I am at this very moment preparing my invoice to send to Raewyn Rasch, the Executive Producer of Seven Sharp.
You may recall that Raewyn wrote to me, unhappy with my early comments about her programme. Very early, come to think of it – a week before the programme even went to air. The omens, I’d said, weren’t looking good.
Well, they still weren’t looking good a week into the show and I wrote another fairly lengthy post saying what I thought was wrong and, by implication, needed fixing [read "Two's company, Three's a crowd" - Editor].
And then came last night, Tuesday. And Tuesday was different. Tuesday’s programme had a real edge to it, the very thing I’d said was missing from the earlier shows.
The banter was sharper, more Paul Henry and less Play School.
And the tag-team interviewing had been largely abandoned.
There was Greg Boyed manfully attempting to do the impossible – get a straight answer from Winston Peters; and Ali Mau doing an interview with Investigate magazine publisher Ian Wishart, who had brought us NZ First MP Richard Prosser’s thoughtful views on ‘Wogistan’. The interview was a model of its type.
And finally, a really interesting item on just how long you can survive in the open sea without a life-jacket.
All in all, a nice example of what you might call ‘palatable current affairs’.
Which is ironic really when you consider that last night was also the first night that Campbell Live [featuring a lowbrow Marmite story - Editor] beat its opposition on One with 352,600 viewers against Seven Sharp’s 296,700.
My unsolicited advice to Raewyn Rash would be not to be discouraged by last night’s figures which are a reflection of viewers’ response to the previous eight days and not to last night’s show. Stick with it.
Though can I please make one suggestion to Greg Boyed. It isn’t necessary in a probing interview to look and sound so angry that you’d like to climb across the desk and throttle your interviewee. Winston can be annoying, but not that annoying. And he has the sweetest smile.
Media trainer and commentator Dr Brian Edwards blogs at Brian Edwards Media.