TV3's political editor had timed her resignation for a high stakes launch of the new Today FM talk radio this month – but the television channel's lawyers are fighting to delay her return to the airwaves.
Broadcaster Tova O'Brien is taking her employer Discovery NZ to the Employment Relations Authority today in an eleventh hour legal bid to escape a three-month restraint of trade clause.
At stakes is her high-profile launch of a new MediaWorks radio breakfast show – the date hasn't been publicly confirmed, but is tipped for this month.
That would steal the thunder from the return of TV3's new-look AM Show, which isn't expected back on air until February with its new line-up led by Melissa Chan-Green and Ryan Bridge.
And at issue? Whether her new role as a radio host is materially similar to that of a political journalist, and whether the new radio show competes with the TV show.
Somewhat perversely, until last month they were essentially the same show. Newshub's political editor O'Brien appeared most weeks on the AM Show, broadcast on both TV3 and Magic Talk radio. That was a legacy of when MediaWorks owned both the TV and radio networks – but in September 2020 it sold the TV arm to US-based Discovery and 15 months later the divorce was finalised.
The new MediaWorks boss Cam Wallace announced in November last year that Magic Talk would be mothballed and replaced with Today FM under the leadership of talk radio veteran Dallas Gurney – and proceeded to announce a string of...
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