NZME Supports the Best of Kiwi Talent

NZME SUPPORTS THE BEST OF KIWI TALENT WTH THE LAUNCH OF WATCHME AND A NEW BROADCAST PRODUCTION STUDIO, NZME VISION

25 November 2015 – NZME (New Zealand Media and Entertainment) has had a strong year in video content growth launching more than 12,000 videos in 2015 which by the end of the year will have been viewed over 42 million times. Off the back of this increase NZME has invested in facilities and capabilities to generate custom content for clients across all platforms. Group Revenue Director, Laura Maxwell says the creation of NZME Vision is exciting for New Zealanders and clients.

“By 2019, video will make up 80% of internet traffic and one million minutes of video will be consumed online every second of the day*. The creation of this unit will allow us to meet that growing demand. With 27% of Kiwis viewing video online every week, a 44% year-on-year growth, advertisers are aligning their budgets to this key growth area, now we are a truly one-stop shop for their advertising solution.*”

The NZME Vision leadership team has strong pedigree in visual content with it being commercially led by Cameron Death and creatively led by talented broadcasters and producers Jeremy Wells and Matt Heath. While a New Zealander, Death has been in the States for over 20 years innovating marketing and content businesses where for more than a decade he ran digital products at Microsoft and was Senior Vice President and General Manager at NBCUniversal Digital Studio and was Chief Revenue Officer for CORE Media Group. Heath and Wells both have run their own production companies for the last 15 years as well as being experienced radio personalities including currently on the Radio Hauraki Breakfast.

Heath has a motion graphics company Vinewood which made Back of the Y and a feature film – The Devil Dared Me To, which he also co-wrote and acted in. In addition to this Matt has worked as a producer on a number of shows for TVNZ, TV3 and Channel Four in the UK including Balls of Steel UK, Feedback and Best Bits. He is also a columnist for the New Zealand Herald.

Wells shot to fame in Eating Media Lunch also starring in The Unauthorised History of New Zealand. His company Perendale TV produced The Grand Tour with the NZSO and Meridian’s TVCs which Jeremy hosts.

In addition, NZME is launching WatchMe (watchme.co.nz), a video-on-demand service driven by the NZME Vision team. Head of Entertainment, Dean Buchanan says the insight behind this launch was an overwhelming gap in the New Zealand market for a platform to support locally created content and talent.

“We want to encourage, identify and grow more creative talent in the New Zealand market. There has been limited opportunity and platforms to showcase what New Zealand producers, film makers and creative talent can do. WatchMe’s comedy offering will be fully curated by Matt and Jeremy, their reputation in this area has resulted in significant interest and demand for involvement already.”

Wells says that while the platform will start with a small range of homegrown comedy pieces, NZME has plans to extend in number of shows and across the news and sport verticals also.

“Formats have changed. People don’t sit down for a scheduled length of time any more, if something is funny for five minutes then that is what it is. WatchMe is all about delivering video entertainment the way people want it today plus it’s free to view.”

Heath believes that there is a clear space for a New Zealand video-on-demand platform.

“We want to be involved in fun, short content made by Kiwis for Kiwis. For example, we find stupid stunts amusing and so do a lot of 18-25-year-old males so we made Stuntline, which is a four minute show that mixes the topics of the day with basically jumping off things. The luxury of this platform is that you can try a show easily and if people love it, we make a lot more episodes. If they hate it we try something else. We can seed shows, get real numbers and the audience chooses whether we make more or not. That’s the beauty of online. It’s a great job.”

Shows include The Civilian, which takes Ben Uffindell’s hugely popular satirical news site (with over 35,000 followers) of the same name, into a video series. There will be a new series of Leigh Hart’s Late Night Big Breakfast and The Adventures of Suzy Boon - a half Chinese, half Maori young woman in the last week of her trial period at the Immigration Service of New Zealand, where the stakes are high and work is getting in the way of life.

Death confirmed NZ On Air recently announced their support for a number of programmes scheduled to appear on WatchMe.

“We’re thrilled with the support from NZ on Air and their commitment to New Zealand produced content. Now we have the complete proposition for clients to innovate.

Mawell highlighted, “Content is our core business and now clients can tap into our customised content creation skill sets across audio, visual, print, digital, events and experiential and we can deliver the content on or off our assets.”

Maxwell confirmed that NZME Vision has already won commercial projects working with BNZ and AA Smart Fuel to name a couple.

WatchMe launched Tuesday 24 November on www.watchme.co.nz

See attached synopsis of shows.

SOURCES:

*Cisco Visual Networking Index 2014 – 2019 Forecast

**Nielsen CMI, May 2015 fused database, Nielsen NZ Multi-screen report, 2015.

ENDS

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