According to official statistics, about 120,000 Kiwis start work before 6am, about 5 per cent of our workforce. This series examines the '4.31 Club' - the people who start the day so we can start ours.
Today: Nadia Tolich, acting executive morning producer, Newstalk ZB
In theory, Nadia Tolich goes to bed at 9pm every night. In practice, it's 10pm, often 10.30, and she's up at 3.05am to start work as producer for Mike Hosking's Breakfast Show on NewstalkZB.
She has a husband, a one-year-old, a two-year old and a keen interest in sleep: "I have found I can function at a high level with only a little sleep. As long as you get 6-8 hours in a 24-hour cycle, I have been told, you're OK."
However, she is reading Ariana Huffington's latest book, The Sleep Revolution: Transforming Your Life One Night at a Time, in which Huffington says the world is in the midst of a sleep deprivation crisis.
"She essentially says less than 7 hours is economically horrendous, socially horrendous and mentally horrendous," says Tolich. "I may have to re-think my approach..."
What keeps her out of bed is the same as what (eventually) forces her into it: the news. A beast that never sleeps, it is addictive and comes with a built-in phobia: fear of missing something. She reads, listens, watches - keeping her finger on a news pulse which quickens, but never slows.
Hosking's 6-8.30am show is the most popular in New Zealand, with the latest radio survey showing it has grown by more than 10,000 to 265,000 listeners. While you may be listening to Hosking, the presence behind the interview topics and talent is usually Tolich's.
"News is a 24-hour-a-day thing and it's my job to know what people want to hear on the radio in the morning - even before they know themselves." She nominates most of the topics and content of the show, setting the agenda for the morning.
"I guess you could say I guide most of the show, I edit the content, we decide on the stories we are going to choose, what interviews we do and what topics we will discuss - basically how we will inform and entertain in a Mike Hosking context."
So, if we start at the end, when she goes to bed, her next day looks like this: "I have an alarm that goes off at 3.05am. It is followed by another alarm that goes off at 3.15am - worst case scenario in case I sleep through the first one. It's happened a time or two...
"I am highly organised in the morning - clothes are ready, I shower, bit of make-up and at 3.50am I am at work, preparing the programme, setting up anything extra that needs to be set up."
The end of the show at 8.30am is not the end of her working day. The Hosking team straight away hold a production meeting - planning the next day's show. Some administrative work is done and some pre-recorded interviews planned for the next show; she is usually able to leave the studio and NZME headquarters about noon.
"I go home, I have a kip and I see the kids," she says, knowing that, when she has woken and tended to/played with her children, the news will continue its insatiable clamour for her attention.
She starts work again about 3.30pm: "I check out the news, other programmes and liaise with our set-up producer, who books talent, researches and writes scripts for the following morning's programme. Our last call is about 7.30pm - that's on a good night...
"I think the mark of a good programme is, for example, when the TV news comes on and a topic we broke or developed is on the news that night and maybe in the Herald and talkback in the morning - that's us setting the news agenda."
Tough days include when the news agenda shifts with a big breaking topic or something that demands instant attention.
"It's never an easy decision to make but, if you have to throw the show out and start again, you throw the show out...You must be relevant and current; that's my job and that's what people want from us."
Throwing the show out generally means having to ring people at a time when most of us are still well asleep. News producers have bulging contact books, their collection of phone numbers and email addresses of Guinness Book Of Records dimensions.
"We do have to wake people sometimes - but that's where people like press secretaries and PR officers earn their money. Anyway, you'd be surprised how many people are up very early in the morning; a lot of the leaders and newsmakers in New Zealand start their day in the small hours."
So the next time you are listening to the breakfast show and catching up with the world, chances are you're experiencing the voice of Hosking and the hand of Tolich.
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