Why Sunrise really failed

There’s been lots written about why Sunrise failed. The most humouros involve the powerful Rick Giles. The most modest theory though comes from Bomber Bradbury:

TV3 never set out to offer an alternative to what was already being offered, which is why initially the appointment of Oliver Driver (after his amazing work doing 30minute political interviews on Alt Tv) had such a ratings reaction, finally a liberal alternative to Breakfast. Sadly once I stopped writing the questions for Oliver, he quickly fell back into the dumb TV that saw Sunrise bleed away to nothing.

So there we have it – why TV3, Sunrise and Oliver Driver all failed.

I watched the farewell episode today. Lots of good humour, and was a good send off. While Oliver’s politics would frustrate me, I don’t regard it as a good thing to have less choice and competition in news.