FORMER NBN Newcastle newsreader Paul Lobb says he had no warning of the Nine Network's shock decision to sack him last month after almost 24 years with the station, the last 11 as the male face of its news team alongside co-anchor Natasha Beyersdorf.
The 48-year-old born-and-bred Novocastrian is too much of a nice guy - and too much of a professional - to publicly bag the Nine Network or the managers who told him last month, without warning, that he was immediately surplus to needs.
However, the man who whose job Lobb inherited, Ray Dinneen, had no such scruples to silence when contacted by the Newcastle Herald.
"I feel so sad that it's really come to this," Dinneen said.
"I think it's an inevitable decline.
"They don't want to spend money on anything they think they can get away with and consequently the product is far inferior, I think, compared to what we used to do."
Dinneen says he was also able to farewell his viewers, on air, after deciding to retire, aged 60, in December 2010, after almost 37 years with the station. Footage of that week is still on YouTube.
Lobb was given no such luxury.
As the Heraldreported that week, the first the public knew of Lobb's axing was on Monday, December 12, when he did not appear on that night's news.
Lobb says he learned his fate that day, given an hour or so's notice that Nine's national head of news was coming from Sydney to meet with him.
"No-one else lost their jobs that day," Lobb said.
"It was a brief meeting where they outlined they were making changes to the news lineup and that I wasn't required any more in that role."
An email to staff from the managing director of Nine Queensland and Nine Northern NSW, Kylie Blucher, went out soon after.
"Today, the very difficult decision has been made to consolidate our NBN News presenting line-up," Blucher said.
"This decision will see Paul Lobb leave NBN and Gavin Morris move onto the news desk alongside Natasha Beyersdorf to share reading duties and present the weather.
"This is a tough one to announce. Lobby is a true gentleman who has served NBN with great professionalism and dedication and in no way does this decision reflect on his wonderful contribution to our business.
"Paul has been front and centre in lounge rooms across Northern NSW delivering the local, national and international stories our audience depends on.
"Over the past decade Lobby had built an enviable relationship with our viewers based on trust and his recognised commitment to the news."
After thanking Lobb for the "significant role" he had played in "our success", Blucher finished by saying: "I have every confidence that Gavin will be embraced by the audience in this new role and alongside Natasha deliver continued success for NBN News."
Although his own dumping came as an absolute shock, Lobb said there had been enough redundancies in the past year for "everyone in the company to be a bit circumspect" about their individual situations.
His elder brother Andy, who began with the station in light and sound and ended went on to shoot news and then report it - and rise to chief of staff - was one who lost his job last year.
All "traditional" media outlets have been impacted to some degree or other by the digital revolution and NBN recently began broadcasting from a new "automated" studio at Honeysuckle, in offices vacated by the Herald in its move in late 2020 to 710 Hunter Street.
The Herald's long-time home in Bolton Street, Newcastle, is now apartments, and NBN's Mosbri Crescent studio site on The Hill was sold for the same purpose.
Lobb says he wasn't given detailed reasons for the decision to axe him, more that it was "a consolidation as part of broader cost pressures and those sort of things".
"I'm sure that when they were considering making the changes to the lineup, they would have thought about whether it would be an unpopular decision," Lobb said.
"I'm sure they would have thought about what effect it my have on the product.
"But they decided to go through with it, and the way that people have responded and reached out to me has just been incredible.
"It's been three weeks now and I'm still getting a lot of people contacting me and saying they wished it hadn't happened."
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Lobb says he is not sure what he will do next beyond taking a break for a little while to recharge the batteries and to scan the horizon.
Dinneen says "Paul would sail into a public relations job, if he wanted that - it all depends on what he wants to do".
"It's a bad thing, really bad, but he will slot in somewhere. As far as the news goes, I can't help thinking that they're deliberately downgrading it to the point where people don't care."
Dinneen - now 71 and a not infrequent contributor to the Herald's letters page - wanted it pointed out that "Nine, not NBN, did the sacking".
"It's not the old NBN," Dinneen said.
"NBN Ltd doesn't exist any more, it's just a name on the news. The whole thing is owned and run now by Nine Entertainment."
Dinneen notes that just three male newsreaders - Murray Finlay, himself and Lobb - have held that job full-time across 60 years at NBN.
Natasha Beyersdorf arrived in Newcastle in 1997, when she and her husband Brett Lavaring worked for Prime. After switching to NBN, she was tapped in 2006 to replace Melinda Smith alongside Ray Dinneen.
Lobb says Beyersdorf was "very shocked" at what happened to him.
"She was really upset for me, she was as surprised as I was," Lobb said. "We do work so closely together, and we probably see each other more each week than we do our families."
And they're not simply newsreaders.
Both rose through the ranks of journalism and Lobb says each working day was a constant round of writing and recording news items and updates, as well nightly segments for the various regions served by NBN, which extend from the Hawkesbury and out to Tamworth and into southern Queensland.
Newcastle newsreaders are often in demand on the charity and social circuits and Lobb has been no exception.
"Tash and I would sometimes host the same events, so we'd finish the news and then both run out the door to a cab, over to the Entertainment Centre for the Westpac Ball, or whatever it was.
"Dashes like that, and travel to things like the Casino Beef Week dinner or Christmas carols in Lismore or the Chilli Festival in Sawtell.
"We'd get right out across NBN's entire market."
And all but "one or two over all that time" were unpaid.
"They're always for a good cause.
"I've always felt it was just part of the job and I've always found that whatever I have put in I have gotten back ten-fold from people."
Regardless of how his time with NBN has ended, Lobb says he has enjoyed the ride and is looking forward to the future.
"All I can say is I am very grateful to have done it, and I hope it keeps on keeping on."
