Today FM is set to take on Newstalk ZB in a battle for talk radio supremacy. But in contrast to its controversy-courting crosstown rival, its website is demonstrating a surprisingly tranquil approach to opinion-making.
Tova O'Brien appears in a promo video for Today FM Photo: MediaWorks
On Tuesday, Newstalk ZB’s Mike Hosking delivered a pandemic pronouncement to his almost 500,000 listeners.
"Do you want tourists? Do you want the borders open? Simple question. Answer 75 per cent say yes."
"Why? Because Covid is over. Over in the sense we have done all we can do. We are jabbed, we are mainly boosted, and we have hundreds of thousands of active cases and a comparative handful are in hospital."
News of the pandemic's end would have been a surprise to the two people who died and nearly 22,000 more diagnosed with Covid that day.
But these kinds of provocative expulsions are something of a trademark for Newstalk ZB, which has ridden a wave of often controversial opinion to the top of the talk radio ratings.
Starting tomorrow it faces a new challenge when MediaWorks launches its new talk radio network Today FM.
It's assembled a roster of known names to present at the station including Tova O’Brien, Duncan Garner, Leah Panapa, Mark Richardson and Polly Gillespie.
It's tempting to assume these hosts will be tasked with beating ZB at its own game with their own competing blizzard of contentious takes.
But a look at the station’s website, which went live on Monday this week ahead of its official launch, suggests a slightly different strategy.
Instead of bile on Covid or cycleways, its opinion section is mostly filled with diary entries from the station’s presenters on what they’ve been thinking or doing lately.
Afternoons host Lloyd Burr has written an ode to growing silverbeet, spring onions, and basil on his apartment balcony.
"I made pesto with the basil, which was just outstanding and I've just made soup loaded with Silverbeet and spring onions and some herbs from the garden too. Not the greatest soup I've ever made, but it was awesome because I grew it!" he writes.
Burr isn’t alone in writing about mundanities or minor passions.
A languid scroll from his paeon to home gardening is Rachel Smalley’s first-person essay on deciding to buy a new car. It begins like this…
"I bought a few things online during lockdown. All of them practical. Trolleys of groceries, a garden shovel, plants, compost, and a Tesla."
Smalley says the Tesla purchase came out of a need to take back control over her life amid the impositions of the pandemic.
Not to be outdone, nights host Polly Gillespie has delivered three opinion pieces on one day,
In order, she lists the hip spots in Wellington she’s scared to visit, muses on why veterinarians don’t get paid more, and confesses to struggling to understand people in an age of masks.
The station’s breakfast host Tova O’Brien has just been released from a restraint of trade enforced by her old employer Discovery.
In the website’s opinion section though, she talks about escaping the clutches of a different type of prison - nicotine addiction.
"You are a courageous alpha she-wolf. If your wolf pack senses fear or anxiety then the junior wolf will attack. Stay strong," her piece begins. "It wasn't nicotine patches, cold turkey, or a big night out putting you off ciggies forever - it was a mythical she-wolf that knocked my nicotine habit."
O’Brien goes on to extol the benefits of hypnotherapy.
Meanwhile, newsreader Wilhelmina Shrimpton's opinion piece is inspired by something she saw on social media.
"I saw a tweet the other day, and I don't do this often, but I was compelled to reshare it," her article begins.
Shrimpton's article denounces sexist social attitudes which have led people to believe women can’t be fashionable and professional at the same time.
The website isn’t all personal reflections and social commentary.
There’s still Mark Richardson calling Covid “a nasty head cold that kills a few of the vulnerable” or Duncan Garner accusing us of being “a nation of fatties” in his argument for compulsory PE.
But there’s a noticeable lack of venom, and in some cases, opinion, in the Today FM opinion section.
Maybe that’s just part of the station’s soft launch, a getting-to-know-you period of sorts. Maybe some presenters are just short of things to opine about.
Or it could be a strategy. Today’s architect Dallas Gurney recently gave an interview to media industry website StopPress where he hinted at another reason for the more mellow tone.
In it, he warns of the dangers of talkback hosts using engagement - the raw volume of calls, texts, and other reactions they get - as a measure of success.
"All it does is lead a host to talk about topics they know are going to hit an emotional hot button. Unfortunately, that can be quite unhelpful, and talkback has a bad name as a result of it. We want to restore some credibility," he says.
It could be wishful thinking to believe Today’s hosts will take that to heart.
The temporary ceasefire on controversy will likely end next week when the station fully launches into the cut-and-thrust of weekly political debate.
But in the meantime, it’s nice to see an opinion section in its infancy, almost uncorrupted by cranky takes and contrarianism, where instead of making your blood boil, the main aim appears to be making your basil grow.
