The plucky underdog goes offline, paving the way for a brand new – and experimental – TV news service, writes Stewart Sowman-Lund in today’s extract from The Bulletin. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here.
The curtain falls on Newshub
Nothing in the media scene this year came as more of a shock than the demise of Newshub. At 7pm tonight, the news service will conclude its final bulletin, making way for Stuff’s new Three News to begin tomorrow. To casual viewers of Three, the shift may not be too jarring. But for devoted Newshubbers, there’s a lot at stake – the question of whether Three News can fill the void, or if it will switch people off, remains to be seen. The crucial consistency between the two services is Samantha Hayes, the Newshub host who will be staying on as the face of Three News. She joined Duncan Greive on The Fold this morning for a candid conversation alongside her outgoing co-host Mike McRoberts.
The rocky road that led us here
Long-serving Newshub journalist Adam Hollingworth recently produced an excellent two-part mini documentary for The Detail tracing the rise and fall (and rise and fall and rise and fall) of Newshub. There are so many incredible details, from Mike McRoberts heading into warzones without insurance cover, to the tumultuous years under Mark Weldon that triggered an exodus in high-profile talent. For many, those years are the most memorable, for better or for worse. It saw the end of Campbell Live and the launch of gossip site Scout – Duncan Greive wrote a meaty feature on the inside story of Scout for The Spinoff back in 2015. This period also saw the departure of Hilary Barry and Weldon’s own resignation (there’s an incredible photo of Barry and McRoberts entering the newsroom that day with a box of champagne).
The thread that holds all of these ups and downs together is simply that Newshub has always been the underdog – or perhaps more accurately, a cat with nine lives. It’s why, as described in part two of Hollingworth’s report, Newshub staff consider themselves a “family”, a notion Weldon reportedly objected to. In his piece for The Spinoff yesterday, former Newshub boss Hal Crawford made a similar point, describing the newsroom’s “younger child” mentality coupled with a desire to outperform a lack of funding.
McRoberts, in that interview with Greive out this morning, says it more bluntly: “If you want to be on telly, go to One. If you want to tell stories, come to Three.”
Looking back…
Newshub’s eventual closure, wrote Duncan Greive in February, followed some clear signposts. A wave of resignations and programme changes signalled that the economic headwinds were too strong to avoid. Close to 300 jobs will be lost today.
I spent a very brief six months at Newshub back in 2016. It was the newsroom I had always wanted to work in, and the one I always hoped I’d end up in again one day. Many of the most prominent broadcasters have been writing this week about their time at Newshub, such as Patrick Gower, Amanda Gillies and sports presenter Andrew Gourdie, while for paid subscribers of his Webworm newsletter, David Farrier has also delved into the archive.
It’s worth remembering that while a lot of the attention is on Newshub Live at 6pm, today is also the end of AM – it’s currently broadcasting its final show. Co-host Melissa Chan-Green has paid tribute to the show she’s worked on since 2022, reflecting on the power of live morning television. If Stuff’s gamble pays off, my hope is we’ll one day see another breakfast programme on Three. It’s not just those in front of the camera, either, with dozens of production staff, camera operators and Newshub’s online team out of work. Newshub’s website will go offline tonight, the Herald’s Shayne Currie recently reported, though the archive will migrate to Stuff.
… And looking forward
Twenty-four hours after Newshub airs for the last time, Three News will launch. Ahead of its debut broadcast, there’s a lot we still don’t know. Duncan Greive asked and tried to answer 14 questions about the new-look show when it was first announced.
In the weeks since, Stuff has recruited a small but formidable team of television journalists, including current political editor Jenna Lynch and journalist Laura Tupou. The politics hires can’t be understated: paired with the likes of Tova O’Brien, Stuff will have arguably the most impressively stacked line-up of political journalists. Lynch tells The Bulletin: “The driving force behind everything we have done [at Newshub] has been to make politics more accessible to people. In that vein I’m determined to bring that same energy to the role I’m stepping into with Stuff.”
As The Spinoff’s Madeleine Holden reported earlier this year, the number of journalism roles in New Zealand has dropped dramatically in recent months, so to have a news show continuing on Three – even in a slimmed down form – is a net positive for the industry. It’s also timed with the long overdue announcement this week of future government support in the form of the Fair Digital News Bargaining Bill (we talked about that on Wednesday). It hopefully paints a more optimistic picture for the future of news in New Zealand than previously anticipated, though one that remains deeply uncertain. Newsroom’s Mark Jennings, in April, said that while Three owners Warner Bros Discovery have “de-risked” the news operation by passing it on, “the onus is now on Stuff to provide a news product that stands up to viewer scrutiny”. Mediawatch’s Colin Peacock put it bluntly this week, asking “Do we still care about the 6pm TV news?” It could be some time before we know for sure.