Hilary Barry and Jeremy Wells first teamed up to present Seven Sharp back in 2018. Photo / TVNZ
Hilary Barry and Jeremy Wells first teamed up to present Seven Sharp back in 2018. Photo / TVNZ
Since Hilary Barry and Jeremy Wells first sat on the Seven Sharp couch together in 2018, more and more Kiwis have tuned in for a nightly dose of laughs and the lighter side of the news.
Now, nearly four and a half years later, they've clocked 1000 episodes - and seen solid audience growth, reaching around 460,300 New Zealanders each night.
So, what's the secret to Seven Sharp's popularity? Turns out it's all down to a good cuppa.
"Jeremy makes a great cup of tea," Barry tells the Herald. "I can never go past what a great cuppa he makes. He'll whip one up every afternoon. Sometimes if I'm busy doing something, a little cuppa will turn up on my desk."
Wells adds: "It's also lucky because Hilary has her tea exactly the same way as me, thank goodness. Straight gumboot with plenty of milk and no sugar."
He recalls that after their first show together, he asked her what sort of tea she'd like.
"She said, 'Oh I'll just have a gumboot with plenty of milk', and I thought, 'This is going to work, because a couple that drinks tea together stays together'."
His words have proven true - and neither of them can believe they've reached this milestone.
"It doesn't feel like 1000 episodes," Wells says, while Barry adds, "You never quite know what to expect each day and that's what makes it so exciting and enriching and fun."
Seven Sharp follows the nightly news with a half-hour menu of heartwarming stories - in Wells' words, "a little caboose that goes on the back of New Zealand's everyday goings-on."
"Whatever's happening in New Zealand, there's Seven Sharp - the little caboose on the back with some cameras and some microphones, a couple of satellites pushing it out to New Zealand. So with Hilary and I, that's what's been happening for a thousand episodes, the little campervan that could."
The show's format makes it a welcome break from the news, and the hosts say it felt especially important to present during the early days of the pandemic.
Wells says he's learned a lot from his seasoned co-host. Photo / TVNZ
"A million people a night were watching the news and then a lot of people were staying around to watch Seven Sharp after it," Wells says. "It was great to be able to help people and maybe convey a bit of information about what was going on as well."
For Barry, it came with a sense that they were "holding people's hands" through a difficult time.
"We're all just kind of muddling through and getting through it together. I definitely felt that during the pandemic, and Seven Sharp felt like a good show to be doing that."
The pair have always wanted to make an optimistic show, Wells says.
"There's obviously a lot of bad news on the news and it's nice that Seven Sharp comes along at the end of that. It's nice to be able to take our viewers somewhere and give them a smile and give them a little bit of a laugh and entertain them and make them feel good.
"So hopefully by the end of Seven Sharp, they feel good about New Zealand and they feel good about the world and they feel good about themselves."
The success of any news or current affairs show has a lot to do with the rapport between the co-hosts - and often there's no way of knowing whether it will work. Wells and Barry count themselves lucky to have had a good dynamic from the beginning.
"I feel really lucky that that came naturally because Jeremy and I didn't know each other very well when we first started working together, and it's always a little bit risky," Barry says.
"But New Zealand's such a small place that you know another person's reputation as a good person to work with, and Jeremy certainly had that reputation so I was pretty confident that things would work out - and they did."
Barry gives Wells a level 3 lockdown haircut. Photo / TVNZ
Wells quickly got her husband Mr Barry's stamp of approval too. "Mr B thinks Jeremy's hilarious. So do my kids. It's fair to say that in their eyes, Jeremy's definitely the coolest co-host I've ever had."
And Wells says he's learned a lot from working with the seasoned news presenter.
"Having Hilary sitting there beside you, you'll never see her worried or nervous or flustered, or if something doesn't quite go the way she may have wanted it to go, she just gets on with it and is honest with the audience and just says, 'look, this is what's happening', and then continues on. You can't fluster Hilary, which is remarkable."
That's not for lack of trying, as we all know. One of Wells' greatest joys in life is winding up his co-host on air.
"I'm pretty unflappable, but Jeremy might throw something at me that he knows will get a reaction from me," Barry says.
As Wells points out, "That's the way you get the best laugh."
So, just how long does this TV couple plan to keep squabbling over cups of tea on the Seven Sharp couch?
"I think maybe just till the end of this year," Barry says, quickly adding, "I'm joking, I'm joking. I think the audience has been very receptive. Since we took over the show, the audience has grown," she says of the 19 per cent uptake in viewers during their tenure. "So I think as long as the audience is growing, we're pretty happy to keep turning up on the couch."
She shuts down Wells' suggestion they could be there for another 20 years, however. "No, that is not happening. I cannot still be turning up there when I'm 72."
