showcasing our picks from the 48Hours Lockdown. Today, we’ve got the awards special AND the winners to show you. Thanks to Covid-19, for the first time in the 18-year history of the 48Hours film competition, organisers had to make the decision to postpone the event. Feeling the creative longing … Read more
Last week, an inaccurate tweet about suicide spread so far that both the Ministry of Health and the Mental Health Foundation had to respond. Hayden Donnell looks at what happened, and how the government could prevent a repeat. Warning: this story contains discussion of suicide On Sunday, the Ministry of Health and the Mental Health … Read more
He started as a journalist, became a producer, and is now one of NZ’s most successful TV creators. Bailey Mackey joins Duncan Greive on The Fold. This month’s episode of The Fold, The Spinoff’s media podcast, features host Duncan Greive in conversation with Bailey Mackey, a TV producer with one of the most interesting CVs … Read more
The 48-hour film festival is back, self-isolation style. While the judging panel is deciding the winners, The Spinoff is showcasing seven films from the competition. We’re sharing one a day in the lead up to the one-hour awards special, airing on TVNZ2. Today, Nothing to See Here by PickleThugs. Nothing To See Here is a … Read more
Three new permanent staff positions and casual shift work available. We entered the level four lockdown in the unfortunate position of having lost a few key senior staff in recent months, without yet having found their replacements. Now, with the white-hot first phase of the story starting to ebb, we’re recruiting some much-needed reinforcements. Our tight, … Read more
The 48-hour film festival is back, self-isolation style. While the judging panel is deciding the winners, The Spinoff is showcasing seven films from the competition. We’re sharing one a day in the lead up to the one-hour awards special, airing on TVNZ2 on Friday, May 8, at 9.30pm. Today, Duck 3D: 2D Busta’s from Flat … Read more
One month ago Bauer closed all its New Zealand mags, including Woman’s Day. This week a new issue of Woman’s Day went on the shelves. What’s going on? After a five-week absence, a major women’s magazine produced by Bauer has returned to New Zealand supermarkets and subscribers’ letterboxes. At first glance, it appears to be … Read more
Today it was announced that Taika Waititi would be directing and co-writing a Star Wars film. It’s great news, but fans should probably not get too excited, writes Sam Brooks. In 2017, when a user suggested on Twitter that Taika Waititi should direct a Star Wars film, the director quote-tweeted them with this retort: I'd … Read more
The 48-hour film festival is back, self-isolation style. While the judging panel is deciding the winners, The Spinoff is showcasing seven films from the competition. We’re sharing one a day in the lead-up to the one-hour awards special, airing on TVNZ2. Today, Cookie Jar from team The Morris Buchanans. Cookie Jar is an exploration of … Read more
The 48-hour film festival is back, self-isolation style. While the judging panel is deciding the winners, The Spinoff is showcasing seven films from the competition. We’re sharing one a day in the lead up to the one-hour awards special, airing on TVNZ2. Today, Ice Cold Killer from team Proto Primate. It is a still and … Read more
The 48-hour film festival is back, self-isolation style. While the judging panel is deciding the winners, The Spinoff is showcasing seven films from the competition. We’re sharing one a day in the lead-up to the one-hour awards special, airing on TVNZ2. Today we’ve got It Was Sol from team Piwaiwaka. A family heirloom is broken, but … Read more
Holding Facebook and Google to account might be a great idea in theory, but the proposed code is based on false assumptions, writes Australian ex-MediaWorks news boss Hal Crawford. A couple of weeks ago, the Australian government announced that it was going make Facebook and Google pay news companies for the news content they “used … Read more
The 48-hour film festival is back, self-isolation style. While the judging panel is deciding the winners, The Spinoff is showcasing seven films from the competition. We’re sharing one a day in the lead-up to the one-hour awards special, airing on TVNZ2. Today we’ve got Containment from team Corner Shop. Containment follows a daughter’s relationship with her … Read more
The 48-hour film festival is back, self-isolation style. While the judging panel is deciding the winners, The Spinoff is showcasing seven films from the competition. We’re sharing one a day in the lead up to the one-hour awards special, airing on TVNZ2. First up, A Necessary Death from team Bubblemates. A Necessary Death follows a … Read more
After falling victim to the Bauer Media magazine massacre, Shelley Howells realises that it’s not just ex-colleagues she’s missing. I was reading a Q&A about why video chat can be so dang exhausting, when a penny dropped. What with the pandemic, lockdown and being made redundant, I’ve been having loads of feelings, which I usually … Read more
Social media remains fertile ground for con artists as promoted tweets rip off the broadcaster’s image in a bitcoin swindle. It’s not unusual for New Zealand Twitter users to encounter the face of Mike Hosking as they scroll through their streams, but this morning, it hasn’t just been the usual of links to op-eds, uproar … Read more
With the lion’s share of the spend going to support broadcasters, newspaper operators are likely to be ‘aghast’, says media analyst Gavin Ellis. The first round of a rescue package for New Zealand media has been announced, following government promises to “triage” its support measures for an industry in crisis. The majority of the funding … Read more
Thousands of magazine subscribers are out of pocket following the closure of the New Zealand arm of the Bauer publishing empire. Cat MacLennan is one of them, and she has a message for the company’s German chief executive and majority owner, Yvonne Bauer. Tēnā koe Ms Bauer, I am one of your magazine subscribers in … Read more
What if that ‘Imagine’ video was nearly nine hours long and featured over a hundred celebrities? Is it a global crisis until a group of celebrities come together and sing about it? Surely not. Thus today’s Global Citizen’s One World Together: Stay Home, a nearly nine-hour live stream – seven hours of pre-show followed by … Read more
Even as New Zealand contemplates the end of lockdown, more closures and a major snub continue to rankle publishers, Duncan Greive reports. The magazine industry, still reeling from the abrupt closure of its biggest publisher, Bauer Media, received two further blows this week after being left out of the media session of the Epidemic Response … Read more
At today’s online meeting of the Epidemic Response Committee, media representatives have appeared in the unfamiliar seat of the interviewed rather than the interviewer. Here’s a highlights package. Committee chair Simon Bridges opened by acknowledging the parlous situation the New Zealand media find themselves in. He also noted that representatives of NBR and Māori TV … Read more