Media Insider podcast: TVNZ chief executive Jodi O'Donnell on the future of Shortland Street, the 6pm news and a move into pay TV
TVNZ chief executive Jodi O'Donnell has opened up on the future of Shortland Street, the 6pm news, and a move into pay television in order to snare big sporting events, such as the Olympics.
In our latest Media Insider podcast, O'Donnell assesses her eventful first 18 months as the boss
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1News
11 hours ago
- 1News
Māori spirituality is part of family life in new TV show
A Māori family returns to a small North Island town after living in London in the bilingual and slightly supernatural TV show Dead Ahead. Writer and co-creator Scotty Cotter (Tainui, Fiji, Scottish) hopes the show will deliver plenty of laughs and also some insight into the Māori belief that our tūpuna (ancestors) walk "right next to us". "It's not seeing them, but having a sense of them there - that is what I really wanted to touch on - keeping them near us and keeping us connected with them," he tells Saturday Morning. Scotty Cotter as school principal Matua Kare in the new TVNZ+ series Dead Ahead. (Source: Supplied) Dead Ahead - launched on TVNZ+ - centres on the Wharekoa family; high-powered lawyer Kiri (Miriama Smith), her husband Matiu (Xavier Horan) and their kids Amiria (Mia Van Oyen) and Nate (Elijah Tamati). ADVERTISEMENT Cotter says he thought it would be hard finding a Māori boy with an English accent, but then Elijah Tamati - whose whanau also lived in London- walked into the room and nailed his audition. "[The kids in Dead Ahead] are just stunning. The future is bright with these two." Elijah Tamati as Nate in the TVNZ+ series Dead Ahead. (Source: Supplied) While it's a scary thing to write a TV show, Cotter says it was also really exciting to create a set of Māori characters with "all our flaws and our beauty and our crack-up-isms". "I wanted to create Māori characters who break the stereotypical mould, but also have authenticity." Starting out as a teen actor, Cotter's first introduction to New Zealand television was on the Māori learning programme Whānau, where he found a Māori woman "running the show". That was the late actor and director Nancy Brunning who became Cotter's friend and mentor. ADVERTISEMENT "I really felt her in the writing of [Dead Ahead], and I really felt her pushing me and guiding us." Nancy Brunning at the 66th Berlinale International Film Festival Berlin in 2016 (Source: AFP) Performing in te reo Māori plays with Brunning as a younger man, Cotter says he discovered the wairua (spirit) of words. "There's wairua in kupu (Māori words) - how we say it, how we feel it. It's not just blurting words out. You've got to put it in, feel it, hold it." Still on "that hikoi journey" of learning te reo, Cotter now studies online via Te Wānanga o Aotearoa. He hopes Dead Ahead will "gently introduce" te reo words and phrases to viewers who may not know them. "By the end of the season, hopefully they can understand and use kupu and te reo Māori in their everyday life." ADVERTISEMENT In the show, he attempts to show a "less Disneyfied" picture of Māori spirituality, including the role of kēhua (ghosts), which he sensed after his grandmother died. "The sense of not seeing tūpuna but having a sense of them there is what I really wanted to touch on. "It's my gentle way of showing people how we whakanoa [remove tapu from] ourselves." Fun fact: Saturday Morning presenter Mihi Forbes was Scotty Cotter's inspiration for the Dead Ahead character Meremereana (Kura Forrester) - an award-winning journalist who "just knows what's up". Dead Ahead was made with the support of NZ On Air and Te Māngai Pāho. Watch it on TVNZ+
Newsroom
19 hours ago
- Newsroom
A shot at medicine leads to a shot in the Black Sticks
Early in the new year, Nina Murphy made a snap decision that would change the course of her life – in more ways than one. The teenager had a sudden change of heart, ditching her plans to go to university in Brisbane, and choosing to cross the Tasman to Dunedin to pursue her dream to study medicine. Within six months, the promising hockey player – who'd been training in an Australian future squad with an eye to the 2032 Brisbane Olympics – shocked even herself by landing in the Black Sticks. Although the 19-year-old was born and raised on Australia's east coast, her allegiance has always been clear. With two Kiwi parents, Murphy was a self-declared New Zealander from the start, so pulling on the black dress to play the United States in North Carolina this week won't feel strange. 'As a little kid – and I was quite a cocky little kid – I'd always tell people 'I want to play for the Black Sticks',' she says. 'I think it may have been out of spite. I was the only daughter [of four] born in Australia, and maybe I wanted to show them I was actually the true New Zealander. If we went to an All Blacks-Wallabies game, I'd always go for the All Blacks. 'There's a photo of me at the 2022 Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast, when the Kookaburras were playing the Black Sticks men in the final – I was head-to-toe in black and white. Whenever I come to New Zealand, I always feel so at home. 'So you can see I'm super stoked to be playing for New Zealand – and I don't think it's going to be weird at all.' Murphy, an attacking midfielder, is the only debutant in the Black Sticks (ranked 10th in the world), who'll play five matches against the world No.14 Americans, at the start of their road to next year's World Cup. She caught the eye of Black Sticks coach Phil Burrows with her stand-out performance at the Junior Hockey League in Auckland in April, playing for the Alpiners, and named MVP of the U21 tournament. Nina Murphy playing for Queensland U18s. Photo: supplied She was sitting her exams in her health sciences first year course, when she got the call from Burrows. 'He said, 'You're coming to the USA',' she recalls. 'I was focusing on so many things at once, it was crazy. 'The main thing he wanted to stress to me is that I deserve to be there. He probably thought I'd be like, 'This is a bit sudden, do I deserve to be here? Is this a rushed decision?' But he definitely made me feel like he was picking me on my talent, after seeing me play in the Junior Hockey League.' And Burrows has made it clear Murphy won't be just warming the bench in Charlotte over the next 12 days. 'Nina brings explosive speed, sharp technical skill, and a fearless attacking mindset – she's set to make a serious impact in her debut,' he says. Those talents had already put her on the radar for future international honours in Australia. It's just the Black Sticks beat them to it. Murphy started playing hockey at six, at the Casuarina club on the north coast of New South Wales. She and some school mates at Lindisfarne Anglican Grammar School were trying to figure out what sport to play. Where it all began: Nina Murphy's first season of hockey at the NSW Casuarina club. Photo: supplied 'One mum suggested we should get into netball, then another mum said, 'Nah, let's do hockey',' Murphy says. 'It was a bit of a hockey school, although the sport wasn't really that popular where we lived. In senior school, I was one of the only kids in my grade who played hockey. A lot of the girls in our school team didn't want to play sport, but they just had to choose one. 'I played other sports – a bit of rugby, football and touch. But hockey always seemed to work a little better for me.' After her family moved to the Gold Coast, Murphy played her way right through the Queensland age groups – as well as in indoor hockey. Last year she was selected by former Black Sticks coach Mark Hager for Australia's National Future Squad, looking ahead to the next generation of Hockeyroos for the 2032 Brisbane Olympics. 'It was awesome to get that acknowledgement. It meant training with the Queensland Academy of Sport up in Brisbane, which was so good for my hockey,' Murphy says. 'But it was an hour-and-a-half drive to Brisbane four days a week, sometimes after school. 'So when I got to New Zealand, the hockey here just got me excited for it all over again. The change has been good. 'Everything else was so new to me – going to uni, living in a hall, in a different country. But the one thing that was constant was hockey, and I could rely on it and just enjoy it.' Murphy is proud of her Māori whakapapa – her iwi Te Aitanga ā Māhaki, her hapū Te Whānau a Taupara. In 2023 she played in the NZ Māori hockey tournament for Tairāwhiti Wāhine Hinehakirirangi. 'That tournament really helped me become more immersed [in Māoritanga]. I was worried I'd feel like an outsider, but it was such a great experience. I'll definitely play it again this year.' Nina Murphy can now spend more time with her Kiwi grandmother, Dot Finnigan. Photo: Chris Hancock It was during a visit to whānau, and her marae, Takipu, inland from Gisborne, last summer that she decided to move to New Zealand. She had planned to go to Brisbane to study physiotherapy or radiography, and play hockey, this year. 'I had it all sorted, with a place to live with a few of my school mates,' she says. 'But when I came over here, family were asking what my plan was, and I realised I wasn't that passionate about it. On the last day of an amazing holiday, my cousin's boyfriend was talking about his awesome experience studying medicine at Otago. I hadn't thought about that option, but suddenly – in a 20-second period – my whole life changed. 'It was like a huge door opened for me. I didn't get much sleep that night, I was applying for Health Sci and starting my application for halls in Dunedin.' It made sense for Murphy – whose parents, Reta and Paul ('childhood sweethearts'), both studied at Otago. 'They loved the Dunedin lifestyle, so that helped reassure me,' Murphy says. 'I've heard some crazy stories about how competitive health science at Otago is, people burn each other's notes, or set alarms in people's buildings so they wake up the night before an exam. I'm very grateful I've had no experiences like that.' She hopes to study medicine next year. She's playing club hockey for the Kings United club in Dunedin, and says the experience has been different. 'I can't put a word on why it's different, but it just is – and not in a bad way. The people are all really friendly here,' she says. 'When I went to play in the Junior Hockey League and I knew no one, I didn't feel like a stranger.' Murphy is likely to play for another New Zealand team this year, selected in the squad working towards the Junior World Cup in Chile in December. 'It's always been a goal of mine to play at the Junior World Cup, so hopefully I'll be lucky enough to go,' she says. Has she allowed herself to look ahead to next year's World Cup, or future Olympics? 'This is all just so new for me, I feel like I want to own my place first,' she says. 'I really want to play the best I can to make sure Phil knows he made the right choice, before I think about the Olympics. My goal was to make the Junior World Cup… so maybe my goals might need a little adjusting.' The Black Sticks are using this series – three practice matches and two tests starting on Thursday – to build up to the Oceania Cup against Australia in September, where the winners earn a direct route to next year's World Cup, split between Belgium and the Netherlands.
Scoop
2 days ago
- Scoop
TVNZ And TEG Sport Bring Winter Of Football To New Zealand Fans This July
TVNZ has partnered with TEG Sport to bring New Zealand audiences the Winter of Football this July, showcasing global football talent across seven epic matches. Viewers can enjoy Wrexham's Down Under tour, Singapore Festival of Football and Hong Kong Festival of Football live and free across TVNZ+, TVNZ 2 and DUKE. The highly anticipated Wrexham Down Under Tour for the Red Dragons kicks off against A-League runners-up Melbourne Victory on 11 July, followed by Sydney FC on 15 July. As one of the oldest football clubs in the world, the Welsh side recently celebrated its record-breaking third promotion in the English Football League since Rob McElhenney and Ryan Reynolds purchased the club in 2021. The tour's final whistle will be in Te Whanganui-a-Tara, with the Wellington Phoenix going head-to-head with Phil Parkinson's side at SKY Stadium on Saturday 19 July. Produced by TVNZ, this match promises to showcase some of Aotearoa's homegrown talent as they take on Wrexham in the capital. TVNZ and TEG Sport will also bring late-night football fever to Kiwis, with Singapore and Hong Kong's Festival of Football, with legendary football clubs including Arsenal FC, Tottenham Hotspur FC and Newcastle United battling it out. Liverpool FC, fresh off winning the English Premier League, will provide a thrilling match-up against European heavyweights, AC Milan. Melodie Robinson, Head of Sports, Events, & Partnerships said: 'Kiwis love football, and the huge viewership of UEFA EUROs on TVNZ+ in 2024 proves it. We're excited to partner with TEG Sport to bring top-tier clashes into homes across the motu this July, showcasing football from across the world.' Rachael Carrol, Managing Director TEG Sport, said: 'We're excited to deliver seven blockbuster matchups across four countries, showcasing nine top-tier clubs from some of the world's biggest leagues. While not everyone can experience them live, it's fantastic that fans in New Zealand can catch all the action free on TVNZ. It's set to be a huge winter of football, and we're proud to bring these games home to local supporters.' All games will be available live and replayed on TVNZ+, with Wrexham AFC vs Wellington Phoenix on TVNZ 2 and the international matches airing on DUKE. The full schedule is available below. Wrexham Down Under: Wrexham AFC vs Melbourne Victory, Friday 11 July, 9:30pm on TVNZ+ and TVNZ DUKE Wrexham AFC vs Sydney FC, Tuesday 15 July, 9:30pm on TVNZ+ and TVNZ DUKE Wrexham AFC vs Wellington Phoenix, Saturday 19 July, 5:00pm on TVNZ+ and TVNZ 2 Singapore Festival of Football: Arsenal FC vs AC Milan, Wednesday 23 July, 11:30pm on TVNZ+ and TVNZ DUKE Arsenal FC vs Newcastle United, Sunday 27 July, 11:30pm on TVNZ+ and TVNZ DUKE Hong Kong Festival of Football: Liverpool FC vs AC Milan, Saturday 26 July, 11:30pm on TVNZ+ and TVNZ DUKE Arsenal FC vs Tottenham Hotspur FC, Thursday 31 July, 11:30pm on TVNZ+ and TVNZ DUKE
