By LOUISA CLEAVE
What a difference half a day makes - just ask Susan Wood.
After two and a half years rising in the early hours of the morning for TV One's Breakfast, she is about to leap-frog 12 hours to a 5.30 pm live slot.
Today Live is her new show - the third she has kicked-off during her time at TVNZ - and daily from next Monday it looks likely to bring the Larry King style of interviewing to to our screens.
It is no secret that Wood is not a morning person, and she admits that Breakfast served her "pretty awful hours."
Today Live is a chance for Wood to flex her interviewing muscles outside the news-based formats of Breakfast, and also Holmes, where she has been stand-in for Paul Holmes at various times over the past 10 years.
It's also a chance to indulge in some sleep-ins.
She will hand over her Holmes role from Monday to concentrate on Today Live, but says she will continue to cover on Holmes when needed.
Asked to describe the new show, Wood struggles at first to find any local comparison. It's not a show television has tried here before, she says.
But Larry King's interviewing style is a model.
"I like the way he converses. You don't feel you're watching an interview, you feel you're watching a conversation.
"That is a real skill. It's about relaxing people and making them feel comfortable about telling you all sorts of things.
"If I had Helen Clark on we'd be talking to her about her life, how she manages to go to the gym and stay fit and the hours she works."
Despite being handed the reins on the first days of Midday and Breakfast, as well as the lifestyle show Open Home, Wood says she is nervous about her latest role.
"This programme is a little like saying, 'Here's the world, go for it.'"
She says the usual suspects - celebrities, pop stars, musicians, actors and authors - will be common fodder but the rule will be that "interesting" people appear on the show.
"It can't be, 'Hey, here's the greatest author on the planet' if he can't talk.
"It's not meant to be twist-your-arm-up-your-back kind of hard interview sort of stuff.
"But if someone fabulous is coming to town we can have a whole half-hour with them. Now there's not another vehicle on telly like that."
TV: So softly, softly Susan
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