MEDIAWATCH: AM Show vs TVNZ Breakfast post John Campbell
It’s been pretty depressing over at TVNZ Breakfast since John left.
If you like to start your day in a grieving, mournful kinda way, then it’s the TV for you.
Jenny-May looks like she weeps before the show starts each morning, Matty still has that ‘where’s Dad’ stunned look on his face and Indira is not very endearing, she still looks like the entire show is beneath her and seems confused why she wasn’t appointed host after having put up with a white male for so long.
John was such a spectacular broadcaster that he lifted everyone and his leaving has left such an enormous hole in the show it feels like the wreck of the Titanic.
A ghostly, rudderless State funded behemoth that is as cold as it is unfeeling, just like Seven Sharp but not as smug.
Over at the AM, it’s a slightly different problem.
I think Ryan Bridge is a uniquely talented Broadcaster who has that super power of listening to an answer and responding in real time to that answer. He is one of the very few Broadcasters in NZ where I actually learn something new during his interviews and he makes the AM show a must watch.
Unfortunately the AM is now chasing a female audience so Ryan has to share interview duties with Melissa Chan-Green, now while that is disappointing from a journalistic point of view, I’ve really warmed to Melissa as a interviewer because some mornings you don’t want to be reasonable and you just want to have a fight.
And Melissa is just spectacular at that.
Talking over guests, angrily demanding answers to questions that you already know the answer to, the passive aggressiveness of it all, it’s just a hot mess of anger and I LOVE IT!
While you will NEVER learn ANYTHING from a Melissa Chan-Green interview, the argument and fight is glorious.
Bernadine Oliver-Kerby has some interesting points to make as well while dear William Wairua looks as lost and lonely as Matty does.
So the AM Show actually has a lot going for it, right up until they start doing that fucking banter. Individually, and when they are on task, the AM Show is smart and fun, when they start bantering however, it’s a voyage into tedious mediocrity.
At least once a show as I zone in and out of their twaddle, I ask myself, ‘why the bloody hell am I listening to this shit’ and reach for the remote to flick back to the 7 days of State mourning over at TVNZ and remember, ‘oh that’s right, it’s marginally better than this lonely sadness’.
I’m no TV guru, but you shouldn’t be asking ‘why the bloody hell am I listening to this shit’ more than once a month.
Breakfast’s new host, Kamahl Santamaria, joins this week and he will try to cheer up TVNZ but it will feel like a sitcom that has suddenly had its lead die unexpectedly.
Meanwhile The Working Group is now the number 1 weekly political podcast in NZ!
What’s Tova doing over at Today FM?
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Try not turning the goon box on, it’s much easier on your blood pressure.
Breakfast show on TVone is another Maori Channel isn’t it. ? Two presenters would be ample. Why four?
Wahoo you even put your name to that shit! Comment
‘The current show teams are all better than the grumpy old raving right wing tory men (and woman) who are slowly being lost thru moderisation – do you remember Banks, Plunket, Garner, Williams, and Bruce Russell (with respect to his excellent Saturday night show “In my day”). The new morning show’s host Kamahl” is a professional like Melissa so he will bring some credibility to the show. Campbell was too big for the morning show and wish him well with new career.
I haven’t bothered to get a tv since coming back in 2020.. Watched my sisters tv for about 2 weeks, and then realised that I was better informed when I didn’t watch it.. NZ tv is actually several levels below Australian TV, and that is a damning assessment, as Ozzy tv is crap as a rule, but you can still find something amusing to watch.. It’s just wall to wall dross and political drivel that we should have grown out of by the time we got to high school..
On Tuesday the am show and all right wing media (Tory talk ZB, Tory times herald, tv1 & 3, MSM,) were hi-jacked by the dirty politics brigade with regards the MIQ issue. I understand Bridge who is incompetent and dumb being caught up but I’m surprised Melissa was unprofessional in following the NATZ dirty politics and Luxon line that MIQ should be opened in December. Graham Lowe exposed them both when he responded that there must be more to the report than what we have heard. Later on Melissa confessed that the report recommended that a process be put in place and that MIQ be opened up in the new year. This is what happened. The am show then went further when they brought Bellis in to talk about MIQ and then went to their correspondent in Singapore to talk about Jacinda’s successful visit but instead talked about MIQ. Obviously the Dirty Politics team also instructed the right wingers not to report favourably on Jacinda’s visit. The winner here was Jacinda and Labour. The losers were Dirty Politics, right wing media, am show.
Relentlessly knocking our PM and her delegation is nothing less than treason. The NZ media should be ashamed of the way they are reporting on our trade delegation, not only to NZ but to foreign news outlets all around the world. I am disgusted with almost all of the so-called news here and stopped watching the Natz paid-for propaganda. Dirty politics is alive and on the rise leading up to next years election.
Relentlessly knocking our PM and her delegation is nothing less than treason. The NZ media should be ashamed of the way they are reporting on our trade delegation, not only to NZ but to foreign news outlets all around the world. I am disgusted with almost all of the so-called news here and stopped watching the Natz paid-for propaganda. Dirty politics is alive and on the rise leading up to next years election.
Ryan Bridge is a muppet, he doesn’t allow the people he interviews to answer without interruption. He is also clearly right wing, a man (loosely) in the same mold as Hosking!
Agree, the weather guy on TV3 is a complete waste of wage, I’m not sure if the ‘dumb’ is real or put on but it really needs to end
Well our whanau loves William Wairua & that’s why we watch the AM show!. He is the man! He should be given a raise! Melissa is a pro! So Kool calm & collected! One for the whanau I say!!!!
good article. mirrors my exact same thoughts and feelings.
Thanks everyone I thought
I was Pat Malone.
William wairua, great roving journalist lol does 1 need to do journalism to get on the TV?
I enjoy Wiremu especially his reporting from all over Aotearoa and meeting the locals. Better than listening to Bridge’s Natz party political broadcasts and his interviews with his friend Chris. Ryan looks a nerd and real boring conservative tory with his haircut – the best thing Ryan can do is reinstate his man bun.
‘The current show teams are all better than the grumpy old raving right wing tory men (and woman) who are slowly being lost thru moderisation – do you remember Banks, Plunket, Garner, Williams, and Bruce Russell (with respect to his excellent Saturday night show “In my day”). The new morning show’s host Kamahl” is a professional like Melissa so he will bring some credibility to the show. Campbell was too big for the morning show and wish him well with new career.