Sam Hayes and Mike McRoberts will host their final 6pm news bulletin together on Friday. Photo: Screenshot / Newshub at 6 By Colin Peacock Analysis - ' No-one watches the 6pm news anymore,' many claim. But plenty of people this week read and watched lots in the media about the end of Newshub at 6 - and the start of ThreeNews by Stuff this weekend.
So do we still care about the old-fashioned evening TV news? And if so, what do we want at 6pm? Former broadcaster Paul Henry hosts a new reality game show The Traitors in primetime on Three each Monday. Former colleagues at the channel's news operation may have labelled Henry as one himself recently when he told a conference of ACT Party backers he'd advised his bosses to kill Newshub in 2020. "We don't need to congregate around a TV at 6pm any more to find out who's dead and what the weather will be tomorrow," he said to rich applause.
Henry also said so to actual Newshubbers on one of the last ever AM shows this week. "Sorry guys. If I'd been running the place, I'd have closed it down four or five years ago.
Habits are changing," he told them. They are, but they are also enduring. And national TV still has clout.
Henry is only hosting The Traitors long after his prime because he was a TV news personality in the past. And without a broadcast channel, even big TV personalities fail to launch. Former AM host and 3 News political editor Duncan Garner is a household name.
His new live morning show Editor-in-Chief streams on every poss.
