Saluting Judy
Given the dramatic reshufflings that have taken place at TVNZ over the last two years or so since Bill Ralston took up the position of Head of News and Current Affairs at the network, anyone paying the media any attention would have known that, sooner or later, the gloriously ubiquitous newsreader Judy Bailey was going to get the axe. As such, today's announcement that this has finally happened -- with her contract coming to an end around the New Year -- comes as a relatively small surprise, although the fact that it was to be expected certainly doesn't detract from the sadness of it all. Judy is of course New Zealand's most significant veteran newsreader, having fronted One News excellently for the past eighteen years and with great esteem been dubbed "the Mother of the Nation" by many a commentator and viewer.
What to me is perhaps one of the most disheartening aspects of today's happenstance is that, according to TVNZ CEO Ian Fraser's comments to various media outlets, the reason for Judy's axing is essentially a continuing move by the state-owned enterprise to assert a more youthful and spritely image for itself, in light of the ratings gap between TVOne and TV3 growing hardly-significantly smaller. It was said that TVOne's monopoly is slipping, particularly in the Auckland market, and that the action of not renewing Judy's contract is merely for the sake of attempting to catch the ratings slip before it can get any worse. Fraser emphasised that he understands the notion that ratings do not matter to the viewers, but also that good ratings are crucially important to the company itself.
This all gives one the general impression that TVNZ indeed do care a great deal more about their network maintaining ratings supremacy than they do about providing viewers with familiarity and satisfaction. I don't think they have chosen to fathom the sort of response that Judy's departure will yield from many viewers, and this could prove to be a mistake. If anything, this is a naïve gamble that the company are rushing into in the hope of saving themselves from economic averageness by appealing to a younger market using a younger newsreader -- as if dear Judy was showing her age anyway. There is always the prospect that this kneejerk action could in fact prove to have more detrimental effects on the ratings than keeping the apparently-old newsreader would have done, in which case I could imagine the executives in the top ranks of TVNZ sitting around the table scratching their heads and wondering what the heck hit them.
Dare I say it, another significant factor that could well have contributed to Judy being ousted is the sort of yearly salary that she was being entitled to. The price of holding onto who is inarguably New Zealand's best newsreader of our time, particularly after the departure of Richard Long last year, was obviously not a small one; perhaps one that TVNZ management found uneconomical. Personally I did not think much of the salary scandal at the time, and not much has changed now except for my realisation that the network must have been extremely keen indeed to hold onto her. The monetary value that was placed on her by the TVNZ bureaucracy was, and still is in my mind, a testament to how fantastic and skilled an expert Judy is in her field. Even more complimentary is that she has both received and retained the title of "Mother of the Nation" for a significant length of time -- solid evidence of the sort of respect that is held for her in the eyes in the public. In retrospect now, I can't help but see the sheer twisted irony in the fact that TVNZ placed so much value on her last year, spurning a massive media frenzy that Judy herself asserts was humiliating for her -- and apparently all for nothing, now that they have chosen to consign Judy Bailey, the greatest newsreader of our time, to New Zealand television history.
What to me is perhaps one of the most disheartening aspects of today's happenstance is that, according to TVNZ CEO Ian Fraser's comments to various media outlets, the reason for Judy's axing is essentially a continuing move by the state-owned enterprise to assert a more youthful and spritely image for itself, in light of the ratings gap between TVOne and TV3 growing hardly-significantly smaller. It was said that TVOne's monopoly is slipping, particularly in the Auckland market, and that the action of not renewing Judy's contract is merely for the sake of attempting to catch the ratings slip before it can get any worse. Fraser emphasised that he understands the notion that ratings do not matter to the viewers, but also that good ratings are crucially important to the company itself.
This all gives one the general impression that TVNZ indeed do care a great deal more about their network maintaining ratings supremacy than they do about providing viewers with familiarity and satisfaction. I don't think they have chosen to fathom the sort of response that Judy's departure will yield from many viewers, and this could prove to be a mistake. If anything, this is a naïve gamble that the company are rushing into in the hope of saving themselves from economic averageness by appealing to a younger market using a younger newsreader -- as if dear Judy was showing her age anyway. There is always the prospect that this kneejerk action could in fact prove to have more detrimental effects on the ratings than keeping the apparently-old newsreader would have done, in which case I could imagine the executives in the top ranks of TVNZ sitting around the table scratching their heads and wondering what the heck hit them.
Dare I say it, another significant factor that could well have contributed to Judy being ousted is the sort of yearly salary that she was being entitled to. The price of holding onto who is inarguably New Zealand's best newsreader of our time, particularly after the departure of Richard Long last year, was obviously not a small one; perhaps one that TVNZ management found uneconomical. Personally I did not think much of the salary scandal at the time, and not much has changed now except for my realisation that the network must have been extremely keen indeed to hold onto her. The monetary value that was placed on her by the TVNZ bureaucracy was, and still is in my mind, a testament to how fantastic and skilled an expert Judy is in her field. Even more complimentary is that she has both received and retained the title of "Mother of the Nation" for a significant length of time -- solid evidence of the sort of respect that is held for her in the eyes in the public. In retrospect now, I can't help but see the sheer twisted irony in the fact that TVNZ placed so much value on her last year, spurning a massive media frenzy that Judy herself asserts was humiliating for her -- and apparently all for nothing, now that they have chosen to consign Judy Bailey, the greatest newsreader of our time, to New Zealand television history.
posted by Gary at 9:04 pm
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