Three’s 7pm news show The Project will be axed
Three’s 7pm news and entertainment show The Project looks set to finish up at the end of the year, Warner Bros. Discovery ANZ have announced.
Hosted by Jesse Mulligan, Kanoa Lloyd and Jeremy Corbett, the show has held the 7pm spot on Three since 2017.
28 staff work for the show, and according to Mediawatch, the show will be off-air on Thursday night as staff digest the news.
“We have commenced consultation to discontinue The Project on Three from the end of the year – our primary focus is to support our people as we work through this process,” a spokesperson for Warner Brothers reportedly told Newshub.
I was never a fan of The Project.
We are a more stupid people with a weaker democracy because the 7pm Current Affairs slot has been so bastardised by both networks..
When TV3 killed Campbell Live, the rumour was a dumbed down jokey Ben and Jonno was going to replace it to target the advertising Shortland Street takes. The rumour was quashed because the backlash against real current affairs was so intense and TV3 produced a half way house with Story hosted by Heather du Plessis-Allen and Duncan Garner.
When the short-lived Story sank in the ratings low enough to resurrect the desire for a 7pm vehicle that could take Shortland Street advertising, Rove’s The Project was licensed as a proper way to do jokey current affairs.
The problem was that the Australian Project was hosted by rebels and smart funny hosts who had no problems ‘going there’ where as the NZ version had weak joke writers from 7 Days for a safe scripted banality that helped dumb down the 7pm timeslot to levels even worse than Seven Sharp.
Seven Sharp while dreadful as well, has trust fund baby Jeremy Wells to lean into the camera and knowingly arch his eye brow at the banality that is 7 Sharp while Hill’s giggles in the background, so while utter crap, this knowing wink routine always makes the dumb seem smarter.
The Project never had that luxury, it was dumber than Seven Sharp and could never transition to the serious stuff because it’s 7 Days writers for fucks sake and what the Christ do they know beyond feminist approved jokes by the NZ Comedy Guild?
Not a hell of a lot as it turns out.
Warner Bros is killing The Project off, not because they suddenly cares about public broadcasting, but because the licensing fees and royalties to Australia cost them a fortune.
The AM Show is currently smashing the ratings despite becoming a glee club for private schools, property investment and Farmer grievances because Breakfast on TVNZ is still mourning John Campbell leaving them.
It’s just so sad at TVNZ Breakfast. It’s like that relationship you lost and knew was your highest point ever and that everything else afterwards never compares.
That deep, deep sadness?
That’s what watching TVNZ Breakfast is like now. I don’t want to wake up to their sadness as well as my own each weekday FFS!
That’s why The AM Show is smashing the ratings right now, it’s either watch Ryan Bridges salivate over property tax loop holes for 3 hours or the sadness in Jenny and Matty’s eyes.
Ryan is going to win 4 out of 5 of those weekdays isn’t he?
Discovery will look at the success of The AM Show and ask why they were paying Australia for a product they can make themselves at a fraction of the price.
Taking Paddy Gower’s got issues across 5 nights would be smart for TV3 if they really want to challenge Seven Sharp and Shortland Street, or they could use Rebecca Wright from the dreary and poorly watched Newshub Nation and make something surprising at 7pm or hell, beg Paul Henry to come back.
Anything, literally anything would be better than The Project.
Thank God Harry Potter put The Project out of our misery
The Project achieved nothing and dumbed people down. Don’t fret about the hosts, I’m sure everyone will get a job as a panelist on 7 Days.
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Apparently there’s still people listen to the radio too!
If they replaced it with re-run’s of the Simpsons I might actually start watching TV3 again.
Better yet, the Nanny exactly like old times. After all, we can’t (always) have animation on weeknights.
Fuck Paddy Gower.
If Paddy Gower is the answer to anything then bring on the apocalypse.
You stole my lines.
And you stole my line.
New Zealand journalism and current affairs is dreadfully, dreadfully, fragmented.
And dreadfully, dreadfully, over-priced. You need so many subscriptions to keep up that it’s becoming unaffordable.
Shame. . . . ‘cos the country really does deserve better.
Right on Martyn . The false applause turned me off the project from the first day and Jeremy appears to me to be creepy uncle nobody wants so I can’t watch the other channel. As for Paddy his real issue is the fact that he actually believes people want him to foist his opinions on them. Damn the lot of them.
A great day for common sense the programme was terrible.
Seven Sharp next.
The Project is set to be replaced by Naked Celebrity Bake-off Survivors, a show in which the aforementioned gather in the quiet moments to moan about taxes, roading & celebrate Mr Neckred’s 100kg pumpkin grown in Hickstown, an uncivilised place far away from Auckland lacking a Warehouse or a MacDonalds but where the water’s 57% drinkable at least.
Enjoy.
Best be careful which ‘buns’ get put in the oven
Gerry Brownlee the first contestant.
Looks like pies will be on the menu
” 28 staff work for the show, and according to Media watch, the show will be off-air on Thursday night as staff digest the news ”
You have got to be feckin kidding ! These people really are so precious. I have seen work colleagues made redundant and they were expected to work out their notice in full to receive their compensation.
” We are a more stupid people with a weaker democracy because the 7pm Current Affairs slot has been so bastardised by both networks ”
The real sadness of course is not the end of this soap opera ( that I didn’t watch ) or media self endorsed celebrities losing temporarily their overpaid salary packages and kinda Kiwi fame its that the current caretaker government had three years with a majority to bring in its public broadcasting reforms which would have changed the current affairs landscape and brought us back to accountable real current affairs and there is no shortage of real human stories out here to cover and inform other New Zealanders of what is really happening.
What we have now is a form of censorship which really began post 2009 and when corporates fund your state broadcasters the last thing they , the donors , vested interests or the purple governments want is real truth reality and accountability.
The one shinning light is the internet if you really want to be informed or seek truthful reality and not just believe what the corporates want you to hear and more importantly think.
Now to love. Currently one of the big reports in the New Zealand media space is that Chippy found companionship during Labour’s rise and demise. This is a love story that belongs on a sinking ship like the Project, a tale of struggle, intimacy and ultimately tragedy (with more intimacy) so shallow and irrelevant in the current global situation that only a cringe 2 minute laugh track masquerading as journalism could do it justice. There is no war in Gaza, it is a systematic slaughter of innocent civilians by the Israel and American governments.
” 28 staff work for the show, and according to Media watch, the show will be off-air on Thursday night as staff digest the news ”
You have got to be feckin kidding ! These people really are so precious. I have seen work colleagues made redundant and they were expected to work out their notice in full to receive their compensation.
” We are a more stupid people with a weaker democracy because the 7pm Current Affairs slot has been so bastardised by both networks ”
The real sadness of course is not the end of this soap opera ( that I didn’t watch ) or media self endorsed celebrities losing temporarily their overpaid salary packages and kinda Kiwi fame its that the current caretaker government had three years with a majority to bring in its public broadcasting reforms which would have changed the current affairs landscape and brought us back to accountable real current affairs and there is no shortage of real human stories out here to cover and inform other New Zealanders of what is really happening.
One thing is certain the incoming cabal are going to reform and enforce their donors paid for policy but there will be no reform of the current media industry.
What we have now is a form of censorship which really began post 2009 and when corporates fund your state broadcasters the last thing they , the donors , vested interests or the purple governments want is real truth reality and accountability.
The one shinning light is the internet if you really want to be informed or seek truthful reality and not just believe what the corporates want you to hear and more importantly think.
In these times of polite fascism entire cultures can be overcome and assimilated into the rapacious guts of psychopaths with all the money and want MORE! who need a compliant MSM to deliver the goods, to them, fuck us.
Did anyone else hear a pro natzo hum coming up from rnz and/or the waxed arse and bleached perineum people over at TVNZ leading up to the fake tits and the spray on tan election? All luxon had to do was apply head polish then watch the midday Soap Opera people cue up to vote for [it]. Say market forces and they’ll think about their last hourly bought of constipation which they’ll blame on the Left which hasn’t existed since just after rogers 1984.
Farmers must bring Maori over who must bring Farmers over then everybody strikes together to drive the rats out of the woodpile. BTW That was a metaphor FYI.
But what about the kids!! How else are they gunna git their indoctrination for influencer news and politiks and shit! You know that nourishment for the feeble mallable widdle minds!?
From stuff maybe? Arrh nah. They’re about to go out of business.
The internet again? Probably because that’s the only bubble that they can find someone to agree with.
Who really gives a fuck. It wasn’t funny or news worthy. So what was it? A tv program kindergarten for the stupid?
A blank screen would have been more interesting than this lot…good riddance to them….I wonder if the TAB has odds on if the replacement programme will be more stupid than the Project ….the bar has been set so low it’s on the floor…Who actually paid for that nonsense…??
So well put, Martyn. The Project is/was just one of the many reasons why I barely watch any TV at all.
NZ TV and Radio is a woke joke.
Agree with all the comments
It was an appalling programme as is 7sharp. Honestly the cost presumably includes on both of them the clothing they wear and their hairstyles, why do they do that to Hilary barry, she has straight hair you morons absolutely stupid!!!!!
Paddy Gower do you remember his drinking programme, pretty pathetic compared with Guyon Espiner’s proper in-depth look at booze and then drugs. of course booze is our No. 1 Drug and should be treated as such.
The whole lot can go to hell, they never have anything on I want to watch… well maybe tonight’s drama with Robyn Malcom. Oh yes that other show a Kiwi invented ‘The Repair Shop’.
But all that endless survivor crap, food shows, gay men being dickheads showing off property
The news on both channels is appalling, so bloody light weight more about sport than real news. You idiots thousands marched on the streets yesterday – probably 20,000 and where was that why don’t we have a real discussion about why Kiwis are marching.. why don’t we look at the history of palestine, why was it given to another group of people and the Palestinians pushed out, oh no far to difficult for us to understand with our tiny brains.
When are we going to have a proper debate / discussion about our INDEPENDENT foreign policy? Or are all these politicians just going to say yes yes yes forever.
Thank God! Project is the most banal and lowest common denominator programme along with 7Sharp. Seriously dumb TV. No loss whatsoever. You can just see the Woke Wellington Charter oozing out of every second in both of them.
Bring back serial offender Paul Henry – he doesn’t give a fuck and make great tv.
I see the reference ‘7pm Current Affairs slot.’ Is there an immutable truth that there has to be a 7pm Current Affairs slot?
I realise serious issues of the day should be looked at, must have attention given to them. Do people have the appetite though for traditional time slots with serious issues stacked for attention? I do get that everyone demands a say, to be involved and be informed but they sure as shit don’t want to invest a half or full hour having their brains exercised.
Okay real current affairs and a deep look into one subject…for half an hour with adverts. yeah nah too difficult
https://bankslist.ru/
” There is no war in Gaza, it is a systematic slaughter of innocent civilians by the Israel and American governments ”
It makes me ashamed to call myself a New Zealander when we don’t even have uncensored coverage.
And Palestinians here can’t rely on our pro Israeli reporting and coverage to get any balanced news about their homeland 16,000 KMS away and even less now Israel has stopped the internet coverage in GAZA.
Independent foreign policy means following the U.S and five eyes censorship that sadly will be strengthened and re enforced as it was in 2009-17 with the shyster Warner’s deal that removed our sovereignty to make laws that favoured overseas corporations willing to use blackmail and the gutless capitulation of the last six years.
You said it better than me. The 7 o’clock show since Paul whatisname has either been
Right or about pussycats shitting on neighbours’ porches. No Left Turn allowed.
I make a point of not remembering the names of right-wingers and useful idiots for that cause.
Can someone please give Vlad the precise coordinates of the Panel on RNZ for a Kinzhal visit.
Oh, I see where all this change and upheaval is coming from. Globally. Blackrock has dumped ESG. Forcing corporates and organisations to adopt ESG because wokeness is bad for their brand(s). About fuckn time!
Boards across the globe won’t have to adopt woke ideas and make their policy to appease the alphabet folks, climate activists, and greenwashers anymore!
It’s bad for business Larry Fink says after he was the prick that introduced this scam as a measurement for board executive ratings. Thank fuck for that.
Seven Sharp in its current form is the kind of show that should be on at 9am weekdays and The Project would be more suited to late night TV audience.
At least Project had a studio auidence and some decent guests now and again. Humour was good.
A better show than seven sharp.
If only we had the talent to replicate The Bolt Report on Sky News Australia.
Bring back Campbell Live!
May be get that guy that did the current affairs on Max TV.
If they’re smart they would poach and make Moana Whāea Of The Nation.