Media
Not worth a mint?
by Staff Writers
The New Zealand Comedy Festival is scrambling to come up with the lolly to help fund this year’s event.
The butt of cruel jokes at this year’s New Zealand International Comedy Festival could well be candy. The fest has been hamstrung by the late withdrawal of principal sponsor Oddfellows, Nestlé’s oversized mint lollies. Nestlé marketing manager Peter Murray-Brown said the decision was made because “we don’t necessarily see the benefit and uplift over time”. (The Oddfellows-Comedy Festival partnership had won the supreme gong at the 2005 New Zealand Sponsorship Awards.) Festival director Hilary Coe says the timing of the withdrawal, less than six months from the May 4 launch, put her in an “awkward position”. The festival is now hoping for a white knight to come to the rescue: Eli Lilly, are you looking to build brand for Prozac?
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Reality television is good at bursting bubbles, and the latest incarnation has proved that life in magazines ain’t glamorous. New MTV show I’m from Rolling Stone (not on air here yet) takes six wannabe rock writers and gives them The Apprentice treatment with legendary founder and editor Jann Wenner playing Donald Trump. The contestants are aghast at having to prepare and transcribe their own interviews. Notions of Almost Famous-style debauchery for magazine-folk are truly dismissed once the hopefuls first visit the office and see nerdy editorial staff beavering away in neat cubicles. “Dude,” says one, “this looks like Enron or something.”
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Our highly restrictive suicide reporting “guidelines” came to the fore in early January after Burt Bacharach cancelled his New Zealand tour following the death of his daughter Nikki. The Ministry of Health forbids mentioning the method of death, and suggests avoiding using the word “suicide” in the headline. Nonetheless, Fairfax’s Stuff website ran a Reuters story headlined “Burt Bacharach’s Daughter Commits Suicide”. This piece included a mystifying line about the family spokesperson declining to specify the cause of death – yet all the gory details were widely available on international news websites. Another case of domestic law being made irrelevant in the face of the internet?
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Wanna be a TV mogul? If you’ve got an idea and a million bucks, Sky could give you a ticket for your own channel. At least that’s what Richard Driver, managing director of the Documentary Channel, reckons he spent on his offering. “Sky is definitely in the market for three or four more channels,” says Driver – although he’s coy on suggesting possibilities, as he may yet branch out himself. How about a “fat” channel, catering for our growing population by featuring endless reality weight-loss shows sandwiched between fast-food ads? That’s what we call synergy.
Email: media-columnist@listener.co.nz
