Mike's Minute: Questions around the TV3/Stuff deal

The Mike Hosking Breakfast

You can ask a lot of questions about the TV3 deal with Stuff.

Do Stuff know how to make television? How many people will they actually hire as opposed to re-purposing the staff they already have? Does the programme draw an audience? Will it look anything like what we are used to?

Most importantly, does it solve a problem for TV, the media, and Warner Bros. Discovery?

To a degree, none of that matters to us. We are viewers and if what they produce is worth watching, we will. If it isn't, we won't.

It's important to remember, for all the noise the media has created about itself these past few weeks, TV3 news was never really been that successful, hence it cost more than it was worth.

Will it now cost less and therefore be worth about what it costs?

What Warner Bros. Discovery have done is what we do with lawns; we get someone else to do it.

Small problem is if Jim's aren't up to much, we go get someone else.

The media market is a bit tapped out in terms of suppliers, so you want to hope Stuff have the wherewithal to deliver.

It's also worth remembering that what has been announced isn't new, or indeed revolutionary. This company sells news services to other operators and has done for years. Newshub makes the news bulletin for Sky TV each night at 5.30pm. It's simply the buying and selling of content.

Depending on what you angsted over most depends a bit on whether this is a good deal. If all you wanted was a couple of 6 o'clock news shows on the TV, then that problem seems addressed.

If you were worried about 300 people losing their job, that news might not be as good.

What makes a deal like this work is synergies; people already doing related stuff, doing more of the same, except different. You write a story, it might end up online, it might end up on radio, it might end up on TV. This isn't new either.

So, what we seem to have got is a shuffling of the chairs, except not as many chairs.

It's better than what might have been but not better than what it was.

It’s a cheaper version, it's scaled down, its different and it’s the new normal in an ever-changing landscape. As I said weeks ago at the start of all this, media has evolved as long as I have been in it. This is just another day and another iteration.

But, as always, we wish the players well.

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