Free Darn It! by Christine Murray Page B

going. Regina had worked briefly for the minister implicated in the scandal before she decided to pursue a career in the media instead of politics. Nicki wasn’t sure if she actually knew all that much, but viewers would tune in to see if she had any insider information, and maybe start watching the programme regularly. It would certainly create a buzz, and TV8 needed that.
    But the team would have to make a decision on who was going to take over Regina’s slot sooner than either Alva or Nicki had banked on. She glanced over at Alva, who was already giving her an appraising look, sizing up the competition and probably finding it lacking. She clearly thought that she had it in the bag. And she probably did.
    ‘So whoever gets this position, will have to start from next week, is that right?’ asked Alva. She could barely contain her glee; in fact she was more animated than Nicki had ever seen her. It might be the first genuine emotion that she’d ever seen cross her face.
    ‘That’s right,’ said Kenny. ‘As you know, we intend to promote in house for this role. It’s part of our ethos here at TV8 that we try to nurture our existing talent, rather than looking outside.’ This was a nice way of saying that they were too cheap to use a recruitment company.
    ‘We had many applications, but the two strongest were Nicki and Alva.’
    Runner up, thought Nicki. It could have been worse, though she would have preferred to lose out to any other in person in the building. But that was personally, rather than professionally.
    There was a silence as everybody waited to hear who had got the job. Nicki was better liked by the team – she pulled her weight which was important in a small company like theirs – but nobody particularly wanted to cross Alva. She seemed like a women who was fond of retribution.
    ‘Well?’ said Kenny, surprised that his team wasn’t more animated first thing in the morning. He was so happy he made Mormon missionaries look grumpy. ‘Don’t you want to know who the next head of Focus Hibernia is?’
    ‘Who is it?’ said Greg dully.
    ‘It’s both of them!’ said Ken, screeching happily.
    That was enough to wipe the smug look off Alva’s face. There was no way that sharing the limelight with anyone had been in her plans.
    ‘Wait,’ said Nicki. ‘We’re both going to head up the show?’ The thought of having to share the assignments with Alva made her want to cry. There was no way that Alva would let her talk to the presenters live on the show: that wasn’t how she operated. Not only would she have to spend most of the week with Alva compiling the report, she’d have to sit beside her on the couch like a lemon while Alva stole her thunder. It was an utter nightmare.
    ‘That’s kind of irregular,’ said Danielle, the warm and bubbly host of the programme, and one TV8’s genuine stars. She had no fillers in her face, which made her able to furrow her brow with an impressive amount of concern when listening to the human interest stories that Focus Hibernia was famous for. That was more than could be said for Greg, the other presenter, who had so much Botox in his face that he looked like an exhibit at a wax museum.
    ‘I’m not sure that would work,’ she continued. ‘We’d have four presenters on the set at one time, plus any guests that are brought on to talk about the points raised in the segment. It would be very cluttered, and quite frankly we’d have to fairly squeeze onto those couches.’
    Danielle had a point. Nicki gave her a little smile: Danielle was always the nicer presenter to brief.
    ‘I know that,’ said Kenny impatiently. ‘And I wouldn’t want to do anything to mess with the dynamic. It has good ratings, it works. But the one place it falls down is on getting those viewers to interact with us. That’s the secret of a good programme these days, bringing the viewers online - and that doesn’t happen these days. If TV8 is going to compete in this new market