Close Up (1985)
Channel: Patrick Te Pou
Date: 13/07/2021

The Russians: Russia has had a diplomatic presence in New Zealand for over forty years, but have remained an unknown quantity to most New Zealanders. What are the Soviet diplomats and their families actually like as people? Carole de Colville filed that report for Close Up, which was broadcast on TV One (now TVNZ 1) at 8.30pm on the evening of Thursday 27 June 1985.

Close Up was TVNZ's hour-long weekly current affairs programme, presenting mini-documentaries on topical local items as well as overseas sourced material from Australia's 60 Minutes programme. It began life as a non-commercial Sunday night programme in 1980 before migrating to a mid-week commercial timeslot on the strength of its performance. 

Close Up won several Feltex Awards and screened Sunday nights in 1980, Wednesday nights from 1981 to 1983 and Thursday nights from 1984 until it ended in 1987 and was replaced a year later by Frontline.

Reporters who had worked on Close Up during its run, from 1980 to 1987, included (in alphabetical order): Chris Anderson, Martyn Bates, John Bishop, Peter Burke, Carole de Colville, Brett Dumbleton, Kevin Hume, Spencer Jolly, Sue Kellaway, Phillip Melchior, Amanda Millar, Alison Parr, Ted Sheehan, Anna Symmans, Terence Taylor and Genevieve Westcott.

Close Up is not related to the nightly current affairs programme of the same name, which was fronted by Susan Wood and, later, Mark Sainsbury until 2012.

Special thanks to YouTube channel Sony Trinitron for the use of this clip.