Back Benches

Back Benches was a New Zealand political interview show, presented by Wallace Chapman and Damian Christie. It was primarily filmed at the Backbencher pub, across the street from Parliament Buildings in Wellington.

This article is about the New Zealand television show. For other uses, see Backbench (disambiguation).

Back Benches
Presented by
Country of originNew Zealand
Original language(s)English
No. of series3
No. of episodes102 (list of episodes)
Production
Producer(s)Caroline Hall Bruner
Production location(s)Backbencher pub, Wellington
Camera setupMulti-camera
Running time44–50 minutes
Production company(s)TVNZ
Release
Original networkTVNZ 7
Picture format1080i (16:9)
Audio formatStereophonic
Original release2 April 2008 (2008-04-02)
External links
Website
Production website

The show was cancelled on TVNZ 7 in July 2012 when the station was shut down, being replaced with TV ONE +1, a timeshift of TV ONE. The final three episodes were filmed at the Shepherd's Arms Hotel after an after-hours kitchen fire at the Backbencher pub rendered it unusable.[1]

In August 2012, Prime TV expressed interest in reviving the series[2] with a similar format. On 13 September 2012, it was confirmed that Prime would be bringing the show back in February 2013 by one of the show's hosts, Wallace Chapman. On 27 March 2013, the start date for the new series was confirmed as 10 April 2013 by Wallace Chapman and Damian Christie.

On 28 September 2017, it was announced by the producer Caroline Brunner on Twitter that Back Benches had aired its final show. The public agency that funds media, New Zealand On Air, did not renew funding for Back Benches.[3]

Format

Each episode a panel of about three to five people are present on the show. The panel members are usually sitting MPs There is usually one from each of the National and Labour parties, and one from each of two other parties with seats (that is, Green, Māori, Mana, ACT, United Future and New Zealand First, parties).

There is also a summary of political news during the preceding week (from both New Zealand and internationally), a small (10 person) poll of a current issue or controversy, and a 'Who am I?' game where customers present at the pub can guess which sitting MP clues read out are about.

gollark: I don't think a centrally planned system would work *better*.
gollark: I roughly agree with that. Though competence is hard to measure, so people tend to fall back to bad metrics for it.
gollark: Yes, since if you try and talk about nuance or tradeoffs that's interpreted as "you do not agree and therefore must be part of the outgroup". Sometimes.
gollark: There are arguments both ways. On the one hand you're trying to make sure that the people you have match the population, but on the other you're going about hiring people based on factors other than how well they can do the job (though that was... probably going to happen anyway, considering), and people may worry that they got in only because of being some race/gender.
gollark: Also, more than that, political polarization generally.

See also

References
  1. Hunt, Tom (9 June 2012). "Puppets to rise from the ashes". Fairfax Media New Zealand. Retrieved 23 September 2012.
  2. "Prime in line to pickup Back Benches", The Dominion Post, 14 August 2012. Retrieved 14 August 2012.
  3. "Back Benches, the show where politicians debate in a rowdy pub, is dead". Stuff. Retrieved 6 January 2020.
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