An on-going daily 24-hour capture of Radio New Zealand National.
The daily capture of RNZ National began on Monday 2 February 2015. For the first two months (February/March) only 5am-midnight was recorded. From 1 April 2015 24-hours is being captured (split into two 12-hour files per day).
Note the input source for the harvest was changed by RNZ at 6.28am on 21/10/15 meaning the audio feed is more dynamic/less compressed from this point on GW 24/12/15.
The following presenter information is sourced from http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/presenters (20/7/15):
Alison Ballance
Producer and presenter of Our Changing World
Alison Ballance is a zoologist, wildlife filmmaker, writer and radio producer. She joined Radio New Zealand’s weekly science and environment programme Our Changing World in 2008, after 18 years producing and directing wildlife documentaries for Dunedin-based production company NHNZ. She produced films for international broadcasters on subjects as varied as kakapo and tigers in locations as diverse as Mongolia, Ecuador and Whenua Hou-Codfish Island. Before that she spent four months (in winter) on subantarctic Campbell Island studying feral sheep for her Master of Science degree.
Kakapo – Rescued from the Brink of Extinction was Alison’s 28th book and it won the Royal Society of New Zealand’s Science Book Prize in 2011. Southern Alps – Nature and History of New Zealand’s Mountain World was a finalist in the 2008 Montana Book Awards. Her essay ‘Touchstones’, a personal look at the issue of climate change, won the inaugural non-fiction Royal Society of New Zealand Manhire Creative Science Writing Prize in 2007.
Alison combines her search for great location-based radio stories with her passion for islands, remote wilderness and natural history, and despite getting seasick this quest has taken her to the four furthest points of New Zealand’s compass: Kermadec islands to the north, the Chathams to the east, Scott Base to the far south and West Cape in Fiordland to the west. She’s now working to fill in the gaps in between! She loves meeting and interviewing passionate people, and sharing their knowledge and stories on-air, and what she really enjoys about radio as a medium is its intelligence and immediacy.
Bryan Crump
Host of Nights
Born in 1966 in Thames. Early years in Ngatea coincided with discovery of crop circles on the Hauraki Plains. There is no link proven.
As a toddler, had a tendency to wander. Often found playing with toy grader in middle of state highway two, or dropping stones into nearby Piako River. Early interest in Doppler effect.
Moved to Auckland in 1969. Discovers the tape recorder. Began producing variety programmes and radio plays with friends in bedroom studio. Destroys first tape recorder. Exposure to stereo technology at high school lead to more ambitious projects, such as a remake of the Hunchback of Notre Dame, as the Hunchback of K Road. School hi-fi out of commission.
Became a fully certified radio journalist in 1993. Sent to Dunedin to cover rural issues for Radio New Zealand. Subsequent posting in Wellington producing and presenting Saturday rural programme from 1995 to 99. Also works in news, Parliament, and produces documentaries. Third tape recorder dies in trenches at Gallipoli. Also trains fellow journalists in how to wreck tape recorders.
2001; decided to explore the Australian Outback. Convinced the ABC to hire him as rural reporter in the Northern Territory town of Katherine, despite lack of any sheep for 10,000 square kilometres. Mini disc recorder expires during monsoonal downpour. Helps to wake up the city of Darwin as Breakfast presenter.
End of 2004, began pining for a New Zealand summer. Returned to Wellington to host Summer Nights on National Radio. Nine months later Radio New Zealand decides to make weeknight evening presenting a permanent affair. Hires Bryan Crump on understanding he supplies own tape recorder.
Bryan lives in Wellington with his partner and their young son. He also arranges pop songs for the Doubtful Sounds, a choir he started to keep himself out of trouble at the weekends.
Caitlin Cherry
Caitlin Cherry began her journalism career as an intern with Radio New Zealand in 1997, after training at the New Zealand Broadcasting School in Christchurch.
After working as a general reporter she moved into producing, and spent several years working on the flagship programme, Morning Report and became one of the show's deputy editors. She has also worked as a chief reporter for Radio New Zealand News.
For the past six years Caitlin has worked as a senior producer on Radio New Zealand's current affairs programme, Nine to Noon, and is currently a presenter on Summer Report.
In 2011 she travelled to Antarctica with Nine to Noon presenter Kathryn Ryan, where they recorded a series of interviews with scientists working on the ice.
She has also had stints in television, as a reporter and director for the arts programme Backch@t, and has written for a range of magazines and newspapers.
Carol Stiles
Producer and presenter of Country Life and One in Five
Listening to National Radio runs in Carol’s family. She grew up listening to My Music and My Word beside her father, and her 18-year-old son recently surprised medical staff by requesting the radio be tuned to 101FM during an MRI scan.
Carol trained to become a journalist after completing an arts degree at Victoria University. Her first investigative radio interview was with the deputy prime minister. The fish and chip shop across the road from the Beehive was closing and it was Carol’s job to find out what he usually ordered (two fish and a scoop of chips).
Since then Carol has worked in news, rural news and for the past 14 years in features. She feels privileged to have a job that takes her down quiet country roads and into some of the most remote and beautiful spots in New Zealand to gather stories for her role with Country Life.
Carol is also a producer for One in Five, Radio New Zealand’s programme on the issues and experience of disability.
She has also worked as a journalist in London and in the Turks and Caicos Islands.
Catriona MacLeod
Newsreader, producer and presenter of Christmas Day
Catriona started working in the Radio New Zealand newsroom in the days of typewriters, lots of paper, reel to reel tapes and a constant cigarette smoke fug in the newsroom. She quotes a line in a Leonard Cohen song "born with the gift of a golden voice" to explain how she was lucky enough to be sponsored by Radio New Zealand to do a journalism course. There was a guaranteed job at the end of it – but no choice of destination, so it was off to Radio Caroline in Timaru, then several years at 4ZB in Dunedin. After that the wide world beckoned, and Catriona spent several years based in the UK doing a wide variety of jobs and a great deal of travelling.
Both her parents come from the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides, and she frequently visited the isle while she lived over there to escape the rat race of London and big European cities. She also credits her lineage as to why she doesn't have much of a Kiwi accent, and can roll those rrrrr's in te reo Maori.
On her return to New Zealand she worked for a while as a journalist in the 2ZB newsroom, before working for several years as a producer on Morning Report, presenting and compiling Late Edition and then her current job as newsreader for Radio New Zealand National. She says she loves the immediacy and intimacy of radio – no two days are the same because of changing world and national events – and she values the anonymity of radio for those behind the microphone.
And away from the microphone Catriona enjoys entertaining friends at dinner parties, reading, music, movies, walking and going out for the occasional boogie.
Charlotte Graham
Presenter of Queen's Birthday
As a child, Charlotte dreamed of a job where she could read things uninterrupted all day and no one would tell her to stop asking questions. This one might be the closest she ever gets.
Charlotte has a degree from the New Zealand Broadcasting School and also studied at the University of Queensland. Her first radio job was on a show that played New Zealand music on an Australian radio station, which was met with surprisingly little hostility, possibly because the Australians had already decided that all the good bits belonged to them anyway. She began working at Radio New Zealand in 2006, having been a listener first for as long as she could remember.
Since joining Radio New Zealand, Charlotte has worked as a journalist in the Christchurch and Wellington newsrooms, and as a news bulletin editor over the period that spanned the re-trial of David Bain, the Pike River mine explosions, and the Christchurch earthquakes. She now produces some of Radio New Zealand's day-time programmes, including Nine to Noon with Kathryn Ryan.
In her spare time, Charlotte enjoys reading anything she can lay her hands on, writing, enjoying the beautiful New Zealand outdoors in ways that are neither physically strenuous nor at all risky, music, and long coffee outings with friends. She can translate Latin but can't cook or do basic maths, which is to say that her mother was right about everything.
Colin Peacock
Producer and presenter of Mediawatch
After his postgraduate diploma in journalism from Canterbury University, he went to London and joined BBC World TV. He moved to the BBC's 24-hour news network 5 Live just in time for Princess Diana's fatal accident on his first night shift in the studio. He produced 5 Live's international programme Global in 1999, then moved to BBC World Service the following year to work on news programmes such as Newshour and World Update, a co-production with Public Radio International in the US. He returned to New Zealand in November 2002.
Cynthia Morahan
Newsreader, producer and presenter on Radio New Zealand Concert
Radio New Zealand Concert is the culmination of two of Cynthia Morahan's great loves: music and talking.
Cynthia first joined Radio New Zealand in 2002 from a career on the production side of the film and television industry.
She has since spent seven years in Ireland working for RTE, Ireland's national broadcaster, and returned to New Zealand in 2013.
"Because we wanted our children to know the joy that is wearing jandals all summer and raising the end of their sentences when they speak," she says.
As well as Radio New Zealand Concert, Cynthia can also be found reading news on Radio New Zealand National, swimming, reading and listening to a lot of music.
David Steemson
Producer and presenter of Spectrum and Auckland Stories
David Steemson has worked for Radio New Zealand since before the coming of mankind. Working for Spectrum for the last ten years, though, has helped make him young again.
“Spectrum is about New Zealand tales, and the people I meet are so passionate as they tell their stories. I love it.” And that’s despite nearly every Kiwi’s first response on being told by David he wants an interview: “Oh, there’s nothing special about me.” (exasperated sigh).
David Steemson is based in Auckland. For Spectrum, he covers the North Island north of Lake Taupo.
Emma Smith
Producer and presenter of Music 101
As a child, Emma always had her tape deck on pause/record, ready to record songs off the radio, or straight out of the TV speaker for her mixtape series, which featured such underground classics as Mega Mix 3 and Hit Mix. She hated it when the announcer talked over the end bit.
Since becoming one of those announcers at Dunedin bNet station Radio One, Emma's life has been filled with sublime musical experiences, and increasingly surreal interpersonal ones- from dap dipping with Sharon Jones, to being the worst “lucky charm” Ben Harper ever took to a casino.
Emma tweets @radionzmusic
Eru Rerekura
Newsreader, producer and presenter of Te Manu Korihi
Ko Ruapehu te maunga
Ko Whanganui te awa
Ko Te Atihaunui-ā-Pāpārangi, Ngā Rauru, Ngāti Rangi, Ngāti Tūwharetoa, Ngāti Maniapoto rātou ko Ngāti Hauā ngā iwi
Ko Ngāti Ruaka me Ngāti Tongaiti ngā hapū
Ko Rānana me Ngā Mōkai ngā marae
Ko Aotea, Kurahaupō, Te Arawa me Tainui ngā waka
Ko Eru Rerekura tōku ingoa.
Eru was born, raised and educated in Whanganui.
While he was at St Augustine's college he developed a passion for public speaking and debating in both Māori and English - which lead him to work in radio at the age of 15 on his iwi radio station AWA FM. After spending a few years getting a good feel for radio, Eru studied at the New Zealand Broadcasting School in Christchurch, where he specialised in announcing and radio programming.
He returned to Whanganui to work back at AWA FM for a year, and then moved to New Plymouth to work as a morning and youth announcer at Te Korimako o Taranaki for two years, eventually shifting to Auckland in 2000 to take up a journalist position at the National Māori News Service - Ruia Mai.
In 2003 he was offered an internship at Radio New Zealand in Wellington which opened the way to him presenting the Waatea news bulletins, and producing and presenting Waiata - a Māori music show.
In 2011, Radio New Zealand decided to set up its own in-house national Māori news service - Te Manu Korihi. Eru was hired to not only to be the main anchor but also as a reporter, and enjoys gathering his own news stories from Aotearoa and indigenous stories from around the world.
Outside of work, Eru enjoys competing in duathlon events, running and biking, working out at the gym, travelling, and reading a good book.
Guyon Espiner
Presenter of Morning Report
Guyon has a 20 year career in journalism and has worked in both print and broadcast media. He has a proven track record in political reporting, having been political editor for Television New Zealand and, earlier, the Sunday Star Times.
He has reported on trade from China, on war from Afghanistan, on politics from Washington, on international relations from Papua New Guinea and on climate change from Antarctica.
Most recently he worked for TV3 as an anchor and journalist on 3rd Degree and The Vote, and continues to write a political column for The Listener.
Hewitt Humphrey
Newsreader
Hewitt has been in radio longer than anyone can remember, including himself. But when he started, the Prime Minister was Keith Holyoake, and LBJ was the US President. He has always been based in Wellington, starting in the NZBC days working on all the stations that were based in the late Broadcasting House. That included ZM, its predecessor 2YD, as well as ZB, YC YB and YA – today, what we call Radio New Zealand National.
He read the news minutes after men first set foot on the moon. Hewitt has also had 15 years on television, presenting, reporting, interviewing and newsreading. He fronted the weekly classical music programme Opus for many years in the 1980s and 1990s. He has also worked as a radio bulletin editor.
These days he is Presentation Standards Manager at Radio New Zealand, but still reads the news when members of his team are off doing other things.
Away from the radio station, Hewitt is a Judicial Justice of the Peace, past-president of the Wellington Justices of the Peace Association, a keen Rotarian, an Ambassador for Variety – the Children’s Charity, and a marriage celebrant.
He likes fly-fishing, reading, music, cars, watching police dramas on television, and narrow boating.
Ian Telfer
Presenter of Summer Report
Ian never knew what he wanted to be, so he just followed his nose through physics, church volunteering in the Pacific, Aboriginal land rights activism, gardening, and desk jobs in wood-panelled offices at Otago University.
But along the way he returned time and again to his underground passion, the radio. On community and student radio stations, he hosted Swedish jazz festivals and current affairs shows, and read the midnight news.
Ian joined Radio New Zealand seven years ago and has been based in Dunedin as its Otago reporter since 2011. He has also served as the forestry and environment reporters. He led Radio New Zealand's coverage of the Victorian bushfires, the Pike River mine disaster and most recently, enquiries into the death of prisoner, Jai Davis.
Ian's roots are in Adelaide, South Australia, but he has also lived in Melbourne, Tahiti and Wellington before settling down south.
In summer, he can often be found barbequing on the deck in the drizzle or wading in an estuary if it's nicer.
Ian lives with his partner and two sons in an old house overlooking the Botanic Gardens. His sons call him Tom.
Jack Perkins
Producer and presenter of Spectrum
Having been appointed originally to the public service in 1959, Jack was soon working in the New Zealand Broadcasting Service, the forerunner of the NZBC, and today’s Radio New Zealand.
During those years of public service, he has shown phenomenal skill in documentary-making, and amassed a body of work which profiles the way in which New Zealand has changed.
It’s a remarkable story of dedication to the idea of the field-recorded documentary which has seen him begin feature production in the days of unwieldy tape recorders with 5-inch reels of tape, and migrate to today’s miniaturised recorders with no moving parts.
This change in technology has led to much wider use of field recording, as Jack explains in an online guide he has created for Radio New Zealand staff:
Using a variety of field recording techniques, producers (mainly based in Radio New Zealand National’s features section) attempt to build programmes which have a sense of ‘place’ and are often rich in ambient sound. This ‘in situ’ form of radio, invested with high technical and production values, strives for a realism which can activate the mind’s eye of listeners, allowing them to picture a scene or event and feel part of it. In the process, listeners are often given access to people, places and events which they would otherwise never experience.
The evolution of portable recording techniques has helped to de-centralize and democratize radio. In a very real sense, the portable recorder takes radio to the people and imbues their voices and stories with an authenticity and veracity undiluted by transcription or reportage.
But it’s not only a matter of being out and about – throughout all his feature and documentary work, Jack has shown a warm and empathetic interest in the individual and his or her story. Spectrum, which has been running without interruption since 1972, was set up to reflect the sound of New Zealand, and it’s been doing so ever since.
Along with the programme’s founder Alwyn Owen, Jack has been dedicated to finding and reflecting the varied voices and stories of New Zealand in a way which complements the harder-edged style of Radio New Zealand’s news programming.
Spectrum Highlights
Among the 20 programmes making up a retrospective series, Jack has selected examples reflecting Spectrum’s variety: a 1975 expedition into deep Fiordland with a wild-life team where Jack thought he had killed what was possibly the last Kakapo in the wild.
The recreation of the 1864 battle at Gate Pa, Tauranga, involved more than a dozen actors and a re-enactment of the actual battle involving fifty pakeha and Maori and a Black Powder club.
An account of the Queen’s visit in 1953/54 looked back at a fervour in the country for royalty which had never seen before - Southland farmers even lined up sheep on hillsides to spell out a welcome to their new monarch! And in 1974 Jack took author-politician John A Lee back to Mount Eden jail where he had been imprisoned over sixty years before for stealing a pair of boots.
Highlights Of Other Programmes
In addition to the remarkable catalogue of Spectrum programmes, Jack Perkins has also made a wide variety of other programmes, and some of them will be featured during the series:
During the 1990s, Jack took 18 months to compile a nine-hour history of radio in New Zealand. The series is regarded as definitive and the CD set is accompanied by a minute-by-minute written description of the CD audio – an invaluable research tool for media historians of the present and future.
For some months in 2007 Jack had been gathering material from those who were shoulder-to-shoulder with the late Sir Edmund Hillary in Nepal and on his various expeditions. The hope was that this three-hour celebration of Ed’s achievements would be broadcast before he died – but that wasn’t to be.
With Ed’s death, Radio New Zealand decided to make over 20 hours of raw material into an obituary series and broadcast it before the state funeral. Such a tight turn-around was exceptionally challenging but totally appropriate to the occasion. Jack also took part in the live broadcast of the state funeral.
From time to time Jack has also produced one-off special documentaries on topics ranging from the aftermath of the 1981 Springbok rugby tour, and the effects of past earthquakes, to the life of pioneer aviator Richard Pearse.
Training
In addition to his skills as a programme-maker, Jack Perkins is also a noted trainer, and his teaching has had a profound effect on decades of Radio New Zealand staff and contractors. He once had a formal role in the NZBC Training Centre in the 1960s, and he was the key trainer for a special documentary-making programme run in China by Radio New Zealand in 2004.
Jesse Mulligan
Host of Afternoons (from 27 July 2015)
Jim Mora
Host of The Panel and Checkpoint
Jim Mora has worked across media, and has won national awards as a television journalist and as a columnist. He has also made and narrated a number of TV documentaries, and presented various television series. He is the author of children’s books, and successful TV animations for children, which have screened in many countries around the world.
Jim lives in Auckland with partner Mary Lambie, three children, a cat, and numerous bikes and scooters.
Jim Sullivan
Host of Sounds Historical
Jim Sullivan is one of this country’s foremost oral historians and has published many books on various aspects of New Zealand history.
As a broadcaster of many years standing, his career has spanned five decades which started with him spinning the discs in Timaru before moving to current affairs, news reading and then to presenting National Radio’s Morning Report.
Based in Dunedin, his ‘soul’ territory, Jim combines his passion for broadcasting alongside his passion for history with Sounds Historical every Sunday from 8pm to 10pm on Radio New Zealand National.
Justin Gregory
Senior Spoken Features Producer
Producer/Presenter Standing Room Only
Justin Gregory has been a features producer for Radio New Zealand National since 2005. His time at RNZ has seen him recording on icebergs in the South Pacific, alongside humpback whales in Tonga, from inside the world’s oldest observatory and while standing outside the Pope’s bedroom.
He received the NZ Radio Award for Best New Broadcaster in 2007, won the award for Best Documentary in 2014 and was a finalist in that category in 2009. Along with Sonia Sly he reports on the arts for Standing Room Only.
The Underarm, a play Justin co-wrote with David Geary about that infamous incident in a cricket game in Melbourne in 1981, had seasons in Auckland, Wellington and Palmerston North, toured for nearly three years to festivals around New Zealand, and irritated every Australian cricket fan who saw it or heard about it.
Justine Murray
Producer and presenter of Te Ahi Kaa
Ko Tauranga te moana
Ko Mauao te maunga
Ko Ngai te Rangi me Ngāti Ranginui oku iwi
Ko Ngai Tamarāwaho me Ngai Tukairangi oku hapu
Ko Huria me Hungahungatoroa oku marae
Ko Mataatua me Takitimu oku waka
Tenei te mihi ki a tātou katoa.
Growing up in Rotorua during the late 1980s and 90s listening to radio set the tone for a career in broadcasting when Justine became addicted to making dedications on Radio Te Arawa. There was something amazing about hearing a DJ say your name on the radio, and on top of that, the DJ said your shout-outs and played your song request!
So began a keen passion for radio. In 1996, Justine graduated from the Māori Journalism course at Waiariki Polytechnic, tutored at the time by Chris Webber and Rawiri Wright. In 1997, after a quick stint at McDonalds manning the cheeseburger and hamburger stations, she got a job at Moana AM 1440 KHZ located in her hometown of Tauranga. From 1997-2008, Justine did a bit of everything – she produced the daily news bulletins, was the on-air announcer of the drive show, helped set up a youth radio station, produced a breakfast show and became programme director. Aside from work, Justine carried out studies in radio programming, business practice and mātauranga Māori.
In 2008 she started her current role as producer of the Māori kaupapa show Te Ahi Kaa, a job she shares with Maraea Rakuraku.
Kathryn Ryan
Host of Nine to Noon
Kathryn Ryan grew up in Dunedin and has also lived in Christchurch, Hawke’s Bay, and Wellington.
She took a circuitous route into journalism, which included completing a BA degree in History and Education, two years teacher training, and six years running a sports and recreation centre, before completing Canterbury University's post-graduate journalism course.
Over the last decade and and a half Kathryn has had wide-ranging journalism and broadcasting experience in the print, radio and television industries.
She joined Radio New Zealand in 1999 and spent six years reporting on Parliament in Radio New Zealand's Press Gallery office, the last three as Radio New Zealand's political editor, before taking up the Nine to Noon role in May 2006. She has also been a guest commentator on TVNZ’s current affairs programmes.
Kathryn has covered the last six general elections in various roles, but she is not just a political animal.
During her youth she had ten years stage experience in speech, drama and singing, and she pursued an active sports career until journalism took over.
Kathryn is an avid reader of fiction and non-fiction, and enjoys writing poetry and short stories.
She has travelled widely throughout New Zealand and visited around 20 countries in Europe, Asia and the Pacific, as well as the United States, and Antarctica.
Interviews conducted during her visit to Scott Base, Antarctica in December 2011 can be accessed through the links page on the Nine to Noon webpage.
Her other interests include movies, good food and wine, the great outdoors, tramping and sea swimming.
Katrina Batten
Katrina has worked in most areas of radio since she began her career as a studio operator in Wellington’s Broadcasting House in 1987. To date she’s worked in commercial radio in Wellington and New Plymouth, produced and presented New Zealand Forces Radio for three and a half years, a show broadcast on Radio New Zealand International several times a weekend for NZ Defence Force personnel stationed overseas, produced Wayne Mowat’s In Touch with NZ and several Outside Broadcasts, and took up presenting with Late Edition, the All Night Programme and Sunday 4 ‘til 8.
She also produces and presents the weekly podcast Best of the Week and manages to read the news on occasion. Every Christmas morning you’ll hear her and newsreader Catriona Macleod turn into the faeries “Sugar and Spice” for fun entertainment to kick start your holidays.
Katrina also tutors at the New Zealand Radio Training School, Whitireia Polytechnic and is the “unofficial” tour guide of RNZ House in Wellington.
Katy Gosset
Producer and presenter of One in Five, Spectrum and New Zealand Society.
Katy always wanted to be a journalist.
Each morning in her family home started with the theme tune to Morning Report. (Still does.)
As a student she read the news on 98 RDU in Christchurch and soon became a DJ, hosting breakfast, brunch and drive shows.
Fast-forward a few years (OK, make it 20) and she now co-presents and produces One in Five, as well as Spectrum and New Zealand Society on Radio New Zealand National.
In between, Katy spent many years as a news journalist, covering numerous court cases, public meetings, industrial disputes, not to mention earthquakes. She was judged Individual Radio Journalist of the Year in 2009 and was a finalist again in 2013.
Katy started presenting the Christchurch Story segment on Afternoons with Jim Mora in 2006 and joined One in Five in 2012. She was a finalist in the Radio Awards Best Documentary or Spoken Feature category in 2013.
Along the way, she's worked in television, print, PR and publishing and lectured in journalism. She's also pulled a few pints, folded wontons in a takeaway shop and performed as a children's clown. (And can still twist a mean balloon animal!)
She's never found anyone who doesn't have a tale to tell and still feels excited (and frequently moved) when she hears a compelling piece of audio.
Kim Hill
Host of Saturday Morning
So what is Kim Hill, unquestionably one of New Zealand's finest current affairs interviewers, really like? The answer, if you listen to her programme long enough, turns out to have been obvious all along. I think I’m just like the way I am on the radio. I mean, you haven't got time to put on a face, you haven’t got time to pretend to be anything other than you are - otherwise, you’d drive yourself bonkers! So, in essence, what you hear on the radio is what you get in real life? Yeah, yeah. With a few expletives deleted.
She was born and raised in Shropshire, the English county bordering Wales, but her father was actually Irish – a veterinarian – and her mother was Scots, a physiotherapist and nurse. The family (Kim also has a younger brother, Iain) used to spend their holidays in Ireland, until an epidemic of foot-and-mouth disease in England prompted her parents to emigrate to New Zealand. Kim was just 15 when the family arrived in Otorohanga, and for a while, it was a bit of a culture shock. But gradually she adjusted, taking a BA in French and German at university (Massey and Otago) and then becoming a masseuse. A what? Those were the days when it was legit, therapeutic, she once explained in an interview: "nobody believes me!".
Kim was working as a barmaid, at the Sir George Grey hotel in Tairua, when she learned she'd been accepted for Canterbury University's Postgraduate School of Journalism. Oddly enough, it wasn't an easy choice for her to make – she'd enjoyed being behind the bar.
But off she went, joining Radio New Zealand in Gisborne after completing the Christchurch course. A stint in Greymouth followed, as did a period writing for the Nelson Evening Mail, before Kim arrived in Wellington to brandish her acerbic skills on the current affairs show, Checkpoint. Next came Morning Report, with Geoff Robinson, where she quickly gained a high profile for her probing, persistent style of questioning.
When Kim became the host of the daily morning programme Nine to Noon in 1993, it quickly became essential listening. In the nine years she was host, she interviewed thousands of people, and probably read as many books. Among her guests were the famous (the Dalai Lama, Nelson Mandela) and the infamous (Jeffrey Archer, Monica Lewinsky).
Kim began hosting the Saturday Morning show on April 20, 2002. This programme gives her the opportunity for expansive interviews with her guests – be they scientists, historians, theologians, psychiatrists, novelists, or just characters or high achievers – while also taking in some leisurely interests: food, classic literature and poetry, children's books and music.
In 2012 Kim Hill won the International Radio Personality of the Year (Association for International Broadcasting).
Judges described Kim Hill as: "an experienced and warm broadcaster exercising full control of her content whilst coaxing her guests to reveal more of themselves; really enjoyable live and sparky content that demonstrates what is great about radio and illustrates how important lightness of touch is in speech content."
Liz Gunn
Newsreader.
Liz Gunn is relishing her return to Radio New Zealand National after a decade-long hiatus living in Sydney.
With her two children now grown, she is re-awakening her early media days when she read news, as well as filling in on Nine to Noon and Morning Report from 1992 under the tutelage of Sharon Crosbie who picked her up from TVOne's now defunct Arts on Sunday programme.
That was Liz's first foray into television presenting, although her earlier work as a young commercial litigation lawyer and as a Law Professionals teacher, had also honed research, communication, performance and interviewing skills which later crossed over in to radio and TV work.
Later TV work included weekend news anchor, as well as being Judy Bayley's stand-in, inaugural Good Morning host, Breakfast co -host and Late News anchor and interviewer. Adaptability is her hallmark!
A love of word play in books and poetry, a passion for health research and vibrant fitness, an interest in theatre and acting, a joy in edible gardening and worm farming, an insatiable curiosity about the human psyche and a desire to see the suffering of others alleviated, are all fuels which feed Liz's passion and her indomitable spirit.
Lloyd Scott
Host of the All Night Programme
Lloyd's broadcasting career began in Greymouth as a radio technician in 1963. Then followed a period in Nelson and two years as a drama operator in Christchurch.
After a couple of years OE Lloyd became an announcer with the NZBC in 1970 and spent seven years in Wellington as a 2ZM DJ before becoming a professional actor.
Since then he has performed on stage all over NZ and overseas, and kept up an association with radio. He has been a broadcaster on Radio New Zealand National since 1989. From 1983-1987 he took over the presentation of Video Dispatch on TV, and was Crumpy's mate Scotty in a series of TV vehicle commercials from 1982-1996. Currently he is one of the all-night hosts.
Lynda Chanwai-Earle
Producer and presenter of Asian Report / Voices
Multi-talented writer and performer Lynda Chanwai Earle is a fourth-generation Chinese New Zealander. Born in London in 1965 she spent her early childhood in Papua New Guinea before completing her education in New Zealand. She studied creative writing with Albert Wendt and graduated from the University of Auckland with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1990 and a Diploma in Drama, 1994. Lynda also graduated with a Masters of Arts in Creative Writing at Victoria University’s International Institute of Modern Letters in 2006.
Lynda represented New Zealand at the inaugural Hong Kong Literary Festival in 2001, the 2002 Philippines Asia–Pacific Poetry Conference, was Trans-Tasman writer at the 2003 Queensland Poetry Festival and attended the Shanghai Literary Festival in 2005 as guest writer. Lynda was short-listed again for the Bruce Mason Awards, 2010. Lynda began working at Radio New Zealand producing Asian Report in May 2011. She lives in Wellington with her two young daughters.
Lynn Freeman
Producer and presenter of Standing Room Only
Lynn has spent the best part of 30 years working at Radio New Zealand, starting as an intern before being appointed chief reporter of the Dunedin News Room – just in time to helm the Aramoana shooting tragedy. After a stint in regional TV, she returned to Radio New Zealand, this time working in Head Office. She moved from executive producer for Nine to Noon to senior producer for Morning Report, before being appointed to her current role, presenter and co-producer of Standing Room Only (previously known as Arts on Sunday). She also is Kathryn Ryan’s fill-in on Nine to Noon and has produced award-winning features and documentaries.
Outside of Radio New Zealand, Lynn is a theatre critic for Capital Times and a judge of the annual Chapman Tripp Theatre Awards.
Marty Duda
Contributor to Nine to Noon
Marty Duda moved his family and his record collection to New Zealand in 1994. It wasn’t long before he became involved in the local music scene… writing for Real Groove and Rip It Up and eventually producing music programmes for Radio New Zealand.
Marty is a regular contributor to Radio New Zealand’s Nine to Noon with Kathryn Ryan, where, every Wednesday morning, he presents a different musical artist… offering up a career overview peppered with personal opinions and assorted non-relevant ramblings. Marty also runs The 13th Floor, a website chock full of music and film reviews, interviews and the occasion book, theatre and DVD review. He also has just begun hosting 13th Floor Music Trivia nights where his extensive trivial knowledge is put to some good use.
Mary Wilson
Presenter of Checkpoint
Mary has been hosting Checkpoint since 1997.
In that time the programme has developed into one of New Zealand’s top rating news programmes, winning awards for best programme and best presenter.
Each day Mary does up to a dozen interviews with the key newsmakers – her uncompromising tenacious style has won respect from commentators, interviewees and listeners.
Before she took the Checkpoint job, Mary worked as a reporter for Radio New Zealand. She started her career in 1988 on a community station in Greymouth before moving to New Plymouth, Palmerston North and then on to Wellington's 2ZB.
She was Radio New Zealand's national education and health reporter and worked with a team of journalists on Checkpoint before taking over as presenter.
Melody Thomas
Presenter of Summer Music 101
In the lead-up to her birth, Melody Thomas’ parents decided to call her Megan. It wasn’t until after she arrived, when a suggestion of ‘Melanie’ was misheard by her father, that her real name was chosen. While devastating for 5 year-old Melody, who had come so close to sharing a name with the main character of the original My Little Pony series, this turn of events would later prove serendipitous - ensuring a career and life surrounded by music.
Advised to ‘channel her creativity into ad writing’ while at the New Zealand Broadcasting School, Melody decided instead to find a place where she would never have to write, listen to or think about an advertisement for the rest of her broadcasting life. From producing her first feature for Spectrum in 2007, Melody was signed on to co-produce the first year of Summer Noelle, later acting as a floating producer for everything from Afternoons to Saturday Morning and eventually making her way to Music 101, where she has happily remained ever since.
Mike Hodge
Newsreader
Mike Hodge is further proof that radio remains in the blood. A former Radio New Zealand Tonight Show host and commercial network newsreader, Mike migrated his communications skills to public relations, economic development and running a regional tourism organisation. For the past decade, he has been assisting businesses in New Zealand and overseas to bring their brand stories to life.
When he’s not busy writing or back reading the nation’s news, Mike is inclined to pick up his paintbrushes or disappear into the Hauraki Gulf to make small dents in the local snapper population.
Nicola Wright
Newsreader
When Nicola first joined the Radio New Zealand presentation team in 1998, she received a steady supply of letters from people asking if she is the Nicola Wright they remember from years ago – whom they read to sleep under a truck in Kuala Lumpur, whose family they holidayed with in a bach up north, or who they lived down the road from and whose parents they would like to get in touch with again. Curiously enough, Nicola says no. Two letters have referred to the same person, and none of them have been her – disappointingly so in some cases, such as the phone call from a man asking if she was the Nicola Wright whose parents he knew from earlier filmmaking days, and that if she was would she be interested in joining his upcoming African documentary trip. Apparently, "No, but can I come anyway?" was not the answer he was looking for.
So in the interests of avoiding further disappointment...
This Nicola Wright was born and educated in Christchurch. Her radio career has ranged from midnight-to-dawn shifts on a Classic Rock station (Black Sabbath and Queen in the wee small hours!) to creating commercials and launching the breakfast prize balloon at Radio Wairarapa in Masterton. In her time at Radio New Zealand she has worked in commercial news, sport, the Pacific-focused international service and National news programmes. But her focus has always been news presentation, which she has always found challenging and highly enjoyable.
Phil O'Brien
Producer and presenter of Matinee Idle / Saturday Night
Phil O’Brien returned to New Zealand radio after a lengthy broadcasting career in Australia and the United States. He’s been a part of Radio New Zealand National since 2002 as an occasional newsreader and a midnight-dawn host. He started Radio New Zealand National’s summer schedule feature music show, Matinee Idle, the following year. Since then, this programme has become a hugely popular summer feature for a lot of listeners at home and abroad. It now turns up on public holidays as well as the summer schedule and has developed a dedicated (some may say obsessive) fan-base!
Philippa Tolley
Executive producer of Insight
Philippa is currently the executive producer of Radio New Zealand National’s award-winning weekly current affairs documentary Insight, where she both makes documentaries herself and commissions and oversees the work of others.
Before taking on that role, she worked at Radio New Zealand International covering events and stories in the Pacific region. At the same time she also compiled and presented World Watch for part of the week. Prior to that, Philippa worked in London for the BBC as a senior producer on national news programmes in both radio and television after starting out at Radio New Zealand straight out of university.
Philippa is also an experienced trainer and has delivered courses and workshops for international organisations such as the Asia Broadcasting Union, the Commonwealth Broadcasting Association and the Pacific Islands Forum.
Ruth Beran
Presenter and producer of Our Changing World
Ruth Beran is Australian, but don’t hold that against her! She moved to Wellington in 2009 to become the co-presenter and co-producer of Radio New Zealand National’s science programme Our Changing World.
In Sydney, she worked for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) as a researcher on the science television programme Catalyst. Before that she was a producer for the Mornings Programme for South West Victoria on ABC Local Radio in Ballarat. Her career in science journalism began with a position in Melbourne as a journalist for Australian Life Scientist and Australian Biotechnology News and prior to that she also worked briefly as the Editor of Who’s Who in Australia.
Ruth has collected a number of degrees, including a Bachelor of Science and a Graduate Diploma in Scientific Communication. Her enthusiasm for science radio has been rewarded with a New Zealand Radio Award for Best Documentary in 2012 and the Royal College of Pathologists of Australasia Excellence in Media Awards in 2012 and 2013.
Simon Mercep
Simon would like to clear up one issue that's surfaced from time to time during his illustrious media career - his surname. It's stumped a few. He's seen it spelled "Mercer", "Mercet", and once, "Murphett". Maybe someone detected an Irish accent?
For the record, Mercep is Croatian, a name Simon traces back to a village on the Dalmatian coast called Podgora. In the Croatian tongue, it's pronounced "Mer-chep". His grandfather came to New Zealand at the age of fifteen, speaking no English. He dug for kauri gum in the North, drained swamps and eventually ran a small business in Taumarunui.
Simon’s Slavic blood also runs through his mother's side. She's of Polish heritage and was born in Europe. So all things considered, Simon is a new-ish New Zealander.
He first wanted to write for newspapers. He completed a print-oriented journalism course and, like all the other students, then applied for just about every newspaper in the country. He got turned down by all of them - what were they thinking? - but he was accepted as a trainee reporter by Radio New Zealand, and so a career in broadcast journalism was born.
And he's gone on to work for some iconic Kiwi media brands: Radio New Zealand News, One News, Holmes, Fair Go, Morning Report, and now, Afternoons.
Simon's spell of OE charted some common ports of call for New Zealand journalists, like the BBC and the ABC in Australia. But he didn't find too many New Zealanders when he worked as a writer and subeditor for a monthly current affairs magazine in Nicosia, Cyprus.
As host of Afternoons, he promises to do his best to rein in his enthusiasm for Bruce Springsteen's music!
Simon Morris
Producer and presenter of Matinee Idle, Standing Room Only (previously Arts on Sunday) and At The Movies
Simon Morris is paid to go to the movies, which sounds rather more fun than it often is. Not every film is a timeless classic, and every Oscar-winner stands on the shoulders of midgets. When he’s not going to the cinema and reporting his findings every week on At The Movies, Simon produces the rather more improving Standing Room Only (previously known as Arts On Sunday), and the entirely less improving Matinee Idle in the public holidays.
Simon Morton
Producer and presenter of This Way Up
Simon Morton is a curious person who's easily distracted.
He established the award-winning weekly consumer/science technology programme This Way Up in 2005 and is a regular contributor to the BBC World Service Click programme. He's won a few gongs along the way including a Gold Medal for best social issues or current affairs programme at the New York Festival Radio Awards 2012 for the programme Broken River.
He's presented and co-produced a number of TV shows: Why We Buy (TVNZ One), Use As Directed (TVNZ 6/7) and Tales From Te Papa (TVNZ 6/7 with a book version and educational DVD published), Along for the Ride (TVNZ One) and Forensics: The Science behind the truth (Prime).
Before moving into radio in 2001, Simon had a varied and disjointed 'career'. His first proper job was a three-year stint for Bungy pioneer AJ Hackett. Before this he worked as a recruitment consultant in London, repaired skis in France, cleared tables at a Palm Beach country club and was MC of a weekly talent night in Majorca.
Simon's worked at the BBC World Service in London producing the weekly technology series, Click (Digital Planet) and has also produced work for National Public Radio in the US, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
Outside work he enjoys riding his bikes, cooking, eating, skiing and having fun with his family based in Wellington.
Stuart Keith
Newsreader
Stuart has been back working for Radio New Zealand since 2001, but started his broadcasting career with the New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation in 1976. Those were the days of regional postings for announcers, and Stuart worked variously at 2ZA Palmerston North, Radio Nelson, 3ZM Christchurch and then on The Tonite Show and Allniter in Wellington.
In 1982, Stuart moved to Perth where he became a television presenter and newsreader for the Channel 7 Network. He moved to the UK in 1984 and for the next two years worked as a "voice-over" presenter for commercial radio stations, television, advertising agencies and the BBC.
Between 1984 and 1990 Stuart had a major career change, becoming a director of a publicly listed Australian company and ran the pan-European marketing activities of the organisation. Returning to New Zealand, Stuart worked for Radio Pacific, and Fifeshire Radio in Nelson, before joining Telecom, and subsequently New Zealand Post in sales and marketing roles.
Stuart can be heard on the Radio New Zealand National every Saturday and Sunday morning. At other times he can be found fishing, gardening, thinking about politics, reading and/or travelling.
Susan Murray
Producer and presenter of Country Life
Susan Murray accidentally started her radio career splicing tapes and timing commercials with an after-school job at King Country Radio in Taumarunui. Since then, radio news reporting or feature programme-making has been her main interest. She has had the joy of working for Country Life since 1999, meeting a vast array of stimulating people in far flung areas. She hopes the programme reflects the diversity, skill, knowledge and personality of those people living and working outside of the 50km zone. Susan is shepherd to 20 ewes, one young ram lamb and one old ewe at Sheep Heaven, a lifestyle block at Ngahinapouri in Waikato. She also has one useless sheep dog, and a superior set of sheep yards.
Susan Murray is based in Hamilton, job sharing her role with Carol Stiles. Together they cover the North Island.
Susie Ferguson
Presenter of Morning Report
Susie worked in Britain for broadcasters including the BBC and ITN. She has reported and presented from around the world including Iraq, Afghanistan, Sierra Leone, Lebanon, Mozambique and the Balkans. Stories she's covered include the Iraq War and the Boxing Day tsunami.
She emigrated to New Zealand in 2009 and after presenting Summer Report and filling in on Checkpoint, she now presents Morning Report.
Teresa Cowie
Presenter of Summer Report
Growing up in a farming family in Hokitika has prepared Teresa well for a life in journalism. While training at the BBC in London she spent much of her time filming surgeons wearing their white wellies in theatre, or donning her own green gumboots as she chased pigs around the countryside for the programme Jimmy’s Farm. You might think writing obituaries for people who hadn’t even died yet might be a gruesome task. Not so for this sturdy farm girl, who spent one summer unearthing the career highs and lows of Westminster politicians for Sky News.
Teresa has a degree in English Literature and Social Policy from Victoria University, and worked as a Producer for BBC Television News in London before taking up a role as a Reporter for Radio New Zealand.
She enjoys theatre, ballet and riding her highly impractical, but delightfully traditional, bicycle.
Trevor Reekie
Producer and presenter of Access All Areas and Hidden Treasures
Trevor Reekie was the guitarist of seminal eighties electro group Car Crash Set, has two ambient solo albums under the name Cosa Nostra, and over ten years recorded four albums with the Greg Johnson Band. Trevor founded two Auckland based record labels, Pagan and Antenna. He is a freelance writer and broadcaster.
Veronika Meduna
Producer and presenter of Our Changing World
Veronika Meduna joined Radio New Zealand in 1999 and spent much of her first year as a science broadcaster reporting on the Royal Commission on Genetic Modification. With that completed, she joined the Features department and has been producing and presenting science and environment programmes ever since, telling hundreds of radio stories.
Apart from her role as a science broadcaster, Veronika has also contributed to a science column in the New Zealand Listener, writes for science publications in New Zealand and overseas, curates and writes science exhibitions and has five books to her name.
Her latest book, Science on Ice: Discovering the Secrets of Antarctica, explores what the frozen continent tells us about past and future climates, survival in extreme conditions and the evolution of life. It was a finalist in the 2013 Royal Society of New Zealand Science Book Prize.
Her most recent exhibition, Antarctic Time Travel Exhibition, takes visitors on a journey through Antarctica’s changing climate from 50 million years ago to the present. In 2006, Veronika co-curated an exhibition for the National Library of New Zealand about the history of science in New Zealand, which was subsequently published as Atoms, Dinosaurs and DNA: 68 Great New Zealand Scientists by Random House (2008), winning the Elsie Locke Award for non-fiction at the 2009 LIANZA awards.
Veronika trained and worked as a microbiologist before becoming a science journalist and writer. As part of her work, she has travelled to Antarctica twice and spent a term at Green College at Oxford University as a Chevening David Low Fellow, studying the media’s role in communicating scientific risk and uncertainty.
One frequent query Veronika receives from listeners is about her accent. People have placed her in many countries, from South Africa to Samoa to Peru, but the truth is that there are two other languages coming through in her English: Czech from a childhood spent in what used to be Czechoslovakia and German from the country she lived in after her family’s escape.
Vicki McKay
Presenter of the All Night Programme
Vicki entered radio via a circuitous route after career starters in the travel industry, nursing, and being a restaurateur for number of years with her husband, the Chef.
Years of speech and drama, both on and off the stage, was the ideal foundation for an announcing audition at Radio Lakeland in Taupo. She took to the tandem breakfast announcing like a duck to water and could not believe you could have so much fun and get paid for it!
"It was the best training ground you could ask for." Vicki says " It was frenetic, challenging and exciting. We were constantly out in the community doing station promotions, fundraisers, news and weather reports, and sometimes, all of the above, on the lake or a mountain!"
Vicki credits this early training, interspersed with courses at the Radio New Zealand training school, as being the key to coping under pressure as a network newsreader in Radio New Zealand's commercial years; for the start of the first Gulf War and the Aramoana tragedy.
A decision to study media law in 1995 saw her choose to host the All Night Programme, which subsequently broke the news of the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York and more recently the September 2010 earthquake in Christchurch and Mount Tongariro's eruption in 2012.
"Your brain becomes a sponge for detail and the mind zones in on the facts and figures. Radio is such an immediate service industry and it is so important to deliver such news as accurately and quickly as possible. As the official National Civil Defence Radio Station, we also have a responsibility to do this without alarming our listeners unnecessarily. So it is a delicate balance." Vicki says.
Vicki has worked for Radio New Zealand for almost three decades. "I have worked here alongside an army of professional broadcasters and journalists who ensure our listeners are informed to the very best of our ability. How lucky am I to have chosen a career that I love?"
Wallace Chapman
Presenter of Sunday Morning
Graduating with a degree in English and Education from Otago University, Wallace left the halls of academia and a proposed Masters, to head into media as Creative Director of Radio One 91FM Dunedin, where he also hosted popular arts and current affairs show The Saturday Late Breakfast.
A phone call and a job offer in 2001 from radio 95bFM saw Chapman back in his home town of Auckland to head up the bFM Creative Director role for 5 years, penning many classic ads.
After a time as fill in host for Russell Brown’s Wire, a year as 95bFM Breakfast host cemented Chapman’s name as someone who brings a depth and context to discussing issues, combined with an engaging, informed and idiosyncratic style.
Chapman has been the breakfast show host on KiwiFM, and since 2011, a host on Radio Live. He started his television work reporting stories on media satire show Eating Media Lunch, and is the host of the unique ‘pub politics’ show Back Benches. Now in its seventh year, Back Benches is described by Time Out, NZ Herald as a ‘sort of Top Gear for politics.’
“Fearless, but never mean,” is how his interviewing style was described in a Listener article in January 2012. “He’s disarming because he asks that very hard question in a very simple, direct way. And he’s not mean, so his questions don’t upset people”.
Warwick Burke
Newsreader
Warwick was born and raised in Christchurch where he auditioned for the then New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation and was posted to Greymouth for six months in 1967.
He worked in Christchurch for 3ZB and CHTV3 from 1968 until 1975, then fronted the Television One local News until 1977 when he was transferred to TV One's headquarters at Avalon, Lower Hutt.
He spent thirteen most enjoyable years there working firstly as a reporter and presenter in the network news until Television One went to Auckland, whereupon he worked on various feature programmes such as Fair Go and Country Calendar.
Warwick began his present work as a newsreader for Radio New Zealand National from 1990 and for a number of years has hosted the New Year's Eve programme.