REALITY TV UPDATE: Mark Weldon Wins NZ’s Biggest Loser.

Written By: - Date published: 9:45 am, May 4th, 2016 - 56 comments
Categories: brand key, business, Media, radio, tv - Tags: , ,

Well, well, well. After successfully retooling TV3 as a comedy channel, CEO Mark Weldon has announced he’s quitting, two days after claiming he thought he still had the full support of the MediaWorks board. That claim of ‘full support’ made me laugh. It’s what you hear in football, just before a manager gets sacked.

The Mediaworks brand has been fatally damaged by the Weldon leadership. He’s yet another Friend of John whose turned out to be pretty bloody hopeless. The big question will be whether the damage can be repaired before MediaWorks owners and investors decide to pull the plug.

For viewers of TV3, the damage has already been done. The lunatic decision to axe Campbell Live was just the start. Under Weldon’s watch, a steady stream of talent has left the building, leaving TV3 a dessicated husk. That’s a real shame, because for many, many years, the rivalry between the private company and the state owned TVNZ inspired some excellent reporting. But recently, both networks have gloried in dumbing down, and we are the real losers.

Here’s hoping MediaWorks replace the hapless Weldon with someone who doesn’t think ‘none the wiser’ is a mantra for broadcast news.

 

EDIT: Changed the photo to something more visionary.

 

56 comments on “REALITY TV UPDATE: Mark Weldon Wins NZ’s Biggest Loser. ”

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  1. integralenz 1
    4 May 2016 at 9:48 am

    “The personal cost is just too high” – Prick! What about the cost to the staff and viewers affected by this mediocrity’s incompetence? Distressing to think the lovely Rachel Glucina may be booted down the road now.

    • Eralc 1.1
      4 May 2016 at 10:24 am

      Not much to viewers, because there aren’t many.

    • Richard Christie 1.2
      4 May 2016 at 11:05 am

      And what’s his severance arrangement/payment ?

    • One Anonymous Bloke 1.3
      4 May 2016 at 11:35 am

      I assumed he just can’t spell “personnel”.

    • Muttonbird 1.4
      4 May 2016 at 9:39 pm

      The personal cost is just too high.

      -Weldon

      Translation: “I’m an arsehole and nobody likes me.”

    • North 1.5
      4 May 2016 at 11:20 pm

      Love that picture ! The intensely silly, aspiring Elizabethan wench, Rachel Glucina. Rolling sack of flour like down a cobbled street to deliver the message of love. We shouldn’t laugh. ‘Twas all in the service of John the ridiculously fake idol.

  2. Adrian 2
    4 May 2016 at 10:04 am

    There’s a job going at the Warriors Mark.

  3. Chooky 3
    4 May 2016 at 10:06 am

    good riddance to Jonkey nacts HENCHMAN attempt to control the media

    …Weldon was a BIG FAILURE!

    ….Weldon wasn’t even a journalist or trained in the media or anything cultural …a common henchman trader…and it showed

    • Peter 3.1
      4 May 2016 at 10:37 am

      …… the Nats pretty much already control the media that influences the masses, even without TV3.

    • plumington 3.2
      4 May 2016 at 11:43 am

      While I agree with you chooky with good riddance , the problem is that weldon has served his exact purpose to get rid of Campbell and will be going somewhere else to further the neo librals agenda hopefully not RNZ
      I think it’s a hollow victory

    • Stuart Munro 3.3
      4 May 2016 at 4:27 pm

      I don’t think it would have needed a journalist – just a sensible honest person who isn’t a complete Key suck-up or reality show dumbo would do.

  4. save NZ 4
    4 May 2016 at 10:09 am

    No doubt John Key will get him another juicy job, destroying another organisation into a neoliberal non functioning wasteland, while firing as many competent employee’s as possible.

    Let’s hope Julie Christie is the next to go.

    They could then lure John Campbell back to get some viewers.

    • Chooky 4.1
      4 May 2016 at 10:14 am

      John Campbell is good where he is on RNZ….doubt whether he will want to go back!!!

      ….i personally hope TV3 goes bankrupt…they still have Paul Henry…who needs TV3?

    • Richard Christie 4.2
      4 May 2016 at 11:00 am

      Let’s hope Julie Christie is the next to go.

      Amen to that.

  5. mary_a 5
    4 May 2016 at 10:11 am

    Ha ha … FJK losing his media puppets now. Great stuff 🙂

    Also see in the NZH’s piece on Weldon’s resignation, he is currently involved in a NZ Stock Exchange court case, as a witness.

    • ianmac 5.1
      4 May 2016 at 11:24 am

      I think one of the issues was Weldon’s diaries over Stock Exchange matters have accidently gone missing.

  6. bernard 6
    4 May 2016 at 10:33 am

    ding,dong, the witch is dead…….

  7. ianmac 7
    4 May 2016 at 11:03 am

    Damned with words from guess who:
    “The most visionary & inspiring leader I’ve ever had the pleasure to work with has resigned.”-Rachel Glucina. (If she thinks he is great then he must be ghastly!

    • te reo putake 7.1
      4 May 2016 at 11:06 am

      I can’t work out whether it’s genuine or a pisstake. Either way, shouldn’t the most visionary and inspiring leader she’s ever worked for be John Key? I’m sure he hasn’t forgotten the excellent work she did trying to cover up his pervy ponytail pulling!

      • Anne 7.1.1
        4 May 2016 at 11:23 am

        Yep. I’ve watched the dumbing down of TV3 with sadness. Hilary Barry and Mike McRoberts are an excellent news duo. No affectations or histrionics – just good solid reporting. They were easily my favourite newsreader team but with the departure of Campbell Live I stopped watching on a regular basis.

        It would be interesting to know whether the choice of Mark Weldon – and board member, Julie Christie by MediaWorks was the result of… an influential recommendation?

        • North 7.1.1.1
          4 May 2016 at 11:38 pm

          Well I have to say that when Mike McRoberts was reporting from Palestine he spoke directly to my humanity and his good soul touched mine. I respected him and felt whanaungatanga that he could communicate to me, this stranger, his sense of unhappiness about the terribleness he was seeing.

        • North 7.1.1.2
          4 May 2016 at 11:43 pm

          Well I have to say that when Mike McRoberts was reporting from Palestine he spoke directly to my humanity and his good soul touched mine. I respected him and felt whanaungatanga that he could communicate to me, this stranger, his deep unhappiness about the terribleness of what he was seeing. That’s powerful communication !

      • maui 7.1.2
        5 May 2016 at 9:33 am

        Its seems to be the same with wringer trolls you can’t tell if they’re serious or not. Their ideas being on the whole fairly demented.

  8. Wensleydale 8
    4 May 2016 at 11:31 am

    He’s done what he was hired to do, which was remove dissenting voices holding the government to account, and reduce TV3 to a mind-numbing abyss of inanity dominated by vapid reality shows and Paul Henry. So now, you have the option of affluent, narcissistic cretins complaining about nothing, or Paul telling you that John Key’s turds smell like pine-cones and sunshine dust.

    RIP TV3.

  9. Theodore 9
    4 May 2016 at 12:42 pm

    Weldon was your typical, self-indulgent, egotistical, and ultimately destructive managerial-type. In fact, he’s your typical “seagull executive”, http://image.slidesharecdn.com/anti-patternspart1-141212045523-conversion-gate02/95/anti-patterns-part-1-31-638.jpg?cb=1418360448

    Few tears will be shed for his departure. But I understand the champagne corks and beersie caps are popping already.

  10. R Crown 10
    4 May 2016 at 2:14 pm

    Maybe we can see some real journalism return to New Zealand now. Let’s not forget the whole story. The now disgraces Mark Weldon is a John Key stooge. He works for Key and is a close personal friend doing Keys job. Key didn’t like to have his dirty politics affairs scrutinized by journalists, so he put Weldon in to do a hatchet job, tear down the castle of the “enemy”, leave it in a smoking ruin, do not leave brick on brick. Now the job is accomplished, well done, collect the parachute and move on. Who will be first to write about the real life story, the reality show on John Key.

  11. Frank Stark 11
    4 May 2016 at 2:29 pm

    Interestingly Weldon is literally in the dock this week as a witness in a multi-million dollar cock-up made when he was boss of NZX – http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/79595961/ralec-claims-weldon-did-not-pass-advice-to-nzx-board
    At NZX, Weldon’s personnel management was the stuff of legend

  12. TC 12
    4 May 2016 at 3:20 pm

    Murky marks job at mediawonks is done but he may find his ‘legacy’ at the NZX follows him around alot longer.

    His work hoovering up publications opposed to fonterras nzx listing and a few others comes to mind.

  13. Henry Filth 13
    4 May 2016 at 3:27 pm

    New Zealand needs good free-to-air television. Hopefully something good will come out of this shambles.

    • TC 13.1
      4 May 2016 at 4:01 pm

      removing henry, garner, gower and all the other shills springs to mind

      • Paul 13.1.1
        4 May 2016 at 9:03 pm

        Rawden Christie another loudspeaker for the government.

        • North 13.1.1.1
          4 May 2016 at 11:55 pm

          No no no no no ! Silly Rawdon. He orally flatulates for the government. Fucking idiot !

    • TC 13.2
      4 May 2016 at 4:03 pm

      Let it burn baby ! nact are all about the market knows best so the removal of henry, garner, gower and all the other shills springs to mind as something good.

  14. greywarshark 14
    4 May 2016 at 4:09 pm

    “After successfully retooling TV3 as a comedy channel, CEO Mark Weldon has announced he’s quitting,”
    What will they do at TV3 without their tool?
    They could put on a spoof tv show about a poor little television station that got confused by the big bad wolf and got swallowed. Only bits of it couldn’t be digested, these have been salvaged and curated, and now they are looking for a chef that knows how to make quality fare out of a pig’s ear.

    He or she will just have to stir fry what’s left and add a lot of fibre to bulk it out, or layer it lasagne style with lumps of cheese to flesh out the dish. Mince it finely and make a nice pate and perhaps add a lot of milk and thicken with powdered serial and put it in little baskets of puffy pastry. Crisped in the oven they will be a big drawcard till people get hungry and looked for a substantial meal.

    But unfortunately TV3 will all be gone, into one digesting mass in the very trendy Bokashi system. Try it yourself it works with all television stations, but don’t waste Maori TV yet – it may still have some more seasons to go.
    http://www.bokashiboost.co.nz/

    • Jones 14.1
      4 May 2016 at 10:44 pm

      They could do a reality show on finding their next CEO.

      • mary_a 14.1.1
        5 May 2016 at 9:25 am

        @ JONES … 🙂

        Now there’s an idea. Could have FJK making the final decision from the short list of motley contenders, with the help of his chief of propaganda minister, former MediaWorks director, Steven Joyce.

  16. McFlock 16
    4 May 2016 at 4:24 pm

    I was reading I think a Stuff report about it, and it said Glucina was sorry to see him go. I didn’t know Scout was still running, so went to check it out – pretty much all about the Bachelor except one post on lorde “nip slip”, and one article mourning the loss of mediaworks’ “visionary” leader, lol

    Dropping “Scout” would be a sign they’re back on the right track, imo.

    • Gangnam Style 16.1
      4 May 2016 at 5:53 pm

      “nip slip” oh gawd, what trash Glucina is.

      • Matthew Hooton 16.1.1
        4 May 2016 at 8:47 pm

        I wonder if she is capable of reflecting on the fact Lorde is going to the world’s most glamorous celebrity parties in New York while she is running a failing gossip site for a failing company out of a small office in a suburb of Auckland?

        • Gangnam Style 16.1.1.1
          4 May 2016 at 8:50 pm

          Self reflection? I somehow doubt it.

          • greywarshark 16.1.1.1.1
            4 May 2016 at 8:59 pm

            Self reflection – that’s all you see in Mirror City – just smoke and mirrors.

        • Pat 16.1.1.2
          4 May 2016 at 8:52 pm

          assuming one rates “the world’s most glamorous celebrity parties” as achievement

    • North 16.2
      4 May 2016 at 6:43 pm

      My God shipwrecked neo-libs and failed masters of the universe have an uncanny capacity to paint themselves victims. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11633237

      Perhaps they should look to their bro’ Fake Man Key. It was all done for him wasn’t it…….Mark, Ken ?

      • mary_a 16.2.1
        5 May 2016 at 9:34 am

        @ NORTH .. haven’t heard any comment from FJK on his chum Weldon’s departure from TV 3.

        FJK personally appointed buddies Fletcher and now Weldon. Both gone! While “ethical” lawyer and friend Ken has been chucked off a bridge!

  17. One Anonymous Bloke 17
    4 May 2016 at 4:27 pm

    The wealth destroyers. National Party values in action.

  19. North 19
    4 May 2016 at 5:19 pm

    This is what you get for being Mr Fixit for best buddy Fake Man Key. http://bcove.me/8ee0w6ah

    Good job.

  20. logie97 20
    4 May 2016 at 8:07 pm

    … should we care. mmmm, What about the taxpayer bailout to this organisation? And what about Joyce’s connections? The chapter of events surrounding Mediaworks needs a thorough investigation. But where are the independent journalists to do it? Yeah that’s right – already in the National Party pockets (or living under the threat of removal from their jobs).

  21. Muttonbird 21
    4 May 2016 at 8:57 pm

    Loved it when the Herald called the reaction to Weldon’s dismissal, “mixed”.

    Looked unanimous to me, apart from Glucina.

  22. Macro 22
    4 May 2016 at 9:05 pm

    Oh hey it’s all good at TV3 look what you can watch tonight!

  23. Stuart Munro 23
    5 May 2016 at 9:58 am

    If Weldon isn’t sued for destroying shareholder value they must be asleep.

    • TC 23.1
      5 May 2016 at 10:02 am

      You assume they will not get value in another way.

      These are fund managers not ordinary folk with shares and as we have seen from SCF under shonkys reign they eventually come out just fine.

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