Eric Young has read the news on all four channels – TV3, TVNZ 1 and 2 and Sky/Prime – in a media career spanning four decades across television, radio and newspapers.
The room is small. Silent. Just a few square metreswith a large green wall at the back and, on the other side of a glass sliding door, a compact control room.
Before me, a screen with an off-air feed from Sky Open. Beneath it, a digital clock and, to the side, a single, locked-off camera.
My wardrobe has been carefully chosen. The tie is the one I wore 18 years ago for my first Prime News. Lucky? No, just significant.
I sit at a desk with a computer monitor, an empty tissue box, a hairspray I’ve never used, my autocue control, a cup of water, and a script. One final script.
This room is where, if things have gone to plan, at precisely 6pm tonight, a career door will close.
On the other side of the glass will be four people.
Courtney has earned the right to be News First’s final producer, and Drew, who pulled some kind of rank to direct the final broadcast of a bulletin on which he’d first worked in 2007.
Behind them, in the darkness of the control suite, there will be two others and it is for them I’ll do my best to hold it together. My wife Michelle has been the heart of our family since it was just the two of us. Her importance has only expanded now that we are three.
With her will be Alfie. He turned 4 last week and he’ll be wondering how daddy can be smiling if he’s also crying.
“Until next time, whenever that is. E noho rā. Goodbye.”
Eric Young and Alfie.
We’ll take a moment. News studios have been my safe space. Behind that desk, I’ve almost always felt in control.
But there’ll be no time for self-indulgence. In another studio three floors below, Mike McRoberts and Sam Hayes will already be a few minutes into their final bulletin together. It’s that kind of day.
I was there for the first six o’clock bulletin in this building, because it was my job. I’ll be there for the last because, selfishly, I need to be.
Newsrooms have always rated highly in my mental list of favourite places. That sense you’re at the heart of things. A single remove from the world’s great events.
But as with all the best workplaces, there’s a secret sauce.
He tangata, he tangata, he tangata.
And the people who’ve called 3 Flower St home over the years are some of the best.
When TV3 first went to air in 1989, I was being groomed to read the Three National News sport. The first newsreader I sat next to was Louise Wallace. She knew I was as nervous as hell, and told increasingly filthy jokes in a vain attempt to calm me.
Seriously, the language out of that woman’s mouth – and it almost worked, but I defy anyone to do a better impersonation of a tree than 28-year-old Eric that day.
I sat beside legends. Philip Sherry. What mana. What eyebrows. John Hawkesby. To this day, we are dear to each other, even though he’s sold all his wine.
Eric Young, as a TVNZ presenter in 2004.
In the intoxicating aftermath of Three National News’ first bulletin on November 27, 1989, I found myself standing next to the large newsroom rubbish bin. Inexplicably, on top was Philip’s first script; perfect dot matrix text on pink paper.
On some level, I must have known those pages probably now had a place in our broadcasting history, so I took them. I have them still. Tonight I’ll go looking for more souvenirs.
When I left TV3 in 1994, I was told “You’ll be back!” But honestly, I never thought I would.
Then, in 2006, Sky TV chief executive John Fellett wondered whether I’d like to read the news on a channel he’d just bought. It was called Prime.
I may have hesitated for a nanosecond, but I’ll never not be grateful for his willingness to take a chance.
After almost a decade at Prime’s studio in Albany, production moved to TV3 and the circle was complete.
We end at the beginning.
When I first walked into Flower St in 1989, the obvious madness of turning a derelict dairy factory into a functioning television station was still under way.
Cables snaked everywhere. There were more builders than staff. Not all the walls were painted. There were gaps where technical equipment should have been. Incredibly, what there wasn’t, was panic. There seemed to be a genuine sense that everything would be okay. For a long time it was.
We were the crazy pioneers taking on the TVNZ monolith. What could possibly go wrong?
We know now. Everything. Everything could go wrong.
There’s already an emptiness to the place that people alone can’t fill. And when I leave it tonight, I won’t look back.
