And she’s not alone. Statistically, Jack Tame is a hit with the older ladies – and gents for that matter.

“They break things down into demographics with audiences – I haven’t had any analysis for a long time – but I would tend to agree with you that mine is very likely to skew probably to the older generation,” Tame says.

“I used to go and see my grandparents in Ashburton… Few things gave me a greater sense of satisfaction than seeing how proud they were to show me off to their contemporaries.”

But what is it that makes Tame revered among doting grandparents? And did it help him land his new job, as TVNZ’s weekend 1News presenter?

The former Breakfast journo, who once replied “MealMates” when fellow broadcaster Paul Henry asked him what his favourite Christmas crackers were (the audio lines failed), can’t fully put a finger on it, but he has some thoughts.

“Maybe it’s just that I seem polite, or maybe it’s just that people look at me and they think, ‘Oh, well, there’s a relatively well-spoken young gentleman, you know, he seems nice enough’,” he says.

“I would love for you to say, ‘Jack, you know, you’re a burning heartthrob for millennial or Gen Z women’. But no, and that’s okay. [The older generation] are tastemakers, and that’s great.”

He knows how to laugh at himself.

Tame is the ideal fit for the 6pm slot on Fridays and Saturdays when Simon Dallow steps down on November 28 and Melissa Stokes becomes “the big kahuna” Sunday to Thursday.

He’s got the charisma, the confidence, the audience and the experience to back him – but admits it’s still very much a different beast than anything he’s done before.

“I don’t necessarily feel daunted, but I do feel the weight of that responsibility,” the 38-year-old says.

“Over the years, I’ve done lots of other jobs. But reading the news is one of those things where it’s kind of like walking down the aisle on your wedding day, I imagine, or reciting your vows, in that it seems like a relatively straightforward task, but all of a sudden has this huge weight of expectation that comes with it, and you start to overthink everything.

“I’m a little nervous I might do that, but generally speaking, I’m delighted. I’m really excited to get going.”

The writing was almost on the wall, or in the book, for what Tame’s career path would look like. He learned from the best and respects those who have taught him about the craft – from Henry to another legendary broadcaster, Paul Holmes.

“I was going through some old high school yearbooks from when I was 16 or 17 years old the other day, and in them we’d written down what we wanted to do. I said, ‘I want to be Paul Holmes. I want a job like Paul Holmes.”

And he’s not joking when he says he has spent literally half his life in the TVNZ building.

Tame joined the newsroom as a 19-year-old intern and was soon on screen working as a reporter for 1News (at home and in the US) and Breakfast alongside people such as Matt McLean, Pippa Wetzell, Abby Wilson and Henry.

He then went on to co-host Breakfast from 2016 to 2019 with Hilary Barry, before taking on his current hosting role. Tame also hosts Saturday mornings on Newstalk ZB.

Former Breakfast colleague, now TVNZ sports editor, Wilson describes Tame as having a “natural ease” on camera. She fondly remembers their time working together on the early morning reporter round-up segment, where Henry and Wetzell crossed live to junior reporters around the country, including on Tame’s 21st birthday.

“I had secretly organised for some lovely young women to turn up with a cake at the Christchurch office,” Wilson recalls.

“I’d had to get the camera operator down there to smuggle them out onto the fire escape so he wouldn’t see them, but when it came time for him to go live, they appeared unexpectedly beside him with a cake, candles and maybe a song? He didn’t know where to look. He was mortified and I’m pretty sure it’s the only time I’ve seen him blush on air.”

She says Tame doesn’t need advice for his new gig – he has everything in the tank to do the best job.

“He’s a true pro and will be a great asset to our 6pm team. Although as a mother of two young kids, I secretly think he’s just taken this job to get out of dinner, bath and bed routine two nights a week.”

Tame married fellow TVNZ journalist Mava Moayyed in 2023 and the couple welcomed now 9-month-old son Māni this year. Tame is also stepfather to Moayyed’s school-age son Rumi.

“The exhaustion is true, the scramble is true, the challenges around trying to find space for everything else in your life, all of that is true, but it’s also a whole other level of love,” he says of fatherhood.

This is love though, he says, that creates a feeling unlike anything he’s ever experienced before.

“I never expected to get a physical reaction from having a baby. By that, I mean I will come in at the end of the day, I’ll walk through the front door and Mava will be holding Māni and she’ll say, ‘Oh, look who’s here. It’s Dada.’ And he’ll look at me, and he will smile, and I’ll feel whatever the love chemical is in my chest, and I’ll feel it just immediately kind of pump throughout my body,” he smiles.

“It’s also been amazing too to see my wife and the things that she juggles and manages. I’ve always known her as having a great sense of humour and being really worldly and really interesting but seeing her in mum mode with a newborn baby is also really special.”

Although he says “a bit of luck” and timing helped snag opportunities during his career, Tame also says his “old soul” mentality and determination kept him focused.

“I think about my career and think about my grandparents’ generation. They were of a generation where you started a job after leaving school or leaving university and then you stayed in that career forever. That’s what I’ve kind of done,” he says.

“I also think I’m an old soul in that I really like a lot of the things I really value, like reading, gardening, being outside in nature, hiking … I’m also an absolute sucker for routine.”

At work, Tame is often admired for his ability to stay calm in pressure cooker situations, something that will no doubt help when he takes on the 6pm role. The 2011 Canterbury quakes thrust him into the midst of disaster reporting and Tame, like many other journalists, felt the personal impact of the weight stories can have.

“I was actually outside Pyne Gould when the last person got pulled out alive from any wreckage of those buildings,” he says.

“Most of the people who covered that event knew people who had either been really seriously injured or who’d been killed. I remember about a week or two later I was at a neighbour’s house, and we were having dinner and talking about all of the people that we knew who’d been affected. I had just got a message through about a mutual friend who’d been really seriously injured but had survived, and I just remember I broke down and was sobbing at the dinner table. I just remember the weight of the whole experience broke through in that moment on me.”

Looking back, Tame admits the reasons he wanted to get into journalism were selfish ones. His view of the job has changed with age.

“I wanted to tell people’s stories, but I also wanted to experience the full kind of richness of the world – seeing the worst and the best of it,” he says.

“I think that the more you are able to appreciate the full scale of experience and existence, the wiser you ultimately will become. That was always what I reminded myself when I was on those stories.”

In a world rife with trolls and testy emotions, Tame doesn’t worry about public scrutiny or social media buzz. He’s committed to doing his job to the best of his ability and expects nothing will change when he’s staring down the barrel of the 6pm camera.

“I’m truly, generally not that bothered by online hate. I always think to myself, ‘have I ever felt compelled to go on social media and write a really nasty message about someone I’ve never met?’ Never,” he says.

“Sometimes I actually receive quite thoughtful, reasonable criticism. And I am well aware that I’m far from perfect. I really care about my work, and I really try and do a good job. But I’m a human being. I get things wrong. And a lot of what I do involves making judgment calls in the moment. So, I earnestly try to listen to the reasonable criticism and take it on and consider it. It doesn’t mean I always act on it, but I really do try and engage with the reasonable side of things.

“If it’s just someone on social media saying, ‘I hate Jack Tame, he’s the worst person in the world’, I think, well, power to you, mate.”

And of those doting, older fans? No doubt plenty more will be gathered around the telly when he says his first “good evening” as the clock strikes 6pm. And Tame can’t wait to have them watching.

“I’ll take fans wherever I can get them,” he laughs.

Jack Tame will also present the 1News Special: You, Me and The Economy, on Tuesday at 7.30pm on TVNZ 1.

Mitchell Hageman joined the Herald’s entertainment and lifestyle team in 2024. He previously worked as a multimedia journalist for Hawke’s Bay Today.