Media leader dies suddenly after run

Mike Robson, managing director of the major media group INL, died suddenly in Wellington last night. He was 61.

A keen sportsman, Mr Robson collapsed at his Karori home after returning from a run.

He had earlier attended a Sky TV board meeting in Auckland.

Born and raised on a dairy farm in Pukekohe, Mr Robson became a sports reporter on the Herald, later joining the New Zealand Press Association and serving as its London correspondent.

In 1975, he became editor of Wellington's Evening Post newspaper and in 1981 was appointed assistant to the managing director at INL.

Appointed INL group general manager the following year, he oversaw major developments in the group, such as the purchase of the Christchurch newspaper the Press and INL's involvement in and purchase of 49 per cent of Sky TV.

Mr Robson was a former president of the Newspaper Publishers Association and in recent years undertook other directorships, including the National Bank and the Wellington investment company Rangitira. He was deputy chairman of Sky TV.

Mr Robson leaves his wife, Marjie, daughter Rebecca and sons Seth and Toby, who followed their father into journalism.

When he turned 60 last year, Mr Robson said he was keen to continue his tenure at the top of INL, New Zealand's 12th-largest company, as long as the board deemed him to be making a useful contribution.

But he still rated working as a sports reporter, alongside revered sports journalists D.J. Cameron and Sir Terence McLean, the best job he ever had.

"The beauty of the job was meeting lots of different people. Sport is like a continuing drama where no one knows what the outcome will be ... a bit like business and life, really."

Last year, Mr Robson formed part of a golfing foursome which also included US President Bill Clinton and Burton Shipley, husband of the then Prime Minister, Jenny Shipley.

Mr Robson had planned to resume writing about sport when he stepped down as head of INL. That, and to continue as a director and write memoirs about his career and his childhood growing up in provincial New Zealand.

People who knew him said he was a strong personality and competitive, yet someone whose feet were firmly on the ground.

- NZPA