Our ‘Boycott TV3 for what they did to Campbell Live’ campaign is starting to bite.
Hard.
Prime News outrates TV3 as audience numbers halve
Prime News out-rated its TV3 competitor last night, as the MediaWorks’ channel lost nearly half its audience in two weeks.3 News drew an audience of 166,000 viewers last night – 13,000 less than Prime News, which screens half an hour earlier at 5.30pm.
Two weeks ago, 3 News attracted nearly double that figure, with 314,000 viewers tuning in.
Why should you boycott TV3?
There are so many reasons.
The first reason is the mindset of news by MediaWorks Chairman Rod McGeoch,
“We put news on, but only because it rates. And we sell advertising around news. This is what this is all about.”
This astoundingly blunt message makes it very, very, very clear that TV3 is simply about ratings, it has nothing to do with their Fourth Estate Media Obligations. MediaWorks Chairman Rod McGeoch makes it perfectly clear that he is aiming for the dumbest, lowest common denominator for news. If he could get away with naked jelly wrestling as a lead news story, he would. Their own words damn them to hell.
The second reason is because this is all about politics. The National Party cheerleaders who are running TV3 now may as well make John Key an honorary board member on the editorial team. If you want National Party propaganda, you can just watch Seven Sharp or read the New Zealand Herald.
The third reason is THIS…
MediaWorks management viewed Campbell Live’s crusading journalism as a liability that stretched audience patience, company sources say.
The show’s ongoing coverage of Pike River, where 29 men died in a 2010 explosion at a West Coast coal mine, was specifically singled out by management as having led to viewer “fatigue”.
The term “fatigue” struck a sour note last night with Bernie Monk, spokesman for families of the dead mine workers.
“I can’t believe that would be one of the aspects of getting rid of John,” he said.
“Sure Campbell Live covered a lot of it but TV One did a hell of a lot too and they are still willing to do that.
“Campbell Live was a great ally in getting the truth out and I felt he was never over the top or on a crusade by any means.”
The review by management – which concluded on Thursday with host John Campbell leaving the network and the show facing replacement within the next six weeks – also considered Campbell Live over-emphasised charitable fundraising and coverage of the aftermath of the Christchurch earthquake, GCSB spying and child poverty.
…can you seriously believe this??? Too much time taken on the Pike River tragedy? Too much time taken on Child Poverty??? Too much time taken on mass surveillance??? Too much time taken on the Christchurch Earthquake???
Screw TV3 management! That’s all I have to say to them spitting in the faces of those impacted by the deaths of workers in a mine, the misery and suffering of the people of Christchurch, the entire NZ population now under mass surveillance from the state and every poor child going hungry and cold tonight. What cruel human beings would deny the attention those important issues demand from a serious media?
The fourth reason why you should stop watching TV3 the moment they kill off Campbell Live is strategic. The American Vulture Fund that has bought 100% of MediaWorks will slice up MediaWorks for sale. This is what vulture funds do. They take the most profitable part of a company (in this case the radio advertising arm of MediaWorks) and they chop it up and sell the parts that make little money. Boycotting TV3 now means that when they come to sell TV3 in 12 months time they won’t get a hell of a lot of money from it. Perhaps Opposition Parties could buy the channel back and we could get a public service network again.
The mainstream media still don’t seem to be aware that there there is an active boycott TV3 for what they did to Campbell Live campaign going on, so while they ignore the reason, let’s continue to vote with our remotes away from TV3 until the mainstream media are forced to acknowledge there is an active campaign to boycott TV3 and are then forced to confront the issue of removing Campbell Live.
Totally agree. But christ it’s so boring on TV without my dose of John Campbell every night. Well at least we’re reading more and watching more Netflix. Its a relief not to have to watch Paddy Gower though!
Ditto, Redhead. Come 7pm, our household becomes unnaturaturally quiet…It’s like we’re waiting for an old family friend to turn up for a regular dinner, and then realise he’s no longer coming around again…
Paul Henry , ( the classic legend in his own mind) is tanking faster than the Titanic.
Do these people never learn? I had the displeasure of seeing him on the breakfast show in Australia and it was toe curlingly embarrassing.
The female Co host took no crap from him unlike the faux fawners they surround him with here. At least the Australians know a smuck when they see one and not long after they fired him.
New Zealand continues to get dumber and dumber!
Martyn the following is part of another post on this site. Do we not run the risk of chopping off our noses despite our faces? . “A recent exposé by TV3’s ‘The Nation‘ revealed that Cameron Slater has allegedly been conspiring with IT consultant, Ben Rachinger, to hack left-wing blogsite, ‘The Standard‘ to steal personal information. – See more at: https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2015/06/07/the-curious-case-of-cameron-slater-the-hacker-and-the-unforgivable-crime-of-stupidity/#sthash.WxHvL6Es.dpuf
Not really, other media pick up the story and that’s how it gets amplified. We can rely on TV3’s in-house current affairs team to work desperately to try and pretend they are ‘balanced’ by producing a bunch of anti-right political pieces, so let them. Just don’t give them your eyeballs and continue to boycott them.
If the boycott lasts. they may have no other option other than to bring Campbell Live back!
Dan – ???
exactly, Macskasy.
Cummon – Campbell is not coming back, just like Clarkson will not be on BBC Top Gear. A bit of reality would not go astray here
Oh, I dunno, Dan… Consumer pressure has worked in the past. Remember Cadbury and the palm-oil fiasco?
Actually Frank, you are right on that one, Milo next maybe
Good point, Dan…
Yes and now Nestle have made the same dumb mistake with Milo.
Way too much hubris in the corporate world and not enough ‘horse sense’.
So much for the supposedly brilliantly efficient private sector.
Dumb and getting dumber as they slavishly adhere to their neoliberal , growth at any cost, mantra!
The wheels are now starting to fall off all over the show as we wind into the race to the bottom!
Actually BBC have already stated Clarkson could well return to top gear, do keep up
Really Kleatus? Show us where
No, didnt think so. Another contributor to the site who talks nonsense and dilutes all the good work done here.
The MSM may appear to be reporting at the speed of light at times, that is when it comes to social media chatter about Nestle having changed the oh so important Milo recipe, but when it comes to real news and issues, they can take years, and still walk past it, as if it never happened.
So it was with “dirty politics” the saga that was soon swept under the carpet, so it is with the WINZ new welfare approach, “relentlessly” pressuring not only sole parents into whatever work, but also sick, injured and disabled.
They either do not believe criticism, as it upsets their upper middle class focus on all just “being in order” under Grand Leader Kim John Key, or they simply cannot bother doing any investigative journalism, as it is easier to spread gossip news on Twitter and Instagram and so.
So with TV3, they (the chiefs especially) will comfortably dig their heads deep into the sand, until the picture looks so damned gloomy, they will retire quietly, by finding another job before the shareholders start screaming, what the f*** is going on.
I bet Campbell can take his pick soon, from various offers, by competitors, perhaps he may dare start his own production company, delivering services others cannot bother delivering, so they will have to go and buy it off him, as a media with no investigative or challenging journalism is like an Emperor with no clothes.
It’s incredibly obvious but if MediaWorks took the other tack and either went left of centre or horror of horrors in todays NZ, went straight down the middle and were plain objective they might actually do really well, because no one in the MSM is doing that at the moment. Think of all that advertising audience completely ignored by our broadcasters and media in general at the moment.
But no, they went all ZB, NZME on us.
IKR!!
Axing John Campbell after the public uproar and increase in viewers was a monumentally bad business decision. Pissing off your customers that much that blatantly is a monumentally bad business decision.
The CEO should be sacked for gross incompetence.
For many years I watched big, small and medium businesses make incomprehensible decisions that seemed to me to be just dumb. I was sure I had a better business sense than that. And now, after seven years of building my own very successful business I can prove I have plenty of business sense.
So if the decision makes no business sense, if it pisses off their customers that much that a big chunk of customers actively boycott the product…. why was the decision made? There must be another reason. That reason looks to be political.
Either that or the whole management and especially the CEO with whom that decision rests are idiots and shouldn’t be managing a business.
Or both?
terrestrial broadcasting is a sunset industry,i think Campbell live had value but broadcasting infrastructure and 90 percent of the programing has no value what so ever the value is distribution and control of content and that monopoly has been smashed so sell them while you still can, in this age we don’t need keytv or keynewspapes iam boycotting the lot
What I want to know is, where were these people on election day? I really believed that Labour was gonna win the election, because of eveything that was being said. But no, Labour lost big time. Now I can understand if people didn’t believe that they could do a better job. But then why complain about National afterwards? I can also understand that the voting might have been rigged. I thought so, right after Labour’s percentage wasn’t rising. But the chance was there none the less, so why didn’t they take it? This is from a concerned young Kiwi who will sadly have to jump ship to another country one day.
Dan – ??? what is it that you’re suggesting?. Is it that we all should watch a pile of crap because it’s the least worst pile of crap on offer,
and,
that maybe it 3’s ratings continue to freefall they’ll be out of bizz and we’ll then be left with nothing?
What exactly is your point (that’s a genuine question)?
What do you think would happen (btw) IF 3 were to go under……then shortly threafter, PRIME?
Personally I’ve no problem supporting the worthwhile (including a ‘The Nation WHEN it does something worthwhile), whilst totally ignoring everything else they do.
BTW ….. does anyone know how RNZ’s Morning Report is doing?
Were it not for the e-Spinner and Fergusson, it really should be doing OK should it not? (If I hear another sting though between the news and weather which promises MR will ‘wrap’ incisive news and current affairs ‘around me’, it’ll be Bob Jazeera to the lot of them
“we sell advertising around news. This is what this is all about.” If you want to really hurt TV3 boycott their income stream of advertisers and pressure them to pressure the stations.
As a patriotic New Zealander, I detest your digs at our Prime Minister. We have it great in NZ, why would you bad mouth him in this article? Live somewhere like Russia then tell me our PM deserves this. Completely detracts from the message you are trying to make.
First time on this site as an average kiwi joe. Think I’ll leave you to it while I engage in something more productive from my point of view. As you were.
Are you always so slavish to our elected representatives?
It’s called democracy KiwiProud.
A key component of a healthy democracy is free speech, which is specifically the freedom to be critical of those in power.
Not making “digs” at the PM and stating that no one else should because it’s somehow unpatriotic…. more reminiscent of a dictatorship which has a cult of personality often around it’s leader and does not tolerate criticism.
Maybe you’d be more at home in China or North Korea?
@ KiwiProud –
Ha ha, a comedian in our midst!
Is comedy your profession? Or are you a NatzKEY loving troll!
If you don’t like what’s posted on this site, then clear off and go to another blogsite. There are a couple I could name, but I don’t want to sully TDB by naming them.
Bye bye!
So boycotting tv3 and wathching tv1 is the solution? Seems odd considering tvnz is the state owned broadcaster who is controlled by…. You guessed it the state. Nevermind the hundreds of people who work at tv3 and who’s livelihoods are at stake.
That’s right Ivan, I’m afraid when a foreign owned media company who benefits from National Party corporate welfare decided to kill off Campbell Live they left us with no option other than to boycott, and don’t those numbers hurt? I think we just need to keep this going for a t least a month and MediaWorks will be very open to bringing back Campbell Live.
I’m boycotting the lot. Had no TV in my home for nearly 10 years now.
I’ll stop watching anything On Demand on TV3 as my participation in the boycott.
Plenty on Netflix and iTunes movies to keep me entertained.
So I’m wondering… if axing Campbell Live was clearly such a bad business decision… then why did they do it?
Here’s another possible reason. What if by complying with what the National Party and John Key want (and they wanted John Campbell off air) gives them some potential future favour?
Maybe some kind of promise like a refusal to introduce capital gains? Or some kind of tax cut or change to business taxation rules in their favour?
Seems a reasonable conclusion that this has something to do with political favours. After all, these people don’t make decisions that net them LESS money, only ever more.
I’m laughing at the Vulture Fund that bought Media Works, nobody has ever made any money out of TV3 ! and the business suits at Media Works who lost all their money with a leveraged buyout of TV3. Ha ha ha.
I think people forget they have the power to make a difference, especially in numbers. Its a consumer society, so hurt them by no longer consuming what THEY want you to consume.
JUST STOP.
Stop watching, listening, stop buying their junk/processed food, stuff, papers, etc etc.
Always sell, sell, selling at you.
Just ignore it and go back to the basics, if enough people do, then the wheels WILL truly fall off! The TV3 boycott is the perfect example of PEOPLE POWER in action.
What if the motive of removing Campbell Live was never profit driven, but was always in fact purely political? Was there possible financial compensation made to Mediaworks, to remove Campbell Live? Dirty Politics has demonstrated how far these people will go to maintain power at any cost and these are not, therefore, far-fetched questions. Corporations do not, as a rule, actively do something that will hurt them financially as their allegiance is to their shareholders. Mediaworks was well aware of Campbell Live’s high ratings. When Campbell Live was removed, it in effect left the National Party propaganda machine in place, through lack of television options. We don’t just need to boycott TV3, we need to boycott the whole, damn, slot.
Propaganda is useless, if nobody is watching!
You can fool all of the people some of the time and some of the people all of the time. The National Party just don’t seem to realise that every action they take leaves them with fewer fools to hoodwink.
Whatever the reason for axing Campbell Live, there will be a price to pay. In balance always creates an unforeseen debt. Nature will fill always fill a vacuum advantageously. May be Campbell himself needed to be released from the shackles of TV3. I don’t suppose it was a picnic. he might well be a better thorn elsewhere.
Sadly there is a real lack of investigative journalism in this country. Investigative journalism is the thrust of real democracy. Without it the path will lead to dictatorship. those in power need to be questioned and brought to task. They need to know that they are not beyond being held responsible. Most of all…they are employed by us to do there best for us and therefore to adhere to the best interests of the country. People maketh the kingdom. Not the dollar. Look after the people and the country will prosper and benefit all. When the wind blows we hold our coats tight for protection and bend shortsightedly. When the sun shines, we remove the coat, stand taller look around us and share our good fortune. Bad governments make us hold on to our coats tightly.
@ lindsay – I am holding my coat so tight it hurts…
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