There are some job losses but TVNZ News Boss Anthony Flannery is upbeat about a new strategy that will see reporters going into the field better equipped to deliver stories to air faster and to service the growing range of platforms that carry news content.
There will be changes too inside the Television Centre with "centralized hubs" where coverage will be planned and stories will be processed and delivered to the growing number of different streams that carry daily news content.
He's not wrong.
Congratulations to Vic Uni Law School, Gibson Group and TVNZ 7 for their new show, The Court Report. HT to Steven Price. Probably borrowing the Back Benchers' offsite studios on their days off, the show has lawyers questioning lawyers on current affairs in front of a live audience of baby (student) lawyers.
It's a bit rough around the edges, but so what. The details will smooth out. The Court Report is a welcome addition to TVNZ's new style of programming "flavours". There's Media 7, analysing media affairs in front of a live audience. Back Benches gets truthful and nasty with pub politics. The Ad Show has the dope for the Advertising & PR darlings.
So yeah, a deeper dig into Law is very welcome. The first episode looks at NZ's archaic adoption laws, with Dean Knight seeing little hurry from Simon Power on the matter.
But there's a real wealth of subjects to cover in the future. Hell, Family Court stories alone could take up a season. Take divorce. If there's one thing that I think separates my generation with ones that came before or after, the boomers and the Y's, it was the change in the divorce property laws.
It wasn't until the Matrimonial Property Act 1976 that wives even got an anticipated divvy of the property. My father, an accomplished divorce lawyer, divorced my mother in 1974. He saw this law coming and jumped early. He used to crow about it years later, proud of the fact that Mum didn't get a spare cent out of him. He kept the house and money, she kept the kids. He dismissed Mum's lawyer as pedestrian and made the judge laugh.
But I digress. Things have changed. All I'll add is, watch out doctors/ nurses and accountants. I reckon you'll be next in line for your wonk of the week show on TVNZ7.
