Lights out . . for good: Newshub's bureaux round the country packed up and locked up early for stuff to head to the big smoke HQ for the last rites and "a wee knees-up." Photo:
Ever since TV3 launched back in 1989, the channel’s staff have brought viewers a 6pm bulletin every single day - up until Friday. Did Newshub at 6 go out with a bang - or a whimper? Was there misty-eyed emotion - or just business as usual? All of the above? Mediawatch tuned in.
“I’ve no idea what the lead will be,” Newshub’s perplexed producer Angus Gillies said in a report about the final bulletin which Three’s viewers were now watching.
As it happened, Newshub at 6 got under way on Friday the way it always does - trailing the top stories.
The eagerly awaited and highly political details of cancer drug funding was first up, followed by the Tories getting trounced out of power after 14 years in the UK.
The end of Newshub after 34 years of news at 6pm on Three came third - with a teasing reference to “one last bombshell” for the service, which has been counting down the days since Warner Brothers Discovery condemned it to death back in March.
It was political buiness-as-usual soon after, with an exclusive report by Amelia Wade. An email showing Southland health workers affected by a hiring freeze had been offered mental health support themselves, putting the prime minister on the spot just a day after a firm pledge to improve failing services.
Ten minutes into Friday's last hurrah, longtime host Mike McRoberts noted the decision on the bulletin's future by what he pointedly called "the American owners", before handing over to Juliet Speedy.
Newshub’s senior South Island reporter was an apt choice for the job.
Speedy reported staff at Newsub’s other bureaux had packed up and locked up their premises and flown north for the finale.
It would be followed by what she called “a wee knees-up” - which would likely be closely observed by other media who have made plenty of content in recent days (like this piece) harvesting public interest in the end of Newshub.
The bombshell?
That was the news that Paddy Gower has Issues will not be back because public funding via NZ on Air will not be forthcoming.
The Newshub spinoff brought current affairs to a broader audience but it was cut off part-way through its planned 20-episode run. The host had told Mediawatch last year he hoped for "another hoon" for ‘an hour of Gower’ this year.
But it wasn't a bombshell for those who’d already read it in the New Zealand Herald today.
“I’m disappointed, but I still believe in journalism and will find a way back!” Gower had said.
Some at Newshub already have.
Juliet Speedy is one of the Newshubbers hired by Stuff for the replacement ThreeNews which debuts on Saturday. So is Angus Gillies and presenter Sam Hayes, while Mike McRoberts is off to a new role at NBR.
But Hayes and Speedy made a point of saying most of those working in what she called “the infamous former cheese factory” were out of work.
Keeping it together
“No tears til 7pm,” Hayes had told Speedy in her report - and she almost got there.
McRoberts then announced the sport and weather would be brought forward for an emotional rummage through the archives to end the final bulletin.
Politicians, including the PM, paid tribute and commiserated in brief soundbites. His deputy flattered Newshub by saying they were better than their better-resourced state-owned rivals (whom Winston Peters has sought to sue a few times down the years, though he didn't mention that).
And there was one odd wrinkle: when outgoing Europe correspondent Lisette Reymer reported on the Labour landslide in the UK from outside 10 Downing Street, she told viewers the result was such a foregone conclusion she had filmed the piece-to-camera they were watching weeks before she returned to New Zealand.
That would have made sense to viewers of the AM show 12 hours earlier, who had seen Reymer in the studio for the emotional finale for that (during which, incidentally, Reymer brought the house down with an unexpectedly scatalogical story about getting caught short outside Westminster just before a Newshub at 6 live cross because of the aftereffects of dengue fever.)
Nicky Styris - also part of the AM finale - reappeared in the rearranged Newshub at 6 sports bulletin to say she was “one for the wahine” in what is still “mainly a lads’ game.”
With 20 minutes to go, the cracks appeared as Sam Hayes cracked up introducing an item about gaming. McRoberts gamely picked it up mid-sentence.
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“Grab the tissues,” he warned viewers as the concluding farewell tribute loomed.
The recorded montage - narrated by McRoberts - kicked in at 6:52pm.
“No journalism gets you closer than TV news.” he said over footage of 9/11.
Then it went back to 1989 and Philp Sherry on the first ever 3 News. Then the Christchurch and Kaikōura quakes, and then election nights featuring Patrick Gower wordplay and graphic gimmicks.
Then floods across the ditch, Cyclone Gabrielle and Liestte Reymer in Ukraine.
There was te reo spoken now and back in the day, and the death of Queen Elizabeth II, where Newshub comprehensively overshadowed TVNZ.
There was footage of New Zealanders winning at the Olympics and the Oscars - and Three news logos, graphics and hairstyles down the years.
And as time ticked away, montages of reporters and presenters cracking up, stuffing up, high-fiving, falling over and getting soaked.
When that dissolved back to the Newshub studio just before 7pm, a choked-up Hayes was clutching the hand of McRoberts and vowing to “stay friends after today”.
“Thank you for being our people,” McRoberts said in Holmesian-fashion, before signing off with the well-known whakataukī ending “. . . he tangata, he tangata, he tangata.”
And as the lights went down for the last time, there was what an audible sob from Hayes before the faders followed suit - and Newshub at 6 crashed into Lego Masters Australia.
Twenty-four hours later, Hayes will be back at the same time in the same studio for the new ThreeNews, with some of the same colleagues.
But that will be produced by Stuff, which has never been a broadcaster before - and will need 'Newshub’s people' to tune in numbers on Saturday - and beyond.