The Fold

By The SpinoffSociety & Culture Business News News Commentary

The Fold episodes

September 21 The Fold Finale: The seven biggest media stories of the last seven years
To cap off The Fold, Glen Kyne joins Duncan Greive one last time. The pair pick the seven biggest media stories of the seven years The Fold was around, and rank them according to impact.
Then, that's all folks – listen to At Large with Toby Manhire, where Duncan and Glen will show up when major media stories break.

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1 hr 16 min
September 14 What is marketing transformation – and why is it suddenly everywhere?
Rachel Bayfield – Chief Transformation Officer at Omnicom NZ, Sam Sherson – Chief Technology Officer at PHD Aotearoa and Cale Maxwell – Oceania CEO at Credera join Duncan Greive for an episode of The Fold presented in partnership with PHD Aotearoa.
Marketing transformation is fast becoming the buzz word of 2026. We’ve reached the point where audiences are increasingly fragmented and expecting more relevant marketing messages. Marketers need to harness data, as well as technology to deliver on the experiences customers expect and the business outcomes their leadership expect. But today, marketing teams are not built on operating models and workflows that can meet these demands.
Omnicom Media NZ & PHD are actively speaking to clients about our collective view of the future, and what we need to have in place both as agency partner and brand marketing team to enable us to continue to grow in that landscape. In this conversation, we unpack what that view of the future is, and the key enablers for both brands and agencies.

Submit your questions for the final mailbag episode ⁠here⁠ before 5pm on Wed 16 September.

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46 min
September 07 Reviewing result for NZME, Sky, TVNZ and RNZ – plus a big announcement about The Fold
Glen Kyne joins Duncan Greive on the Fold to talk about three very different sets of recent results, plus RNZ's surging audience numbers. They also address the fishhooks in Meta’s big US settlement, and give a view on Mediaworks' new owners. The episode starts, however, with big news about the future of The Fold.

Submit your questions for the final mailbag episode here before 5pm on Wed 16 September.

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50 min
August 31 Where are the young audiences?
NZ on Air’s Where are the Audiences study now breaks out a standalone project focused solely on young audiences. It surveyed 360 New Zealanders in the 15-24 bracket, and the results came out a few days ago. Duncan Greive is joined once again by James Davidson, chief strategy and planning officer at PHD Aotearoa, who are The Fold’s partners for this episode, to break down what this data tells us.

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41 min
August 17 Australia continues to lead the world in responding to big tech. How about us?
BusinessDesk’s Peter Griffin joins Duncan Greive on The Fold to discuss the big storylines at the intersection of technology and media. These include the latest iteration of the news media bargaining code, the under 16 social media ban, the growing wave of opposition to data centres – all of which feature New Zealand lagging, often badly. Plus what’s really going on with the story of OpenAI’s model breaching its sandbox.

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57 min
August 11 Where are the Audiences? For the first time in two years, we have the answer
Regular Fold listeners know that the release of NZ on Air’s ‘Where are the Audiences?’ media research is the biggest day of the media year. Duncan Greive is joined by PHD’s chief planning and strategy officer, James Davidson, to pick their 10 favourite insights from this year’s extremely interesting edition.
This episode is presented in partnership with PHD Aotearoa.

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49 min
August 07 Christopher Luxon’s communication problem
Follow At Large with Toby Manhire now on ⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠ or wherever you get your podcasts.

The prime minister got a shock when he saw the media coverage of his breakfast meeting with Rotorua businesspeople – it talked of him scolding them about a “parent-child mentality” in government-business relations, urging “adult” behaviour and recounting his own attitude in Chicago corporate life. So his office issued a transcript of the exchange, which didn’t much help. Duncan Greive, founder of The Spinoff, joins Toby (with a cameo from Claude AI) to discuss the PM’s communication challenges, and his ongoing struggle to take any grip of the narrative.

(Since this podcast was recorded, Luxon has apologised for the remarks.)

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7 min
August 03 Was I wrong about the NZ Herald’s strategy? (I was)
Glen Kyne returns to The Fold for the first time since May to check in with the two goliaths of New Zealand’s commercial digital news media: Stuff and the NZ Herald. The Herald has launched a new app and more tightly integrated video into its offer; Stuff is trying hyper local and reaping the early benefits of its bold appointment of Matthew Hooton as editor of The Post.
Noteworthy: Duncan is forced to eat a medium portion of humble pie.

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44 min
July 27 How TVNZ won the Fifa World Cup
Melodie Robinson is TVNZ’s head of sports and events, and joins Duncan Greive on The Fold to discuss the truly astounding performance of the recently concluded Fifa World Cup on streaming. The pair discuss the tournament pass, what the new TVNZ+ unlocks from a data and advertising point of view, and what rugby can learn from Fifa and the NRL. They also chat about Robinson’s huge new role at Amazon, leading cloud integrations for sports leagues.

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40 min
July 23 How’s that under-16 social media ban going for you, Australia?
As Christopher Luxon declares he’ll “die trying” to get something done in banning social media for New Zealand children under 16, it’s a good time to ask: how is the pioneering Australian prohibition going? Hal Crawford, editorial director at Mumbrella and former boss of Newshub NZ, joins Toby to explain, seven months in, what is working, what isn’t, and what he’d say to the NZ PM if he was called into the Beehive.
Plus: in How Good, Robbie Nicol goes on a journey. To the Imax. To watch Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey.
Follow At Large with Toby Manhire now on ⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠ or wherever you get your podcasts.

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35 min