Toby Manhire joins Duncan Greive on The Fold to discuss a minor diplomatic incident involving Texas senator Ted Cruz, and what it says about the chaotic information space we now operate in. They also discuss former Spinoff writer Madeleine Holden's new Substack, which launched with a tirade for the ages about a recent Apple ad; Sky TV's satellite woes and an Auckland Council campaign which could very easily have been something else.

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Glen Kyne returns to The Fold to discuss the first big media news story of the year – NZME's decision to trade some senior text journalists for a sharp increase in video production. Next we discuss the shocking impact of Chinese-AI lab DeepSeek's world-beating LLM performance on a shoestring budget, Acast's big Between Two Beers podcast pickup and finally how a big success for TVNZ reveals a deeper challenge of video in a digital context.

The Fold Live

For the first time ever we are putting on a live version of The Fold on 20th February at the Hannah Playhouse in Wellington. Join host Duncan Greive, Bernard Hickey (journalist and host of podcast When the Facts Change) and Lucy Blakiston (CEO and cofounder of Gen Z media company Shit You Should Care About) for a lighthearted chat about media, culture and the creator economy. This show is part of the NZ Fringe Festival, you can get your tickets now at thespinoff.co.nz/events

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The Fold is taking a break over summer. We’ll be back soon with new episodes but, until then, here’s one of our favourites from 2024:

Anna Rawhiti-Connell is head of audience for The Spinoff, but spent most of the last decade working in social media for BNZ and the Auckland Theatre Company. She joins Duncan for a deep dive into the changing nature and shape of social platforms – specifically what happened to links, and therefore traffic.

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The Spinoff’s resident social media philosopher queen, Anna Rawhiti-Connell, joins Duncan Greive to recap an epochal month in the geopolitics of social media. They talk about Meta’s hard pivot into the MAGA worldview, and what that might mean for audiences and advertisers. Then, examine the fraught status of TikTok in the US, and think about how it might play out. Finally they look at Shayne “Media Insider” Currie’s 25 predictions for 2025, and make their own predictions based on his predictions. All that, plus very quick hits on Luke Combs and SailGP.

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The Fold is taking a break over summer. We’ll be back soon with new episodes but, until then, here’s one of our favourites from 2024:

In an effort to get out of his doom spiral, Duncan Greive takes a tour across the Tasman to see how our close neighbours are dealing with a similar set of challenges. From a social media ban, to local content quotas, to news bargaining, to an activist competition authority, Australia is a global leader, while New Zealand is nowhere to be found.

In the first of two episodes focused on Australia, former Newshub boss Hal Crawford joins Duncan to discuss a raft of legislation aimed at big tech, which has either been proposed or passed – sometimes with bipartisan support.

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The Fold is taking a break over summer. We’ll be back soon with new episodes but, until then, here’s one of our favourites from 2024:

Glenn McDonald spent more than a decade with a very mysterious and specific job title: data alchemist at Spotify. It's possible – even likely – that no one on Earth knows as much about music streaming. He is in New Zealand for the Going Global music industry conference, and joins Duncan Greive on The Fold to talk about how Spotify does and doesn't work for artists, why Spotify doesn't stretch your listening habits, and what he really thinks about its big move into podcasting and audiobooks.

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The Fold is taking a break over summer. We’ll be back soon with new episodes but, until then, here’s one of our favourites from 2024:

The 2024 edition of NZ on Air's Where are the Audiences is a bombshell – largely because so little has changed. The past decade has been characterised by a sharp and consistent rise in UGC, social and SVOD platforms, while local media has slid precipitously. This year that slide has arrested – and in some cases reversed.

Duncan Greive is joined by The Spinoff's Ātea editor Liam Rātana, dissecting the findings as they take turns drafting their five favourite data points from WATA 2024.

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The Fold is taking a break over summer. We’ll be back soon with new episodes but, until then, here’s one of our favourites from 2024:

Friday July 4 marked the end of Newshub, an organisation that has been around for 35 years, and has a strong case as the most original and idiosyncratic newsroom this country has ever known. Sam Hayes and Mike McRoberts have more than 40 years’ combined experience at Three, and join Duncan Greive on The Fold to look back across the history of 3 News, and assess its singular culture and some crucial moments along the path to this sad goodbye.

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The Fold is taking a break over summer. We’ll be back soon with new episodes but, until then, here’s one of our favourites from 2024:

Alec Kieft makes games for "YouTube for gaming" platform Roblox, including Break-In, a smash hit that has been played more than two billion times by 80 million people. The platform is wildly popular with pre-teens, and is widely considered the closest thing to an operating metaverse that exists in the world today. Kieft joins Duncan Greive on The Fold to explain what drives the culture and economy of this hidden world.

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Glen Kyne returns to join Duncan Greive on The Fold for an epic year in review, going deep on all the big storylines that defined a year which broke New Zealand's media. Including, but by no means limited to: the end of Newshub, Sunday and Fair Go; the downsizing of Shortland Street and challenges to the productions sector; a dive into Australia's approach to big tech; assessments of every major mainstream media company, the advertising and media agency sector and a pair of predictions for the first half of 2025. All in 77 action-packed minutes!

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