The Fold
Conversations about the intersections of media, culture and technology in New Zealand, hosted by Duncan Greive, founder of The Spinoff.
Episodes
Australia continues to lead the world in responding to big tech. How about us?
BusinessDesk’s Peter Griffin joins Duncan Greive on The Fold to discuss the big storylines at the intersection of technology and media. These include the latest iteration of the news media bargaining code, the under 16 social media ban, the growing wave of opposition to data centres – all of which feature New Zealand lagging, often badly. Plus what’s really going on with the story of OpenAI’s mode
Where are the Audiences? For the first time in two years, we have the answer
Regular Fold listeners know that the release of NZ on Air’s ‘Where are the Audiences?’ media research is the biggest day of the media year. Duncan Greive is joined by PHD’s chief planning and strategy officer, James Davidson, to pick their 10 favourite insights from this year’s extremely interesting edition.
This episode is presented in partnership with PHD Aotearoa.
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Christopher Luxon’s communication problem
Follow At Large with Toby Manhire now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.
The prime minister got a shock when he saw the media coverage of his breakfast meeting with Rotorua businesspeople – it talked of him scolding them about a “parent-child mentality” in government-business relations, urging “adult” behaviour and recounting his own a
Was I wrong about the NZ Herald’s strategy? (I was)
Glen Kyne returns to The Fold for the first time since May to check in with the two goliaths of New Zealand’s commercial digital news media: Stuff and the NZ Herald. The Herald has launched a new app and more tightly integrated video into its offer; Stuff is trying hyper local and reaping the early benefits of its bold appointment of Matthew Hooton as editor of The Post.
Noteworthy: Duncan is fo
How TVNZ won the Fifa World Cup
Melodie Robinson is TVNZ’s head of sports and events, and joins Duncan Greive on The Fold to discuss the truly astounding performance of the recently concluded Fifa World Cup on streaming. The pair discuss the tournament pass, what the new TVNZ+ unlocks from a data and advertising point of view, and what rugby can learn from Fifa and the NRL. They also chat about Robinson’s huge new role at Amazon
How’s that under-16 social media ban going for you, Australia?
As Christopher Luxon declares he’ll “die trying” to get something done in banning social media for New Zealand children under 16, it’s a good time to ask: how is the pioneering Australian prohibition going? Hal Crawford, editorial director at Mumbrella and former boss of Newshub NZ, joins Toby to explain, seven months in, what is working, what isn’t, and what he’d say to the NZ PM if he was called
The screen sector has drawn its election wish list. Is any party buying?
Irene Gardiner is president of SPADA, the organisation which represents screen producers in Aotearoa. She joins Duncan Greive on The Fold to discuss Election 2026 and Beyond: Screen Industry Challenges and Solutions, a document which seeks to donate policy ideas to government, to comfort a sector suffering through multifaceted challenges. She talks through the plan, and the politics of it all
At Large with Toby Manhire: View from media-politics junction, with Mike Munro
From the press gallery to spin doctor for Helen Clark and chief of staff to Jacinda Ardern, Mike Munro has seen plenty of the kaleidoscope in New Zealand politics and media. He joins Toby to talk about those roles and how it all has changed through the decades.
Plus: In How Good, Liam Rātana on Matariki with a bonus beat from Te Aihe on Bryn & Ku’s Singles Club, season two.
At Large with Toby Ma
How FQ kept its print roots while remaking itself for the social era
Sarah Murray was a longtime staffer at FQ under different owners, before making a bold move to buy the publication outright in 2023. She joins Duncan Greive on The Fold to talk about the publication’s history and its transformation under her stewardship, including its insider club, its awards night and the rise of its ‘sleepover’ activations, which builds a bridge to the creator economy.
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Emergency Pod: Hooton to The Post!
Toby Manhire joins Duncan Greive for an emergency episode to discuss the genuine shock appointment of columnist and political operator Matthew Hooton to editor-in-chief of The Post. We discuss his history, what his columns tell us about him, the potential fallout with staff and audiences, and whether his lack of newsroom experience is surmountable.
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HBO Max is (finally) here. What does that mean for HBO, and for Sky?
Jason Monteiro is head of streaming for WBD across APAC, and joins Glen Kyne and Duncan Greive on The Fold to discuss the late arrival of one of the biggest streaming platforms in the world to a small and seemingly saturated market. Monteiro makes the case that this is not just some of Sky’s Neon in new clothes, but in fact a powerful and singular platform in its own right.
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The NBR’s co-editors make the case for the Rich List, 40 years after it was born
Hamish McNicol and Calida Stuart-Menteath co-edit the National Business Review, New Zealand's business publication of record. For a publication which could appear very conservative, it has been anything but across both its editorial output and its business strategy. McNicol and Stuart-Menteath join Duncan Greive on The Fold to discuss their flagship editorial project, the Rich List, and the impact
The creator economy goes mainstream
Duncan Greive is joined by James Davidson, Chief Strategy & Planning Officer, PHD Aotearoa; Lisa Leicester – Head of Social & Innovation, Omnicom Media; and Mike Delaney – Group Product Director, Omnicom Media, all in partnership with PHD Aotearoa.In the age of influencer marketing, the strict planning and measurement tools long honed by the media industry and expected by brands were effectively
The end of the Paul Thompson era at RNZ, Re: News, and what’s in the (media) budget
Glen Kyne returns to The Fold to analyse the resignation of Paul Thompson after 13 years running RNZ, look back on the Re: News era and touch on last week’s (not Voyager) Media Awards. We also provide quick reactions to Budget 2026 and what it presents for the media sector.
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Emergency pod: Toby Manhire interviews Duncan Greive about his shiny new project Lume
Sharp-eyed and longtime Spinoff readers might have noticed that The Fold host Duncan Greive has been staggeringly unproductive as a writer lately. For once, there is a good explanation for that: a new and quite ambitious new music app and platform named Lume. To manage the colossal conflict of interest that entails, The Spinoff’s editor-at-large Toby Manhire guest hosts The Fold to ask Duncan all
Unhappy endings for Maiki Sherman and the BSA, and Seymour’s war with RNZ
Media is a fraught place at the moment, less due to persistent economic challenges than external forces acting upon it. Glen Kyne returns to The Fold to discuss the end of Maiki Sherman’s time as political editor at TVNZ, the shutdown of the BSA and David Seymour’s pointed provocations of RNZ. Finally, they talk about the travails of rugby in Auckland, after a weekend that showed the strength of t
What we got wrong about the Tom Phillips and Polkinghorne documentaries
Philippa Rennie has had a near unique view of real life TV storytelling in New Zealand. She worked as the in-house lawyer for Warner Brother Productions for a decade, before moving across to make television as head of scripted there. She joins the Fold to speak with admirable candour about what went wrong on shows like Married at First Sight, why Julie Christie probably isn’t the right person to m
Emergency monopod: The end of the BSA
Duncan Greive flies solo to break down and respond to the shock decision to shut down the BSA. He gives reaction from the key players, talks about where it might head next and pays tribute to the courage of the BSA in opening a door when this was always a likely outcome. Then he gives a view of the Maiki Sherman affair, before closing on a quick take on the first month of John Campbell's Morning R
Dentsu’s Rob Harvey on why bigger can be better in the AI age
Rob Harvey is CEO of Dentsu across Australia and New Zealand – it’s one of the biggest ad agencies in the world, and Rob is notable for the length of time he’s spent leading it locally. In an industry notable for executives burning bright then shifting up, down and sideways, Harvey has been a deeply committed constant. He’s led the Aotearoa business since 2013 – before Netflix landed here – and la
Why are indie agencies thriving in a semi-broken advertising economy?
Sam Stuchbury is the executive creative director and founder of Motion Sickness, and Lee Lowndes is the chief executive and founder of Daylight. Each of them run independent creative agencies, each is under 40, each took home golds at the recent Axis Awards, and - most importantly - each has a very differentiated conception of what an agency is in 2026. They have each found a way to thrive in an e
The five biggest stories in NZ media right now
Glen Kyne returns to The Fold to catch up on all the biggest stories in recent times. We look at the existential challenge the BSA opened up, and try and figure out what’s really going on with Troy Bowker and Stuff. Then we look at the recent NZME workplace review, and contrast it with a much more substantial effort from Mediaworks a few years ago. We assess the early returns from Tova O’Brien’s a
Exclusive: How Mike Minogue partnered with TVNZ+ on podcasting
He’s very familiar as the star of Wellington Paranormal, and a radio host with Hauraki – but Mike Minogue’s greatest achievement might be Frank, his burgeoning agency. Frustrated with the quality of talent representation in Aotearoa, Minogue started Frank to bring a different approach to the established players. But he added speaker representation and, crucially, podcast representation to Frank’s
The story of the 21st century is all about the end of trust
Richard Edelman was deeply prescient, when he responded to the “battle for Seattle” by commissioning an annual global survey of institutional trust. For a quarter century the trust barometer has revealed the extent to which countries and societies have grown insular and mistrustful, and catalogued the downstream consequences. basically, it’s not just media, it’s everyone.New Zealand is no differen
The BSA chooses to face its existential dilemma head on
After six months of careful deliberation, and six years after it first floated the idea, the broadcasting standards authority decided that it definitively does have jurisdiction over platforms like The Platform. This set off a firestorm stretching across politics, law and media, with the regulator having the temerity to suggest that one, relatively tiny corner of the internet was within its bounds
First t-shirts, then podcasts, now the world: the story of YOUKNOW
Joe Webb was working as a coder when he printed a t-shirt at a mate’s house. Within a few years YOUKNOW had become a ubiquitous brand, thanks to their knack for creating social content which created a real sense of community. Then in 2023 he repeated the trick in a whole new paradigm, launching The Morning Shift as a daily podcast to overnight success. He joins Duncan Greive on The Fold to talk ab
The Spotify paradox: why hundreds of fans can beat millions of streams
Joel Gouveia is a music supervisor, artist manager and booking agent, with a Substack. Earlier this year he wrote a series of posts, each more successful than the last, which drilled into the streaming music economy in a vivid and challenging way. He talked about bands with millions of streams that sold a dozen tickets, while others with comparatively tiny audiences could sell out tours. He looked
This journalist says we’re thinking about AI all wrong
Alan Soon is a journalist and media consultant who runs Splice Beta, one of Asia’s most popular news media festivals. He recently wrote an extremely provocative piece arguing that journalism as an institution has been ignoring and underplaying advances in AI. He joins Duncan Greive on The Fold from Singapore to unpack this thesis.
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Listener mailbag! We answer your media questions
The Fold’s regular hosts go through the audience’s best questions, running from media buying to the government as an advertiser to the future of Sky to whether Three should have been born at all.
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A deep dive into Sky’s huge week, plus NZME’s editorial changes
Last call for our first ever listener questions episode – fill out this form to pose a question of hosts Duncan Greive and Glen Kyne.
Glen Kyne joins Duncan Greive to discuss a major week for Sky, which staged the first upfronts from any New Zealand broadcaster since 2023, and delivered its first set of results since its acquisition of Three.
After attending the upfronts, Glen and Duncan share
The long strange trip of MediaWorks
The Fold's first ever listener questions episode is coming – fill out this form to pose a question of hosts Duncan Greive and Glen Kyne.
A different episode of The Fold this week, leaning on Glen Kyne's deep experience with MediaWorks to tell the story of this perennial underdog of the big media companies – one which has always had great, authentic brands and even greater debt loads. Now that it'
Social media’s “big tobacco moment”, and the growing big tech backlash
The Fold's first ever listener questions episode is coming – fill out this form to pose a question of hosts Duncan Greive and Glen Kyne.
Anna Rawhiti-Connell joins Duncan Greive on The Fold to discuss three huge stories impacting the social media and platform world. First is a landmark trial which contends social platforms are faulty products which visit huge harms upon their users – both Snap
The Warehouse's big, brave ad bet + Mediaworks' future and more
The Fold's first ever listener question's episode is coming – fill out this form to pose a question of hosts Duncan Greive and Glen Kyne.
This week, Glen joins Duncan to discuss a flood of major media stories, led by breaking news: The Warehouse Group's shock decision to pause all advertising. Then they discuss the future of Mediaworks after its split from QMS, the end of a dismal era for the Was
Many musicians hate Spotify. Eddie Johnston has no time for all that
Eddie Johnston is first and foremost a huge music fan – he grew up loving New Zealand artists like The Mint Chicks and the Phoenix Foundation, and understood music in the paradigm of CDs and scenes. For many artists, even young musicians, those were the archetypal good old days, before social and streaming broke the model. But Johnston, who performs under the name Lontalius, has a clear-eyed and u
On Davos, the end of of the rules based order, and where this is all headed
A quite different episode this week, because discussing media without reference to the wider world feels particularly pointless at the moment. Duncan Greive hosts his friend David Brain on The Fold, to discuss Davos, the gathering of political, business and media elites, all in the shadow of Trump. Brain is a longtime attendee of Davos, and breaks down what it’s like on the ground, its noble inten
Seven questions which will define 2026 in NZ media
Glen Kyne joins Duncan Greive on The Fold to discuss the biggest questions facing New Zealand's media in 2026. How will the John Campbell signing impact RNZ? Can NZ Rugby arrest its slide into chaos or has Sky got a big problem with its biggest partner? Will TVNZ follow Netflix into podcasts or UGC? Is Jim Grenon done with NZME? Will the Warner Brothers acquisition go through, and how will that ch
Summer Reissue: Charlie Kirk and Tom Phillips show boundary collapse between the internet and real life
The Fold is taking a break over summer. We’ll be back soon with new episodes but, until then, here’s one of our favourites from 2025:
Anna Rawhiti-Connell joins Duncan Greive on The Fold to discuss two violent deaths, one driven by the internet, the other digested by it. They discuss how each shows in different yet profound ways how treating the internet as a separate sphere of life is increasing
Summer Reissue: Sky CEO Sophie Moloney on the NZ rugby and Three deals and the depth of its moat
The Fold is taking a break over summer. We’ll be back soon with new episodes but, until then, here’s one of our favourites from 2025:
Sophie Moloney has been CEO of Sky NZ for five years. For much of that time she’s been dealing with downsides – a failed acquisition of MediaWorks, Spark Sports gifting their rights to TVNZ and prolonged satellite issues. But lately, things have been looking up. Th
Summer Reissue: How Auckland FC aced (almost) everything – including its media strategy
The Fold is taking a break over summer. We’ll be back soon with new episodes but, until then, here’s one of our favourites from 2025:
Nick Becker is an Aucklander who spent 15 years in the UK, much of it in key roles with huge EPL teams Arsenal and Manchester City, before a spell in Melbourne. He returned home to launch the city’s first professional football team in more than a decade – one which
2025 in review: The top five global media giants' years, ranked from worst to best
Glen Kyne and Duncan Greive complete the second part of The Fold’s 2025 finale, this time picking and ranking the five best performing global media players. The podcast was recorded in the immediate aftermath of the Netflix-WBD news, which scrambled rankings and will be a huge storyline for months, perhaps years, to come.
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2025 in review: NZ’s major media companies’ years, ranked from worst to best
Glen Kyne joins Duncan Greive for a two-part finale, ranking the performances of New Zealand’s scale media companies. They take on MediaWorks, NZME, RNZ, Sky, Stuff and TVNZ, based on public facing metrics, conversations and general vibe-based diagnosis. There’s a clear winner, but wide disagreement on the losers. PLUS an instant reaction to the Netflix-WBD deal.
RNZ’s Paul Thompson on that bom
The Australian big tech revolution rolls on
2025 has been a year of profound change in the regulatory landscape for Australian media. There is a social media ban for under 16s, which goes live next week. There are new local content spending rules for the big paid streaming platforms. And there is a revised version of the news bargaining code which aims squarely at Meta. Tim Burrowes has covered all this at Mumbrella, and rejoins The Fold to
The deals that defined the year in local media – plus predictions for 2026
Last week we kicked off a new partnership with New Zealand's leading media agency, PHD, which will partner with The Spinoff and The Fold on a series of podcasts on the increasingly complex intersection of media, advertising and technology. We held a live event at The Spinoff in front of a room full of senior marketers, featuring Helen Brown (PHD Chief Investment Officer) and Rachel Bayfield (PHD C
Monopod: some stray takes on the 2025 NZ Screen Awards
Duncan Greive goes solo to deliver a quick response to the NZ Screen Awards, which fused film with television in a way which showed a lot of promise while also needing some serious tightening. There were big wins for The Convert, and a big beautiful crowd, but Tinā felt neglected and the randomised nature of the awards meant that energy came and went. The highlights more than justified the exercis
An explosive media week: scandals at the BBC and Meta – and Australia takes on big tech (again)
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The story of a long, strange decade in media + has the BSA fixed trust in news?
2025 sees the release of the latest in The Fold’s obsession: NZ on Air’s Where Are the Audiences research. This time the focus is on children’s media – the third time this subject has been assessed, following work in 2015 and 2020. It tells a story even more stark and challenging than that which comes out of the bigger grown-ups survey. The Spinoff’s head of audience Anna Rawhiti-Connell has dug i
Notes on an epic journalistic blunder – and succession planning at RNZ and TVNZ
The Spinoff editor-at-large Toby Manhire joins Duncan Greive this week to discuss a very unfortunate case of journalistic mistaken identity. Former Herald reporter Bevan Hurley had an explosive exclusive with former Bill de Blasio, in which the former New York mayor critiqued Zohran Mamdani, the current mayoral candidate he had previously strongly endorsed. Or so Hurley thought – he had in fact be
What’s going on with Māori news media?
Liam Rātana, editor of The Spinoff Ātea, joins Duncan Greive on The Fold to discuss a piece he wrote last week, about some seismic changes to the Māori media landscape. Two iconic shows, Te Karere and The Hui, one of which has been on the air for more than 40 years, were turned down for funding in the most recent Te Māngai Pāho round. The decision was in part financially driven – there’s a fiscal
The BSA vs The Platform: why this shapes as a generationally important battle
Glen Kyne returns to The Fold to discuss the background, stakes and possible outcome of a small battle that sets up a much larger question: how do we regulate the internet? It's one successive governments have thought about then studiously avoided. The BSA might just have forced them to confront it.
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Has The Life of a Showgirl finally broken Taylor’s spell?
The biggest phenomenon in pop culture released her latest album a week ago. Taylor Swift’s The Life of a Showgirl smashed records wherever it went, but was also greeted by an unfamiliar reaction: indifference. Not just by critics, but by her fans too. Duncan Greive is joined by The Spinoff’s Alex Casey and Lyric Waiwiri-Smith – two lifelong Swift fans who also felt the bubble pop this week – to di
Agencies and out-of-home: how they learned to love each other
From a traditional "direct" medium to a data-driven powerhouse, out-of-home media has undergone a true evolution. Over a 17-year period, the out-of-home space has gone from commanding a mere 3% of industry ad revenue to approximately 18%, expanding to fill the void left by fragmenting media channels like linear television.
Duncan Greive is joined by Kurt Malcolm, Head of Trading and Platforms at
How is student media surviving – even thriving – in print?
Critic Te Arohi is the student magazine of the University of Otago, and turns 100 this year, making it the oldest student media in the country, as well as one of its most awarded and impactful. This week, Duncan is joined by the current editor and one of its recent former editors to discuss the evolution of the magazine and how student media, which naturally has the youngest adult demographic in t
How JCDecaux is unlocking creative advertising by studying the human brain
Duncan Greive is joined by Victoria Parsons, insights and strategy director at JCDecaux NZ, and Peter Pynter, prinicpal consultant at Neuro-Insight to talk through JCDecaux’s investment in neuro research. They unpack what science tells us about advertising, and how marketers can make sure their messages cut through the noise in these increasingly advertising-saturated times.
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Cracking the code: making news work for Gen Z with Now You Know
On this week's episode of The Fold, Duncan Greive sits down with The Spinoff's head of audience Anna Rawhiti-Connell and Now You Know host Robbie Nicol to break down the highly successful strategy behind the new social-first news explainer series.
With over 2.5 million views in just 10 weeks, Now You Know has won the attention of the 18-24 year-olds. Anna and Robbie discuss the philosophy of tre
Lightning round: Six quick takes on Grenon-NZME, Stuff vs the cops, RNZ’s troubles + more
Glen Kyne rejoins The Fold to smash through six of the biggest stories in media, all in six minutes or less (at least in theory). Kyne and Duncan Greive discuss the much larger shareholding Jim Grenon has in NZME, continuing drama for RNZ, the end of the NZFC-NZOA merger, a potential breakup of Mediaworks, a standoff between Stuff the the Police – and the new global media behemoth being built by t
Charlie Kirk and Tom Phillips show boundary collapse between the internet and real life
Anna Rawhiti-Connell joins Duncan Greive on The Fold to discuss two violent deaths, one driven by the internet, the other digested by it. They discuss how each shows in different yet profound ways how treating the internet as a separate sphere of life is increasingly impossible – rendering the libertarianism of one incompatible with the laws and mores of the other.
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Results season! Breaking down and picking a winner from TVNZ, Sky and NZME
Glen Kyne returns to The Fold to analyse the annual or half-yearly results from TVNZ, Sky and NZME. TVNZ surprised with an unexpectedly healthy profit, NZME emerged from a bruising board battle and Sky (finally) got its rugby deal. Kyne has it all covered – and picks a clear winner.
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System1's Andrew Tindall on myths and truths in modern advertising
Andrew Tindall and System1 have assembled some of the most massive and comprehensive databases of advertising effectiveness, running the gamut from creative to medium. Tindall joins Duncan Greive on The Fold, in partnership with JCDecaux, to discuss the story all that research tells.
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Sky CEO Sophie Moloney on the NZ rugby and Three deals and the depth of its moat
Sophie Moloney has been CEO of Sky NZ for five years. For much of that time she’s been dealing with downsides – a failed acquisition of Mediaworks, Spark Sports gifting their rights to TVNZ and prolonged satellite issues. But lately, things have been looking up. They successfully brought NZ Cricket rights back, scooped up Three’s assets for $1, and just last week lengthened their rugby deal under
RNZ’s Paul Thompson on that bombshell radio report
The longest-tenured leader in New Zealand media joins Duncan Greive on The Fold for a frank discussion about the state of RNZ. They discuss the sharp decline in radio ratings which prompted him to commission a brutal report from former RNZ news boss Richard Sutherland, while also addressing the growth of digital news and lifestyle content. They also address RNZ’s Auckland problem, the strength of
Monopod: on the Sky-NZ Rugby deal, RNZ’s radio challenges and the Substack exodus
Duncan Greive goes solo to dig into some fascinating recent media stories. The details of the Sky-NZ Rugby deal give all parties a chance to plausibly claim a win. The Sutherland report into RNZ National is one of the most challenging and interesting of its type in years. Two of the country’s biggest Substackers have left the platform. And Paramount looks to be building a manosphere streamer with
The one local media form defying gravity
Duncan Greive is joined by Phil Eastwood, GM of JCDecaux NZ, and Paul Maher, chair of OOHMAA, to discuss the rise and rise of out-of-home media. Once a backwater of the industry, it’s now the only locally operated sector showing robust growth. Partly a result of digital screens, partly a response to the hyper-saturation of ads in digital contexts, out-of-home has become what Eastwood calls “the la
Neil Finn on the broken promise of the internet – and why he won’t give up on it
A very special episode of The Fold, featuring songwriting immortal Neil Finn talking about his long, singular journey making music on the internet. He gives his views on the utopian promise of its origins, the narrowing of algorithms and how social lost its way. And explains why, despite all that, he’s launching MUFGAL – perhaps his most ambitious attempt yet to hold true to that founding idea.
Le
NZ on Air funds reality TV now?
Glen Kyne joins Duncan Greive on The Fold to discuss the shock revelation that NZ on Air will support Celebrity Treasure Island and The Traitors NZ’s return to our screens. They assess the potential moral hazard, the function those shows perform for networks, and the more profound challenges lurking down the road.
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How a new history of NZ pop music reveals media's revolutions
Gareth Shute is a historian of New Zealand music, who realised that there had never been a high level overview of the artists which shaped our pop charts. He’s just published Songs From the Shaky Isles, a book which flies through a century of recorded pop music on these shores. He joins Duncan Greive on The Fold to discuss it, with particular reference to the way the rise of mediums like televisio
What happened when advertising decided it could save the world?
Eugene Healey is an academic and brand strategist based in Melbourne, and a sharp critic of clumsy attempts from brands to play social justice activists. He's traveling back to New Zealand to speak at the Comms Council's Media Spotlight event, and joins Duncan Greive on The Fold to discuss the unintended consequences of advertising's woke years, and explain why brands should only show up for a com
Why is Epstein suddenly everywhere, and what does that mean for New Zealand's media and politics?
Anna Rawhiti-Connell joins Duncan Greive on The Fold to discuss the way social media conspiracy theories have started to dominate the institutional media in the US, and ask what the local equivalents might be. They also talk about Lucy Blakiston from Shit You Should Care About's signing to venerable Hollywood talent agency WME, and The Spinoff's buzzy new social-first news show Now You Know.
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Emergency pod! On Sky buying Three – and what it means for TVNZ
Glen Kyne joins Duncan Greive on an emergency edition of The Fold to discuss Sky's move to buy the New Zealand assets of Discovery NZ, including Three and ThreeNow. They discuss the price, what it does for Sky, how Three will evolve and how it changes the game for TVNZ.
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Can Netflix's run last forever? Plus Substack's raise and Beacons reflections
Glen Kyne returns to The Fold to dig into another incredible quarter for Netflix – and ask whether its run is over or it has more headroom. They also chat about what's next for Substack after its US$100m raise, the end of the Auckland Transport saga and break down the Beacon Awards.
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How Auckland FC aced (almost) everything – including its media strategy
Nick Becker is an Aucklander who spent 15 years in the UK, much of it in key roles with huge EPL teams Arsenal and Manchester City, before a spell in Melbourne. He returned home to launch the city’s first professional football team in more than a decade – one which overcame early doubts to become a phenomenon right out of the gate. He joins Duncan Greive on The Fold to talk about the decision to l
The biggest media stories no one is talking about
Glen Kyne joins Duncan Greive on The Fold to discuss a clutch of curiously under-covered stories which suggest major changes coming to streaming entertainment and news publishing. There’s Netflix’s massive deal with France’s biggest broadcaster to host its live channels and a vast library of content, along with a group of UK TV companies banding together to sell ads across their networks. Then the
The double radio life of BrianFM's mysterious owner
Andrew Jeffries might be the most influential New Zealander in the global music industry you've never heard of. For many years he was a senior executive, in charge of programming more than 800 stations at iHeartRadio, the biggest radio company in America, with massive digital and events businesses too. But while he worked on the big show by day, by night he built out a really different operation.
TVNZ turns to sport – will it turn away from Shortland St? Plus a big result for Stuff
Glen Kyne returns to The Fold to recap the big takeaways from a new interview with TVNZ CEO Jodie O’Donnell. TVNZ is back in profit and looking at rugby and the Olympics, with an intriguing pay-per-view model on the horizon. He and Duncan Greive also discuss the implications of a widening lead for Stuff in Nielsen’s digital news rankings, and close on what the structural separation of WBD internat
Why festivals are failing as live music is booming – and the battle for Western Springs
Campbell Smith trained as a lawyer, but was quickly drawn into the music business. He started out offering advice on bFM, then began representing artists like Brooke Fraser and The Naked and Famous. Then came his first promotional gig – running one of the country's most iconic festivals in the Big Day Out. At the same time he represented recorded music rights holders in a doomed battle against mus
Bauer, five years after part II: The Listener and Are Media rise from the ashes
Are Media was a new company born out of the end of Bauer, taking some of its biggest magazines and running them on a much leaner model. Are's NZ GM Stuart Dick and The Listener's editor Kirsty Cameron join Duncan Greive on The Fold to talk about bringing those magazines back to life, and how Cameron revived a title which had lost its way at times in the Bauer years.
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Bauer, five years after part I: Ensemble, Here and the rise of the independents
New Zealand's magazine industry suffered a catastrophic event five years ago, when many of the biggest and most famous titles in our history shut down on a fateful Zoom call. The first of a two part series looks at the independent publications which rose up in its wake. Duncan Greive is joined by Rebecca Wadey and Zoe Walker Ahwa, founders of Ensemble to discuss lifestyle media and first joining t
Emergency Pod, part II: Inside the final showdown at the NZME's annual meeting
A massive day of media news concludes with Duncan Greive joining Anna Rawhiti-Connell on The Fold to break down the NZME ASM, which marked the conclusion to an epic three month saga involving Canadian billionaire Jim Grenon. He and former National finance minister Steven Joyce were both elected to the board, with shareholders were both elated and terrified for what that might entail. Greive travel
Emergency pod: Trade Me buys 50% of Stuff Digital – what?! And why?!
Glen Kyne joins Duncan Greive on The Fold to discuss today's announcement that Trade Me has purchased a 50% stake in Stuff Digital, with an explicit focus on growing its property audience. Kyne and Greive break down the strategic rationale, the challenge it represents to NZME and how this new battle might play out in the coming months and years.
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On the budget, radio ratings – and NZME loses a star while gaining a channel
Glen Kyne joins Duncan Greive to pick through a week of small but instructive media news. There was a miniscule new announcement in the budget, on the same day radio ratings dropped to confirm little had changed. Then they review the first show from the Herald’s new FAST channel, fronted by Ryan Bridge, set against news that Madison Reidy was buying her channel and going solo.
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Voyagers debrief, the NZME saga seems over and a big boost for movies
Glen Kyne joins Duncan Greive on The Fold to recap a significantly smaller but somehow considerably better Voyager Media Awards. (Apologies to Gulf News and NZ Geographic, each of which had notable wins which didn't get mentioned). Next they discuss the latest, potential the final developments in the NZME board coup saga, before addressing a big financial boost to inbound movie subsidies – and The
Why are there suddenly two country music stations in New Zealand?
For a long time New Zealand's country music audience was presumed to be the town of Gore and its immediate surrounds. Few albums got released, and major artists almost never toured. That all changed in the past few years, with streaming both proving and generating a huge global audience for country – and artists like Luke Combs and Morgan Wallen playing shows to massive local crowds. That has prom
