Garner: Once bitten, still not work-shy
Duncan Garner is ‘terrified’ of the 2.30am starts, Jack van Beynen reports.
Duncan Garner wants to make you late for work. He wants you sitting in your car or on your couch, knowing that the minutes are ticking by but so riveted by the banter and the robust interviews you’re unable to get out the door.
He doesn’t want you to lose your job; he just wants his new multiplatform morning news show, The AM Show, to be so engaging you won’t be able to tear yourself away.
‘‘If I can make people late for work, I’ve done my job,’’ he says.
But the one thing he’s dreading is the early starts. And well he might. Garner quit his job as TV3 political editor in 2012 because he was burnt out by the hostile hours; he expressed regret that he had covered some of the biggest events in politics, but had never seen his daughters play Saturday sport.
In 2012, he explained his decision to resign in the NZ Listener: ‘‘I’ve quit because, to be brutally honest about a brutal job, I am exhausted.’’
Now, he’s taking on a gig that starts at 2.30am each day.The last two decades of his career have been dedicated to the afternoons and evenings. His new schedule flips that on its head.
‘‘I am terrified about how I’m going to deal with early mornings, but I think that’s only naturally a human response,’’ he tells the Sunday Star-Times. I’ve quit because, to be brutally honest about a brutal job, I am exhausted.
‘‘But you know what, mate, I’ll make it work, because I always make these things work.’’
The show, the much-touted replacement for Paul Henry on TV3, Radio LIVE and online, is set to debut at 6am on February 13.
Garner says he can’t wait to get stuck in. ‘‘I’m not good at sitting around the bloody desk waiting for something to happen. I want to see the red light go on and rip into it.’’
He is looking forward to working with newsreader Amanda Gillies and sports presenter Mark Richardson. The trio got together on Thursday for a rehearsal and a photo shoot in their new studio.
The banter, Garner says, was good. He has a working relationship with Gillies that goes back 20 years, but Richardson was an unknown quantity.
‘‘Mark I haven’t known until now, but I’ve admired his style ... and I feel quite close to Mark already, actually. He’s a bloody character. We’re going to have some great Kiwi banter.’’