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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 2024:
Alec Kieft makes games for "YouTube for gaming" platform Roblox, including Break-In, a smash hit that has been played more than two billion times by 80 million people. The platform is wildly popular with pre-teens, and is widely considered the closest thing to an operating metaverse that exists in the world today. Kieft joins Duncan Greive on The Fold to explain what drives the culture and economy of this hidden world.
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Glen Kyne returns to join Duncan Greive on The Fold for an epic year in review, going deep on all the big storylines that defined a year which broke New Zealand's media. Including, but by no means limited to: the end of Newshub, Sunday and Fair Go; the downsizing of Shortland Street and challenges to the productions sector; a dive into Australia's approach to big tech; assessments of every major mainstream media company, the advertising and media agency sector and a pair of predictions for the first half of 2025. All in 77 action-packed minutes!
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Saknas det avsnitt?
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In the second of two episodes looking at New Zealand from Australia, Duncan Greive speaks to Paul McIntyre – founder and publisher at Mi3 – and one of the most credentialed journalists on advertising, tech and media in this part of the world. He wrote a story in late October which detailed the perverse incentives of the move to so-called "principal media", and how Australia's media looked at New Zealand as a cautionary tale to be avoided. We go deep into those topics and the tensions between content companies and big tech to try and get a deeper understanding of what has happened to advertising in recent years.
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Last week brought confirmation that Whakaata Māori was ending Te Ao Māori News 4.30pm bulletin to focus on a pure digital future for news, while also moving its Te Reo channel to solely online distribution. The Spinoff Ātea editor Liam Rātana joins Duncan Greive on The Fold to discuss the move, and also assess the state of Māori news and current affairs more broadly.
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In an effort to get out of his doom spiral, Duncan Greive takes a tour across the Tasman to see how our close neighbours are dealing with a similar set of challenges. From a social media ban, to local content quotas, to news bargaining to an activist competition authority, Australia is a global leader, while New Zealand is nowhere to be found.
In the first of two episodes focused on Australia, former Newshub boss Hal Crawford joins Duncan to discuss a raft of legislation aimed at big tech, which has either been proposed or passed - sometimes with bi-partisan support.
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Normally on The Fold, we discuss events in the wider media, but today, the subject is us and the future of The Spinoff. Published on site today is an open letter from Duncan, The Spinoff’s editor Madeleine Chapman, and its CEO Amber Easby. It toplines where The Spinoff is right now as a platform – this paradoxical place where our audience is the strongest it has ever been, outside of events like Covid or elections – but that the stagnant ad market, and a hard drop in public funding for our work, has left us in a really tricky situation needing to make a very real call for help.
First, Duncan speaks to our editor, Madeleine Chapman, and our head of audience, Anna Rawhiti-Connell about we’re asking for and why we’re asking for it. Duncan is then joined by Spinoff CEO Amber Easby to dig into some numbers that show just how radically our revenue picture has changed and explain why our audience is now our last, best shot at retaining the ability to carry on doing what we do.
Please take the time to read the open letter at https://thespinoff.co.nz/sos
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It's fair to assume a near total correlation between Media Insider readers and The Fold's listeners – so if you've read Shayne Currie's report into job losses at The Spinoff yesterday, you'll know that we're all feeling pretty low here. My heart and thoughts are with my affected colleagues – but I wanted to give some background and context beyond that story, and talk about the most recent NZ on Air round too. That's what this short episode is about. Back Thursday.
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It’s a throwback monopod today – Duncan Greive goes solo in a pretty raw episode, reflecting on a wonderful event with a very sobering reflection on the present and likely future of institutional media in Aotearoa. It’s a look at what’s driving the cataclysmic events of this year, and whether they’re likely to be temporary, or are baked in. And finally, why it is that the political response here seems so softly softly, when other countries are making serious attempts to defend their culture, media and journalism.
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Kristy McGregor was an Australian with no experience in media before founding Shepherdess, a magazine dedicated to the life and experience of rural women. However she proved a total natural, and has developed it into one of the most fascinating and instructive startups in New Zealand media. What started as a print magazine now encompasses a festival and a TV show, all made by women working part-time and hundreds of kilometres apart. She stopped by The Fold, heavily pregnant on a business trip, to tell Duncan Greive her remarkable story.
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Glen Kyne returns to The Fold to dissect the 50 proposed redundancies at TVNZ, and the confirmation that news will now be part of content, rather than its own unit. Next, they analyse the extraordinary drama between podcast star Frances Cook and her former employer, NZME – particularly what it says about legacy media's relationship with digital. Finally, they talk about Trump's election, and what that means for big tech and the waning power of institutional media.
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Anna Rawhiti-Connell joins Duncan Greive on The Fold to discuss the fallout from Jeff Bezos' decision to halt the practise of endorsements at the Washington Post, and what it says about the swing away from institutional to social media. Next they discuss TVNZ's backtrack on its decision to close the 1news.co.nz site, and a trio of worrying signals from smaller publishers Crux. NZ Geographic and Caffeine. Finally they look at a key executive departure at Stuff, the second in recent months, and ask what it means about the state of Stuff and the media more broadly.
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Duncan Greive is joined by his longtime Real Pod co-host Alex Casey to talk through the Top 100 NZ TV shows project, which ran on site last week and climaxes with a Q Theatre live show tonight. She talks about the way the list was assembled, what it says about us as a country, and why this is a particularly poignant moment to do this.
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This week Sky announced it had secured the rights to run Max as a channel within Neon, bringing one of the strongest and deepest TV catalogues to its streaming service, and taking a potential competitor off the map (for now, at least). Glen Kyne joins Duncan Greive to discuss the implications of the deal, why it's great for Sky now, and what risks it contains for the future. They also discuss Amazon launching its ad tier into NZ, and how that impacts TVNZ and Three. There's also the shock resignation of NZ Rugby Commercial head Craig Fenton, and an intriguing new wrinkle to the Fair Digital News Bargaining Bill saga.
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Substack co-founder Hamish McKenzie grew up in small town South Island, but is now one of the most influential figures in US media (according to New York magazine). That’s because the platform, which started out with paid newsletters, is now starting to establish itself in social, audio and video. Hamish joins Duncan to discuss its latest moves, its relationship with legacy media and whether it can become a “new economic engine for culture” across all mediums without risking total enshittification.
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The Spinoff’s editor-at-large Toby Manhire joins Duncan Greive to discuss SXSW and the launch of Auckland FC, and what each says about the vitality of Sydney and Auckland. Duncan toplines the Campaign Brief and Nine drama in Australia, which shows where that country is (still) at, in some ways. Next, they hit SPADA’s warnings about the future of screen production in New Zealand, and what that industry should understand about new NZ on Air board member Philip Crump. Finally, they talk about the end of Matt and Jerry on Hauraki, and the optionality Heath gives to Newstalk ZB.
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It's a week since TVNZ shocked the media with a proposal to shut down 1news.co.nz and merge news with content. Glen Kyne joins Duncan Greive on The Fold to discuss the merits of the approach, what it implies about the future of the business, and other ways it might save $30m and provide a pathway to a sustainable future. Plus – reflections on the debut of Stuff's HOW:TO, and what it might mean for New Zealand media.
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Sam Stuchbury founded Motion Sickness as a brand and advertising agency in a flat in Ōtepoti. 10 years on, it has become known for powerful campaigns like 'Proud to be Māori' and 'Rep your Suburb' for Whānau Ora. The company dominated the Axis Awards and picked up silver in the Global Agency of the Year awards in London. Stuchbury and Motion Sickness head of strategy Hilary Ngan Kee join Duncan Greive to talk about the company's unconventional journey, the radically changing nature of the ad industry, and how local independents compete and often win against giant multinational groups.
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On Friday afternoon, Google published a post to its little-read New Zealand blog, one which immediately sent shockwaves through the local news media. It confirmed what had been rumoured – that if the Fair Digital News Bargaining Bill passes in its current form, Google will pull news from all its systems and services, and cancel all its agreements with local news media. It sets up an enormously high stakes staredown with the government, with a weakened and embattled news media squeezed between. Glen Kyne joins Duncan Greive to set up the stakes, and suggest a possible compromise. Then they look at the end of Stuff Audio, and why it makes sense, even if Stuff staff must be exhausted by all this change.
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Matt Bain spent a career working across prestige brands in digital contexts before returning to New Zealand to become Data and Marketing Director (CMO in all but name) of the telco-turned-digital services provider that is Spark. It's one of the biggest marketing jobs in the country, with a budget to match – but figuring out what Spark is and how it sells itself isn't easy, especially given its recent market travails. Matt joins Duncan to talk about the difference between brand and retail, reflect on Spark's recent Game Arena event, and explain why a live show can replace a TVC at the heart of a modern marketing campaign.
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Anna Rawhiti-Connell is head of audience for The Spinoff, but spent most of the last decade working in social media for BNZ and the Auckland Theatre Company. She joins Duncan to do a deep dive into the changing nature and shape of social platforms – specifically what happened to links, and therefore traffic. Then they discuss two changes at Stuff – the end of Newsable, and the removal of vertical video from its homepage – before discussing the way RNZ handled the removal of a podcast episode.
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