Part 1: As Newshub enters its final week, reporter Adam Hollingworth talks to current and former staff about the news division's early days and key events in its 35-year history.

As Newshub enters its final week, reporter Adam Hollingworth talks to current and former staff about the news division's early days and key events in its 35-year history

McRoberts headed into war zones without insurance cover - simply accepting the CEO's word that his family would be looked after if he didn't come back.

This is part one of a two-part podcast. The second part can be found here.

At 6pm on July 6th Mike McRoberts and Samantha Hayes will read the last ever Newshub bulletin.

Both have spent the majority of their careers at New Zealand's first private television network. The studio desk they sit behind was once the domain of other household names like Joanna Paul, Hilary Barry, John Campbell, and Carol Hirschfeld.

By the time McRoberts slid into the presenter's seat, 3 News was no longer the cheeky upstart - but the underdog attitude was still a part of the network's DNA, the idea of doing more with less seemingly engrained in the minds of reporters and producers.

"It made you more inventive and creative about the ways you created stories and often I thought they were the better stories. We didn't rely on having screeds and screeds of footage to show, we only had two minutes per bulletin I think of Olympic footage or Commonwealth games footage to show, so you were actually pushed into telling a much better personal story," he says.

McRoberts was a spearhead of TV3's strategy to send reporters to areas where TVNZ was reluctant to tread. But it came with risks.

McRoberts headed into war zones without insurance cover - simply accepting the CEO's word that his family would be looked after if he didn't come back.

He says it was a company he was prepared to do anything for.

"There was a sense of putting your life on the line for this company, for the coverage, for the story, for my colleagues, and to know that that's coming to an end is really hard to accept."

Phillip Sherry was the host for TV3's first bulletin

In the same way that Stuff is racing to be ready on July 6, TV3's early days were a mix of adrenalin and fear of failure. The company had suffered long delays in obtaining a broadcast license and faced aggressive competition from a well-prepared TVNZ.

When the first news bulletin aired on November 27, 1989 South Island bureau chief Mark Jennings (who later would become Head of News) was sitting on the edge of his seat. …

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details