TVNZ rang me at the end of 2013 and explained that the programme they had launched wasn't working, and unless they could turn it around it would be cancelled.
Could I help?
Once the ensuing chat about contracts and terms were sorted, Toni Street and I set about fixing things up.
The point here is it was the challenge I was interested in. It was a project.
It wasn't a career break, it wasn't an advancement, it wasn't a long held dream or change of direction, it was a specific task I thought I could use my skills to execute.
It took us about six months to achieve it.
By about May 2014, the programme was sailing. The stories were good because the storytellers were good.
The issue had been the presentation. The lineup, and this is in no way a personal attack on any of those people, was a mistake. Putting three names on a piece of paper does not a combination make.
A combination is born out of magic.
There are a lot of other ingredients, of course, but unless there is an X-factor, a magic, you can scribble as many combinations on a white board as you like, it generally won't work.
So by the end of the second year, 2015, I was ready to go. Why? Because the job was done.
Which brings in the second round of bollocks spouted since my departure, the speculation.
People asked: can it be a coincidence Hosking departs just as a new political landscape takes shape? Yes it is … a complete coincidence. Others wondered why would I give up such a platform. The inference being there must be something more to it. No, there isn't.
Why? Because I never saw it as a platform. I don't revel in being on TV, never have.
TV is fun, but it's not my great love, my great love is radio.
So, with two years under my belt, I looked to leave. They twisted my arm, I stayed, and looked to leave again at the end of 2016. This time they really had me because they dangled the election coverage. Anyone who knows anything about me knows I love the election. I did it in 2014, and I couldn't resist this time.
(By the way, the people who organised that petition did us the most amazing favour. It was never going to see me removed from the debates, but what it did do is give those debates the most extraordinary amount of publicity and the opening one turned out to be the most watched programme of the year. So thank you.)
But, having seen the election out, having got Seven Sharp away and laughing, join the dots. It was job over. The project was complete.
What was there to stay for?
The fun is partly the answer. When you don't need the work, the money, the hours, what is it that keeps you doing anything? The fun. So when Toni quit, the fun was leaving the building, and so I decided, was I.
Beginning, middle and end of story.
