What do the changes at TVNZ mean for hosts Pippa Wetzell, Jenny Suo and Chris Chang?
Wednesday, 10 April 2024
TVNZ confirmed on Tuesday the cancellation of three shows: Fair Go, Midday and Tonight.
Those cancellations will mean a slew of positions being made redundant, including producers, directors, editors and other behind-the-scenes positions - and three presenting roles currently held by high-profile TVNZ talent.
Who are Pippa Wetzell, Jenny Suo and Chris Chang, and what could be next for them?
Pippa Wetzell
Wetzell, who holds a Bachelor of Communications degree from AUT, has been with TVNZ since the tender age of 21.
After starting out on the overnight assignments desk for 1 News, she was a junior meet-and-greet assistant on Breakfast before becoming a reporter on that show. She did a stint as a reporter on the 6 o’clock bulletin before taking over the co-host seat from Kay Gregory.
Her first baby was just 7 months old at the time, and Wetzell told the Australian Women’s Weekly in 2018 that she had considered turning down the role.
'I look back on that now and do see it as a kind of sliding door moment,“ she said. ”If I hadn't taken that opportunity, what would I be doing? It was a really big call and I can remember being heartbroken that I wasn't going to be there in the mornings with my baby, because that certainly wasn't how I had pictured my life going.'
As it was, Wetzell presented Breakfast alongside Paul Henry, then, following his departure after a series of offensive on-air comments, Greg Boyed and Rawdon Christie, from 2007 until 2010. Since joining Fair Go in 2013 she has filled in regularly on Seven Sharp and was in one of the two hosting bubbles Breakfast split into during the first Covid-19 lockdown.
That makes Wetzell one of TVNZ’s more experienced journalists and hosts.
There was a beacon of hope for Fair Go in Tuesday’s announcement. Following feedback.
A new proposal is on the table which would see four new roles created that would “take the lead on long-form consumer and current affairs reporting for TVNZ’s current and future digital products” with “an opportunity for this team to continue reporting under the Fair Go brand”.
The current on-air talent team at Fair Go has a headcount of five, which could make filling those four roles awkward. Wetzell is the face of Fair Go, but she might be might be much more senior (and expensive - TVNZ is taking cost-cutting cuts, let’s remember) than required by these jobs.
If she doesn’t want or isn’t offered one - or the proposal doesn’t go through - Wetzell could still find ad hoc work at TVNZ as a ring-in for shows like Breakfast, 1 News at 6, and Seven Sharp, all of which live on, for now at least.
Jenny Suo
Suo’s interest in journalism was sparked when, as a 14-year-old Pakuranga College student, she and a classmate discovered, in the course of conducting an experiment for a school science fair, that consumers had been misled about the amount of Vitamin C in Ribena.
The story was picked up by international news outlets and became something of a media circus.
“It was just three weeks of people just calling me non-stop,” Suo told Stuff in 2021. “And this wasn’t just New Zealand. It was all over the world. I think German media and UK media were calling me in the middle of the night.”
After attending the New Zealand Broadcasting School, China-born Suo landed a role at Three, where she was a reporter for 3 News (now Newshub Live at 6pm) and later hosted Newshub Late.
Suo has been hosting TVNZ’s late news since early 2019. Like Wetzell, she was a lockdown presenter for Breakfast, and has been a back-up Breakfast host since then.
What a future at TVNZ might look like for Suo is unclear. She might be an attractive proposition for those new roles, or she could be reabsorbed into the 1 News reporting team, if there’s a space for her.
But Suo is a keen traveller - she lived in the US for a year about a decade ago and regularly posts shots from her holidays and tramps on her Instagram feed (she missed learning about the August 2021 level 4 lockdown because she was on a solo tramp with no reception). If she loses her job, maybe Suo will check out TV news presenting roles overseas.
Chris Chang
Of all the presenters whose jobs are under threat following Tuesday’s announcement, Chang can be the most confident of having a job come June.
Not because Midday will be back - it won’t - but because Chang has been part of the core Breakfast presenting team for over a year.
Before joining Breakfast following Indira Stewart’s departure, Chang was best known as a sports reporter.
He has spent his whole career at TVNZ, beginning with an internship after Wellington-born Chang completed a post-graduate journalism diploma at AUT.
A self-described “fairly sporty” person who plays football, tennis and squash, Chang was a sports reporter at 1 News, then picked up extra duties as weekend sports presenter, before setting the early morning alarm for Breakfast hosting.
Currently, Midday presenting is the smaller part of Chang’s job; though he’s the sole anchor, he only does it four days a week, and the show only lasts 30 minutes.
Chang’s salary will likely take a hit, but barring another shake-up at Breakfast, Chang’s employment at TVNZ is secure - for now.