Fair Go’s Pippa Wetzell reveals her unlikely secret for top TV entertainment.
When popular TVNZ presenter Pippa Wetzell (below) fronts with co-host Hadyn Jones, she invariably comes across as composed and elegant. But that is not always the case, as Cass Marrett finds.
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Fair Go’s Pippa Wetzell is a self-proclaimed clutz, admitting she can be clumsy and awkward at times. Such a belief is reinforced when she falls off the edge of her seat as we begin our interview.
Despite her poised on-screen persona, she explains it’s actually these natural moments that can end up as highly entertaining TV.
“I’ve often believed that the muck-ups are the things that turn into TV gold,” Wetzell says. “So I sometimes think it’s the imperfections that can make a programme really wonderful ... I think that they (viewers) want to watch people who they can relate to and we all stuff up.”
Pippa admits she had several “Oh, my goodness” moments in her role as a Breakfast television presenter and being seasick on an America’s Cup boat 20 years ago with TV cameras aboard was another memorable time for all the wrong reasons. Relating to people and good TV are certainly at the heart of what makes Fair Go so successful. The show started in 1977 and is the second-longest-running local series in New Zealand (the first is Country Calendar) and does not look like slowing down. “It’s part of our vocabulary ‘Fair Go’,” says Wetzell. “It’s something that New Zealanders own. It’s something that’s now been passed on from generation to generation. “People remember their parents talking about watching it when they were younger.” Wetzell, who began with TVNZ in 1990 on the
‘graveyard shift’ and has worked in roles across Breakfast, Business, Midday and One News, says she is surprised at the number of young people Fair Go is reaching.
“Young people are now incredibly aware,” she says.
Early in Fair Go’s new season, a story was aired about students who were having trouble with electricity giant Trustpower.
“They joke about it all the time,” says Wetzell. “If someone can’t get the lid off the jar they go, ‘Better call Fair Go’. And then this issue comes up and one of them said, ‘We should actually call Fair Go’.”
That appeal to a younger audience indicates why Fair Go is now more relevant than ever.
“In my day, to be honest, when I was in my early 20s, the main factor when you were purchasing something was cost,” says Wetzell.
“Whereas now, wonderful young people are really engaged with so much more than that. ‘Where did this product come from? How is it produced? Is it sustainable?’ A programme like Fair Go speaks to all those sorts of issues.”
Like the masses who write into the show with consumer qualms, Wetzell admits to finding story inspiration in her own everyday life.
“I was talking with a friend who is a vet about buying a dog and I was thinking, ‘Gosh there’s much more to this than I originally thought. Maybe there’s a story in that’.
“So that’s on the list of things we might look at doing – how to buy a dog, pet insurance, those sorts of things.”
Wetzell also makes it clear she has no plans to buy a dog.
It’s apparent that being the face of a consumer rights show has not exonerated Wetzell from having to solve a few problems herself.
“There are often situations where you think, ‘I’m a bit confused about what my rights are here’. If I’m confused and I know a lot about consumer law – I do this for a living – then Joe Bloggs out there must be really confused.” And while Wetzell has not been seriously ripped off before, she has come close.
“There was one very near miss with a travel scam a couple of years ago where there was just a tiny inkling in the back of my head and I thought, ‘Something feels wrong about this’. We ended up really backtracking and realising it was a scam but I was very nearly caught out in that situation.”
Wetzell explains a lot of the issues that come to Fair Go are not about what went wrong, but how the situation was dealt with afterwards.
“I’m really mindful in the sort of dealings I have and think, ‘That could have gone down a different path but the communication has been right or company X has dealt with this in the right way and they’ve resolved the issue.”
Such was the case for the students versus Trustpower, which admitted human error and wiped a hefty bill – a happy ending for all.
“To be able to help people in those situations – but also just spread awareness about a whole raft of consumer issues – is really important,” says Wetzell.
“It’s really lovely to know that a show that is 42 years old still has that impact.”