Posts Tagged ‘Newstalk ZB’

1. Radio Stands Tall When Canterbury Earthquake Hits

   Published on Wednesday, September 8th, 2010
   While TVNZ proudly proclaimed that 2 million Kiwis tuned in to its coverage of the Canterbury earthquake, the run-away winner story-teller in the first hours of the disaster was radio.

   By 7am on Saturday morning National Radio and Newstalk ZB were bringing us eye witness descriptions from people – professionals and the public – who painted images of the devastation for us with their verbal accounts.

   On ZB anchor man Larry Williams was superb – seamlessly ensuring listeners understood the big picture, bringing us the personal tragedies while sending out a steady stream of civil emergency messages to those that needed vital information.

   It was compelling, and radio at its very best.

   Compare that to TV1 and TV3 at 7am. What earthquake! We were being served up reruns of ‘entertainment’ programmes. Not even an on screen caption mentioning our largest ever recorded earthquake had occurred.

   Naturally BBC and CNN were telling the world about it. What an indictment of our own television news services that we had to go overseas to find out what was happening in our own country.

   Some time after 8am TV1 finally woke from its slumber and started to bring us excellent coverage, and we were able to ‘see’ what ZB had been describing brilliantly for an hour. TV3 had roused itself to putting up an onscreen caption under its entertainment programmes telling us it would bring us news of the earthquake from 11am. ‘News’ – by then it was ‘history’.

   Social media also found the going tough as a communication medium through a combination of overloading, civil defence requesting people to restrict cell phone use to reserve capacity for emergency services, and the battery back up to power cell sites running low.

   The other standout was Mayor Bob Parker. It was a case of cometh the hour, cometh the man. Authoritative and calm, he exuded all that you want from the person in control when disaster strikes.

2. The email world – where waspish comment, voyeurism and freeloading flourishes

   Published on Tuesday, March 30th, 2010
   “Whore” – the email response to a politely declined request for sponsorship is now part of email history. 

   Had I received such an email, I’m inclined to think I would have passed it on to a few colleagues. However, when  I received a copy for the third, or was it the fourth time, last week – under the heading how not to communicate in email – I asked myself why we are so quick to share someone else’s misspeak with everyone else when it is on-line. 
    
   We already know that this is not the way to communicate via email, so we can drop that as a reason for spreading it virally! The author ‘deserved it’ is another reason, but I have at the back of my mind that the ‘sender’ claimed someone else used his email address.

   When we communicate in the on-line space we sometimes forget to exercise common sense, and some fail to show basic good manners. 

   For some reason we treat mail-type communication totally differently.

   It is still regarded as bad form to open or read other people’s mail, and why when we pen ‘dear sir, madam, Jim or Jill’ at the start of a written communication do we tend to be more polite and more thoughtful in how we construct our sentences or what we want to say.

   Is it the instant speed with which email communicates that causes us to be more blunt, rude and forthright than we would be in a letter or on the telephone?

   If a person’s mail is accidentally delivered to our house or place of business we would make sure it got to the right person as soon as we could. Yet a recalled email message, or one sent to us inadvertently, is an invitation to check out what was sent before it is deleted. Why the difference? 

   Another area in the digital world where the norms of society have changed is the wireless ‘freeloader’. On Danny Watson’s Newstalk ZB show recently one chap announced he was entirely comfortable with using his neighbour’s wireless access as he only did it once a month to pay his bills.  Besides, if the neighbour didn’t want him to use it he should have had it password protected!

   I‘m wondering if I need to make sure my Sunday paper is put in a locked mail box as having it sitting there might suggest to people that I am offering it to them to read.

3. It may be the 500,001st word, but it will certainly not be the last

   Published on Monday, March 15th, 2010
   The power of the English language to invent new words and seamlessly adopt them into everyday use is one of its magical strengths, and as a result English is universally recognised as having the richest vocabulary of any of the world’s 2700 languages.

   Why raise it? Well the thought came to me last Friday following a Newstalk ZB chat about the economy between host Mike Hosking and the Governor of the Reserve Bank, Dr Alan Bollard.

   (Not verbatim): Hosking says: What will be the ‘new normal’ then?  The Governor: Well the ‘new normal’ is yet to be determined Mike.

   The ‘new normal’! The two used it as though it’s an economic term that has been around forever and the mass audience that Hosking’s show attracts would know exactly what they are talking about.

   As an economic term, ‘new normal’ has only really built up a head of steam since early 2009 following the financial meltdown.

   Its strongest use to date is around spending patterns. In the United States, for example, the normal spending pattern between 1950 and 1980 was 62% of GDP. In the 80s it increased to 65%, the 90s to 67% and between 2001 and 2008 70%.

   Most economists are confident that spending power is returning, but just where it will settle is a matter of conjecture – hence what will be the ‘new normal’.

   It will be interesting to see if ‘new normal’ remains selective in definition, or whether it gathers momentum as a buzz word, and morphs into a general word describing change, and from there … where?

   As an aside, it’s estimated that there are 500,000 English words (excluding the 500,000 technical and scientific words), or is that now 500,001! German has about 185,000 and French 100,000.

4. A beautiful advocacy campaign to behold…

   Published on Wednesday, July 15th, 2009
   As a communicator, I’m always impressed when I see the roll out of a good campaign which ‘works’. And I’d rate the current efforts by the anti folic acid advocates as an A+ effort.

   Putting aside that we’ve been adding folic acid to breakfast cereal for years without any fuss (came as a complete surprise to me too) and that we went through the whole shall we/shan’t we debate under a previous Government with barely a protest banner in sight, a month before Folic Acid day looms traditional and social media is alive with for and against arguments.

   First casualty was naturally those who know the true facts. Now we’re really on to the serious stuff which us lay people can understand.

   These are the sound bytes about you needing to eat 11 slices of bread a day for it to be effective (is that thick or thin slices by the way?); children will be getting a quarter more than recommended ‘safe’ levels; and let’s not forget the perennial ‘high doses have been shown to increase the prevalence of cancer among laboratory mice’.

   Even that most astute media personality Paul Holmes referred to the folic acid debate twice within three days on his ZB comments slot.

   If nothing else the campaign has shown how slow the Government is to react to lightening rod issues. It didn’t see the train coming, and when it did it stood there paralysed in with indecision.

   I don’t pretend to understand the rights and wrongs of this issue. However, I’m inclined to the view that we should proceed while the ‘experts’ work it out. After all, the chance of me ending up with cancer is a very minute ‘maybe’ (probably less than from second hand smoke), while we know that it’s a certainty some children will be born with spina bifida if we put it off.

   If subsequent research shows the cancer risk is too high, then let’s pull it then. Until then my vote goes for the yet to be born generation.

5. Dear Mr Holmes, thank you for the memories

   Published on Thursday, December 18th, 2008
   With tomorrow being your last day as the voice of Newstalk ZB morning radio it seemed appropriate to dedicate this, the last posting on the Network PR blog for 2008, to you.

   You have not only made a huge impact in your field but overseen tremendous growth and change in our nation.  As one of my colleagues said, “Holmes was NZ’s first celebrity broadcaster.  He heralded a whole new era in New Zealand broadcasting and – for better or worse – the birth of celebrity culture in NZ.”

   I imagine there are very few PR consultants in New Zealand who have not had reason to deal with you over the years and undoubtedly opinions will vary as to how “satisfactory” this experience was.  But I am sure that each and every one of them would agree that you are a true star in your field.

   As a seasoned listener of ZB I must confess that I have waxed and waned in my affection for you.  But the retrospective discussions during the past few weeks have reminded me of the reasons that make you so special.  On occasion I’ve considered that your musings have ranged from arrogant and to downright sentimental.  But through it all you clearly made an impact.  I often talked about what you had said to others and although I might have been tempted at times to switch off or change channels, I didn’t.  Because for every moment of irritation there were many, many more moments of sheer genius.

   You will likely agree that your job is not to be universally liked, but behind the broadcaster there has always been the man who really did just want to be appreciated.  So it might interest you to read some of the comments my PR colleagues had to make about you.

   “Paul Holmes was a controversial, loveable and hateable character – to me he embodies that ‘old school’ sense of the media.”

   “It’s testament to his talent that, despite a number of high profile ‘incidents’, Paul Holmes has had such a successful broadcasting career. He is certainly a fighter – he is frank and intelligent – and while his departure from Newstalk ZB tomorrow will be a loss for the station, and no doubt many loyal listeners, it opens the door for other emerging talent to follow in his footsteps.”

   I am particularly pleased that you are around to hear this praise being heaped on you.  You deserve to hear it.  Too often in New Zealand the only time we say nice things about people is at their wedding or funeral!  I sincerely hope this is the start of another long and significant phase in your life.

   The oldest child in the family breaks down the barriers, and as NZ’s first true media celebrity you did that in spades.  You weathered criticism along the way – some warranted and some not – but you always remained true to your own style.

   So Mr Holmes, thanks for the memories and for the many special moments you have shared with us.