While The Spinoff labelled the show an “instant classic” as soon as it aired in 2018, Smith reveals in today’s Media Insider podcast that a promo for the show sat on a shelf, gathering dust for months.
A couple of TVNZ people didn’t want the show to go ahead: “They just thought it was rubbish.”
“We did have our supporters within TVNZ,” says Smith, who adds that the network is a big champion of the show today. “There were just a couple of detractors.”
Smith reveals in today’s podcast the desperate tactic he used to get the show to air and the secret of its phenomenal success.
Smith is one of our most influential and important screen producers and media industry advocates – Great Southern Television has more than 70 titles to its name.
Alongside The Casketeers are the likes of comedy series Eating Media Lunch, drama series One Lane Bridge and Friends Like Her, and – back in 2008 – the New Zealand version of game show Who Wants to be a Millionaire? hosted by Mike Hosking.
Smith reveals in today’s podcast that insurance covered anyone winning up to $250,000 on Who Wants to be a Millionaire? After that, it was somewhat of a “grey” area.
Smith has a colourful and highly successful background in media, starting out as a cadet reporter at the NZ Herald before moving to London to work at the Financial Times, and becoming a foreign correspondent in Africa, where he witnessed the horrors of genocide.
He is a writer, a producer, an entrepreneur and a businessman.
He thinks and cares deeply about New Zealand’s place in the world and opens up today on the state of the screen industry and the future direction of both it and the country generally.
And he expands on a point he made in a 9 Questions interview on the NZ Herald’s Great NZ Road Trip last year.
“I am desperately worried that we are becoming a mute society,” he said last year. “There are no forums for lengthy, valuable debate. It’s dividing us. The Hui and Q+A are our only current affairs shows – politicians are not put under the heat lamp in long interviews often enough – preferring meaningless pre-rehearsed sound bites on TikTok. We need to hear their vision. And challenge it. Internationally, we are being frowned upon – where’s your fourth estate?”
Editor-at-Large Shayne Currie is one of New Zealand’s most experienced senior journalists and media leaders. He has held executive and senior editorial roles at NZME including Managing Editor, NZ Herald Editor and Herald on Sunday Editor and has a small shareholding in NZME.
Watch Media Insider – The Podcast on YouTube or listen to it on iHeartRadio, Spotify, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
