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[Music] Rick elito welcome to my podcast welcome to your spare room yeah well it's a very
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small room as well I had um Rie over here uh before I had the camera set up and I said welcome to my studio and he
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goes wow it's a very small Studio isn't it there you go these not real bricks no
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that's well I ruin the illusion oh [ __ ] you know it's wallpaper no it's it's
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coming along good hey thanks so much mate you're um you're like a dream guest that's that's seeing your name and
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lights isn't it that's good I like that yeah well I mean um yeah there's no TV
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person that's ever offered me of work so buy a couple of cameras now get your
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own neon sign boom you're in business um so how are you how are you today um I'm
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good I um I got back um so I've been away overseas for about four years three and
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a half four years and then um did the World Cup and then came back first of November I think so so yeah it's been
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it's been nice being back in New Zealand actually I've really enjoyed it yeah we
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we'll get to the um the World Cup uh later on and you're involved in that but
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um yeah while I was doing my notes yesterday I like oh you you've been um at two World Cup
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finals well yeah maybe you're a bad L yeah no I've been to the only World Cup
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I haven't been to was the Japanese one right um no but I mean in terms of official involvement you were 95 95 yeah
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that was my fault and uh must yeah yeah it must have been my fault this last one
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as well oh you're 95 that was the food poisoning one yeah yeah yeah yeah with
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Susie the waitress okay so um yeah so you've been in New York the last four years um working with um rugby over
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there um and you moved from New York to Tyro and Tyro like the the land mass of that place is probably like half of
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Central Park so there is um less people live in Tyro than live in my apartment Block in New
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York so um yeah it was quite a shock but um but I loved it I love being in Tor and uh people are amazing and um you
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know if you told an America if you if you if you took tyur and designed it and said to an American this is where you
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could live they'd think it was Paradise so we take that stuff for granted a bit
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and um I mean it is it's like paradise it's just it's just an incredible place
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I I went all the way back through your Instagram page and you do share a lot which is really cool um back to as far
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as it goes back why and it seems like Ty's a special place for you always has
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been why is that um oh when my son was young um we take him to Tyro and then uh you know we we bought a place down there
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and it's just um yeah it is it's it's and I I realized a few years ago that
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you know I got a lovely place down there and I needed to spend more time down there um uh you know what's what what's
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the use of building something beautiful and and not and not using it so um yeah I love it down there and I um just so
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much it's just the simp of it is what I like and um and and the space m um and
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the Sea you know one of the things that I struggled with a bit being in New York
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for so long was um you just don't see the ocean I mean we could see the the the Hudson River but not the same bodies
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floating past and stuff like that but it's yeah it's a little bit different
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yeah so you're um we we're recording this uh two days before you're going in
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for a knee replacement operation so how old are you 61 uh 28 yeah 28 yeah yeah um Shez aging it's a barrel of
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laughs isn't it we were cheing about this just before like I'm I'm a I'm a
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runner I've got knee issues I have a big run and then I'm [ __ ] for a couple of
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days afterwards yeah well i' I've done pretty well CU I don't do anything so um
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you know uh I manag to sort of I mean considering I injured the knee and what was it
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1982 or something and now I'm finally getting operated on now so it's [Music]
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words in the English language especially when you are completely open to where you might end up yeah what is next I
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mean you're 61 but um I yeah I feel like you've still got I don't I saw a thing
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online yesterday it said at the age of 60 you've got like um probably at least
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a thousand good weeks left I don't know if it's a grim way of looking at it or a positive way looking
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at it um I think um I just decided to not push it and um just chill and see what comes my way you
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know and and um had some really interesting conversations so I've been back with all sorts of projects and um
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you know some people just want some help and uh which is great I love doing that
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and I think um I I I I don't know what next um but I'm not worried by that I I I know there
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will be in what next um but it's quite it's quite nice to just take a bit of
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time and and just work on yourself a bit you know and working for someone else so
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I've been enjoying that um I've been enjoying uh looking at my laptop and
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finding some of the things that I wrote that I never finished um whether they're program
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proposals or scripts or whatever um it's been really cool to sort of just have
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time to finish them um because you know when you're looking at your your documents folder or whatever and you see
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all these things and you're like I never should have I should have done that I
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didn't finish that you know it's nice to just get them sorted you know so I've
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been enjoying that and I've been enjoying Pizza is there a good pizza place in a
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pizza track in D is awesome yeah oh God hey um what it's been it's been um such
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a vast um varied and and successful career we we we'll go through all that it's like a greatest St but let's go the
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way back so um yeah memories from growing up where did you grow up where did the sense of humor come from so I
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grew up um in South um well ear early days in Green Lane but then I um my college was at deel College
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in in M or mangry when I grew up but it's obviously different there um oh that's with with JK you you guys were
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schoolmates John Kuan I was there first and he followed um and yeah and so went to DL College which um uh I think my
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time there best described as high spirited um but I got through it and uh yeah I met JK um
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uh in the first of team we're in the first of team together uh I was the number eight and he was the halfback and
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he just got bigger and bigger as the season got on um and then uh and then yeah and I love I love my time I love I
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love South Oakland it's so vibrant and what I really like about it now is um
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you know obviously it was always so when I moved there it's a big freezing worker
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sort of population and lots of people work the freezing Works Taho freezing Works um you know South down and stuff
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like like that and then um and then the Polynesian population really sort of um um really took off and what I like now
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is the pride in the Polynesian Heritage and culture that I see out there which probably wasn't there when I grew up so
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much um I love that I think it's awesome and um you know even my school you know
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as I got through the later years was getting stronger and stronger Polynesia now it's probably 99% poan and it's just
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such a vibrant uh amazing Community it's brilliant and you went to I read this I
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don't know if it's true or not you went to primary school with JK John Key oh
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well I'm not sure we we had a chat about it so he I went to Cornell park primary
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and apparently so did he and we worked out that we're about the same age and he
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but he I think we crossed over like six months and when you're five you don't
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tend to remember people but um yeah unless it's like your best friend that you sort of grew up with yeah yeah so um
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I don't remember him having a big impact at the time yeah and what about um yeah
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what about your sense of humor because you've got this sort of um Relentless
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self-deprecation does that does that come from your mom your dad grandparents what that dad's Italian so Chef right
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Chef yeah um so uh his his his he was a very funny man but his sense of humor was um uh different and um and Mom
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yeah good kiwi and uh you know again just a normal family just fantastic family but I think
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um I was just lucky I think growing up you know I mean probably the biggest influence for me was watching John Clark
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Fred deck I just used to love him watching him and listening to him on the radio and buying his records and stuff
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like that um what I loved about it was uh you know incredibly talented but but never the self-deprecating thing I
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liked because it was he never made out that he was the smartest guy in the room um but he was but he didn't need to tell
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everyone and um yeah he was he was a massive influence on me I everyone of my generation you know he was he was it
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though we had one comedian and it was him and he was everywhere yeah must been nice for you um going full circle when
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you were in Sports Cafe and you got to do a version of um we don't know how lucky we are what a I think um that was
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probably the of all the things I've done that's probably one of the things I'm
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most proud of is that uh I one day I I must be watching the Olympics or something something was annoying me
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about the um national anthem was just a bit boring you know and I was like we need a new national anthem it should be
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you know we don't know how lucky you are we are and I listened to the record and
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it wasn't quite right wasn't as I imagined it it was a like a p over a castrum and so so I
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rang John Clark I'd never met him before in my life I had you know he had no idea
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who it was and Ice see look mate on um RL so I do a TV show in New Zealand you've never heard of it um but I'd love
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to bring we don't know how lucky we are to Life as a national anthem and he's
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like I like the idea I don't know who you are send me a copy of your show and
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if I like it I'll ring you back so what episode do you see Jes lot of f goes
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into that one all right I think I just seen the one from the previous week and um and he rang me back which was cool
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and so um we'd asked Neil fin if he'd help and Edie Rea if they'd work with graham
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Hill on the music which they did and then I sort of said to John I said mate I need you to write a new verse at the
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beginning and at the end to make it a bit more of an Anthem and he's like cool
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I'll give you a call so he gave me a call about a week later here they are and I was like they're not quite right
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and I remember thinking to myself how am I going to tell John Clark that it's not
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quite what I'm looking for cuz and and he was so me I said look mate we just
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need to tweak this cuz we're trying to do an Anthem and anthems are more like
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this and and he's like get it straight away you're right bang next day you know came back and
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gave us the finished version and um and then and then I just sat back and let them go you know and uh I mean yeah
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he is was one of the things I was doing over this over the Christmas break as I was watching John Clark stuff on um on
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YouTube watching the old uh documentaries on him when he passed away um it just a absolute
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genius like like clever you know um and I remember he saying to me you do know the song's
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ironic I know I know that's what makes it funny but it's great it is great
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though makes you I don't know it gives me goosebumps hearing that song it's
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bloody great makes you makes you be a kiwi so um yes so why journalism so when you left school you became like a like a
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journalist yeah how did I applied for everything you're obviously quite a good
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40 player right like you're in the no I was good enough but I um I what I did
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was I applied for everything applied Teachers College um uh I I I hadn't spend a lot of time
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at school in my last year um so um I and I played for journalism school not really knowing what it was
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and I got in and I was like sweet I'll go to that then because I knew it was
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really hard to get into but in those days it was a six-month course and um you had
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um I think 400 applicant for 30 places something like that and I knew it was hard to get in so I thought if I got in
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then I need to go and um and I'll work out what journalism is when I get there so um yeah and and that's why I
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showed up um and I got in trouble my first week I um trying to remember what I did I got um I I threw something at a
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cricket game and then up being locked up and um locked up locked up locked up yeah yeah yeah oh like a like a central
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districts game or something you threw was it was New Zealand India test match and um [ __ ] I knocked the hat off the
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policemen they used to have those the big pointy on and um I uh yeah kids do not do that at home that's terrible
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behavior and I um so the next week I had to go to court and and I decided I was going to defend myself and I stood up in
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the dock and locked into the gallery and there's my um class doing court reporting that day and I'd called him
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sick so it wasn't a great start um and then I did my I did my um remember the
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asked the play and I went not guilty and the police prosecutor laughed it's like
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you're on a Dem have we take him out the back and show them the summary of facts
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and I went oh that's not good is it that doesn't look good I get the electric chair on these
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summary of facts so um so the the detective inspector who caught me said look we I said I can't I can't have a
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conviction I need to I'm going to be a journalist I'm going to be a sports
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journalist and I'm like okay well let's let's write a spe speech you know and
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let's apply for um discharge without uh conviction under section 42 of the Justice Criminal Justice act so he wrote
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this beautiful speech and so I went back in the dock and I just gave this beautiful piece of arry and the judge
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said I'm a big Cricket fan and that's because of people like you you spoil the
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game for people like me bang gave me the the maximum fine gave me everything and
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I looked at the I looked at the policeman I was like he's like oh [ __ ] we tried you know so so wasn't a great
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start to my journalism career um it didn't hold you back though ultimately no but I
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um I didn't um I didn't get a certificate I got a blank piece of cardboard and um just to make me feel
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better and yeah and then I got in the radio and and I think and I think a lot of kids probably
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go through this I think I'd just been at school too long and um I knew I mean thank God I didn't go to
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university um I knew that um that once I go the workforce you know that' be sweet
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and so I I end up at Radio Pacific which back then was out in Monaco and um oh yeah with Derek L yeah Derek L Gordon
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dren um and uh Bren impy funnily enough was the sports announcer um so yeah that's where I started was he was he was
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a lawyer when I first got into radio he in 199 he was before that he was a lawyer but he used to do the Saturday
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Sports um show on radio Pacific so that's when I met them yeah well and then you ended up in um toong at one
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yeah was that was that a was that a priv back then it was like either government
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owned like the rnz stations or privately owned was that a privately owned one yeah so so I always worked for the
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private stations so there was a real rivalry between Radio New Zealand and the private stations and so I you know
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you you'd move around because that was how you got up the journalism letter you
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know cuz we used to have grades you know so J1 J2 j3 every time you moved you got
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up a grade so I went Pacific fakat aan on Christ Church Wendy and Wellington and I was at haki and ockland with um
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Kevin black and John HBY and Phil giord and all those guys so oh my God yeah it was great times that was an incredible
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station incredible show too yeah yeah so it was um and I loved I loved radio I love I love working on private radio
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every every radio station had its own news team about six seven people and and it was just just a golden age was
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brilliant and some incredible broadcasters amazing and some some incredible characters too like when I
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started in 1990 like the um the guy that was my program director vaugh like I remember McDonald's had a like a sale
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and it was like 99 cent hamburgers so he went down there with like a Food Town bag bought 50 of them and put them in
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his freezer just characters like that yeah yeah no no rules and then and then so then you end up on on uh on TV right
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as so I went to London I went to um um I went to because I I couldn't afford to
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go to Europe so um I rang up Andy hayen and said can you get me a contract um and he's like who's this and um I said
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I'm I'm I'm reck and so he said look I I I'll I'll Jack you up a club in Italy
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but you'll have to be on trial go over there and and and if if they like you
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they'll sign you you know and they'll sort you out so cuz rby was an amate
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game back then and um so went over um played the game they saw me and then they got me a house in the car you know
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and and so I was there for a little while and then at the end of that I went over to London and did a couple of years
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working in radio there and I remember when I was the the Aussie stations that we were
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I was a foreign correspondent for rang rang my boss and they said mate we can't
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have that um kind have that WG name uh from London so he's going to have to change
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his bloody name like so the boss came in he said sorry you can't be Rick Cito anymore so
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I was Richard Holmes Richard Holmes London and um and I was on the radio stations here as Richard Holmes London
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my mom rang the radio stations going that's not Richard holes that's my son I
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know I know that voice anyway but yeah so I was Richard Holmes and so how did you end up on TV because when you were
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on TV news here was was there only TV One news or was there TV3 or was this pre TV pre TV3 so I came back from
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London with Kathy we both came back and back then if you worked in London everyone
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thought that was incredible so so I went went away there's a pain in the ass no
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one wanted and came back from London and everyone was like oh do you want a job and um so I was hired to fill in for
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Jane Dent uh and the sports team and and Kathy came and she worked in The Newsroom as a health reporter so we both
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hired um because we came back from London oh so yes so Kathy Campbell um your your wife we can talk about her
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later on if you want but um yes so you met in journalism school and you were you were met radio we met at Radio I we
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we in radio together and then you partnered up straight away yeah and she wanted to go she was going to Europe and
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I wanted to follow her and I couldn't afford it so that's why we played rugby
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right but the um like the when you were on like TV sports news it was like a golden age for for news I mean you look
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at some of the names like hawksby long Sherry Bradley Bailey Dey like um did you
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like I mean how so I had to read the um I started as a reporter and um I was the
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first first time the news um team had assigned a reporter to the or blacks because before that before I came along
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they were was always like gram Thorn or whatever they'd be away on tour and they'd like Tru a microphone but the 87
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World Cup was coming and they were like you know we need someone to travel with the All Blacks and so that was me which
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was pretty cool you know and um and then one day I'd been doing some practice
00:22:01
news reading with Richard Long and he just and this would never happen now he's like rang me up and he said what
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are you doing it was a Sunday afternoon I said nothing he said come on you're
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going to read the news tonight didn't didn't tell anyone you know so so I ran
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I think I was with Tom Bradley my first night and um so I read the news the sports news and then I did it again the
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week after with Angela Dey and I got this review so I got a call on like must been the Monday Tuesday Morning from
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Richard Long going don't read The Herald so what do you mean don't read it come
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to work I'll talk to you so first thing I did was go to the gates of course steal someone else's heral take it back
00:22:44
and my review was um and I remember it's burned in my memory it was like who is
00:22:50
this guy R Rick Salito has a face like a read rubber tire um it's not so much
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when he should get off screen it's how we ever got there in the first place is
00:23:01
the question I was like that's Savage that's harsh hey and I I was angry for about I know
00:23:09
30 seconds and then I got the giggles I thought like that like that is really funny the way that he's really attacked
00:23:16
me and um but I carried on I didn't get any better my my problem as a news reader is I got easily distracted cuz
00:23:23
you know you're reading audio q and um so all the work's been done and and it I
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don't know it's 5 minutes work 7 Minutes work and I'd be halfway through the AUD
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cure and my mind would start going and I was like oh yeah and I remember one time
00:23:39
cuz I would on the weekends I would be the sports sub so I'd decide what went
00:23:43
in the news and read it and and put it together and there was a story there was a brief period where the I think it was
00:23:52
the Sunday news turned into this really weird table newspaper and they did a story about um someone had spotted
00:24:00
aliens on the r golf course so I had a um Godzilla on my desk so I got sent someone down a cameraman
00:24:10
and I said just go and put this Godzilla in various parts around the golf course
00:24:13
and just film it and then you know talk to the people about um about the aliens what sort of size are we talking I don't
00:24:20
know it would be yeah I know 40 cm like a like a plash toy yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah and they put in the tree and stuff
00:24:27
so they interiew someone and they'd put in the tree behind them like no I've
00:24:31
never seen any aliens down here it was sort of like a running gag um which you didn't do in the news back then it's
00:24:39
very what you're explaining is very Crowd Goes Wild I know but I I um so when it came back we paid the item and
00:24:46
when it came back to Tom Bradley and I I'd put this Godzilla thing between us
00:24:51
on on the desk and said to him something like something like you know imagine people thinking they seeing aliens they
00:24:59
must be going nuts and then you know now let's have a look at the weather and I
00:25:03
got called into the boss's office oh my god did I get like who do you think you
00:25:08
are this is not a comedy show you know blah blah blah I was like oh man I just got ripped apart so um at the end of
00:25:17
that year must been ' 89 I was away on tour um um covering the All Blacks and
00:25:24
there was a story in the paper that I'd been dumped and replaced by they they
00:25:29
they got rid of me and Richard Beck actually and replaced us with um with Jeremy Cony and uh Phil G so um oh and
00:25:38
it was it was true you had been yeah you found out you were dumped by reading it
00:25:41
in the paper yeah that's outrageous that was pretty bad actually there's a lot of
00:25:45
out there's a lot of outrageous stuff in that story like that review as well like
00:25:49
I was pretty bad though to be fair I know I found a clip on YouTube of you and your early days it was fine wasn't
00:25:55
it no it was I yeah I would just go off on tangents and um like it was sort of almost like the prototype for Sports
00:26:04
Cafe but you know that's not the six o00 news I I got into trouble a lot for um
00:26:10
for not taking it seriously do do you think you might have ADHD and it was just never diagnosed when or never even
00:26:16
a thing when you were Aid no I don't I don't have it's adht it's not so much
00:26:19
it's more that um some strange stuff going on in this head and um once I start oh that's
00:26:27
really interesting I want like oh my God that's when when trouble sounds like
00:26:30
ADHD yeah um that that's a great story about the Godzilla on the disc like that's um there's a lot of people that
00:26:37
would will be listening to this or watching I need to get that I need to um would it be would it be an existence
00:26:42
must do they must have kept um the bulletins um it's it's [ __ ] groundbreaking because you're back then
00:26:47
as as you said like people you didn't [ __ ] with the news half an hour night
00:26:51
and it was very serious like there was no internet then so this was that and the next morning's newspaper was the
00:26:56
ear just before TV3 came on so I think TV3 came on in the end of '89 from memory something like that um and I got
00:27:06
into trouble then too cuz I um um I'm seeing a pattern the um Matthew Ridge 990 so Matthew Ridge changed codes
00:27:16
went to rugby lead and he I knew he was doing it because I was going to do a doco on him and
00:27:22
um and at that stage TV3 didn't have any rugby rights and they weren't actually
00:27:26
allowed into Eden Park so um you know no one quite knew how the rights thing worked back then and
00:27:34
so they came in to do the press conference that Matthew was holding and um I remember saying remember saying
00:27:43
that Matthew don't say anything to them you know as they as you go past because
00:27:46
I knew they weren't going to be allowed in and um they couldn't get into the
00:27:50
press conference someone from Oakland rugby shut the door on them and so they the cameraman kicked the door and that
00:27:56
was front page of the herald you you know um Network battle you know like so um I was in trouble again and then you
00:28:04
ended up being um the All Black's first ever Medias officer um this seems like
00:28:11
quite a common thing now I'm not sure who's doing it now but it was Joe lock
00:28:13
for like 15 years or something so there's very few people that have that have had it so what was your so this was
00:28:19
1992 by the way how did you get the job because Lori Ms was the coach he hated your guts he didn't like me um yeah why
00:28:24
what' you do to him uh I was from Oakland that didn't help but um I uh I
00:28:30
did a story where I took an old grab of his and used it out of context and I shouldn't have done it and and he was
00:28:39
right to be angry with me um like if you did that now the All Blacks would Blacklist you wouldn't oh yeah he just
00:28:45
didn't talk to me for about 5 years and then at the end of so the 91 World Cup
00:28:51
um the Aussies had a journo with them a GU called Greg Campbell and I thought sh
00:28:56
that's a great idea so I to New Zealand rby I wrote them a couple of pages on it
00:29:01
and I said you should get it immediately as an officer you know and um because you know to deal with the media and
00:29:07
stuff and they were like n no we're sweet and then halfway through that tour
00:29:11
of ' 92 um uh they were getting into a bit of media strife and I get a call on
00:29:18
my phone at must been like 1:00 in the morning I was in a bar and they like can you come to the manager's
00:29:25
room what have I done like I the night's not over yet and um so I went into the
00:29:31
room and Neil gry was the manager and and and George B was the um CEO and they're like we've decided that we need
00:29:38
to take you up on that offer immediately as an officer you start tomorrow um wow and I said so what do I
00:29:45
do and I said well you've got to work that out cuz we've never had one didn't
00:29:49
exist and so the next morning I remember I got on the I said to fitsy was the captain I said what do I do like they're
00:29:57
off practice do I just meet you at practice or what do I do he said on the bus and I said I can't go on the bus you
00:30:02
know and he's like I'm the captain get on the bus sit next to me so I got on
00:30:07
the bus sat next to him and as I walk past Lori Lori said what's that prick doing on the bus no one had told
00:30:13
Lori oh he had no involvement in at all oh my God no so so he wasn't happy um
00:30:21
but yeah I mean we had some Laura and I had some interesting conversations for a
00:30:25
while but uh you know eventually I got some really good advice from JK and Fitzy they said you know in the old
00:30:31
black environment you're going to get challenged all the time and and Lor's
00:30:34
going to challenge you you know uh cuz if what you've got to do is just keep
00:30:38
doing a great job day after day and he'll learn to respect you he doesn't
00:30:40
have to like you but he'll learn to respect you and then accept you and that
00:30:44
was that was sort of my mentor is just keep have a thick skin and uh and just keep um turning up each each day and you
00:30:52
know it was amazing time um you know I did it from 92 to the end of the 95 World Cup
00:30:58
um which we lost um and you know got to see some amazing stuff I was a real privilege and an honor to do that job
00:31:07
and you did some um yeah we'll talk about the Jonah stuff in a second CU you
00:31:11
were you were mediately as and when um Jonah the Jonah fever sort of hit there's actually a great great old photo
00:31:17
on your Instagram page of um him like walking off the field and you just sort of over his shoulder and he's swarm by
00:31:22
people um but yeah when uh when you said you you when we locked on this podcast I
00:31:28
bumped into Dame Julie Christy and I said re coming over you know anything I should say and she said she said I I
00:31:33
can't really offer you anything to say but um the stuff that he did with like
00:31:37
The Good The Bad and The rugby was just groundbreaking and it sort of even though it doesn't have a direct link it
00:31:43
sort of set the way for what we see now with like drive to survive and other Sport and she she was saying that the um
00:31:48
she the All Blacks have gone back like receded a long way in terms of openness and stuff but that was um yeah that was
00:31:54
incredible you look back now you must be immensely proud of that first of all that's really nice I mean we both sort
00:31:58
of started out at the same time and um you know I mean the amount of times we cross paths was incredible um and uh
00:32:07
yeah I really appreciate that Jolie so um yeah I mean it was sort of most of the things that I've done come from JK
00:32:15
telling me that you know there's a problem we need to fix it and um I'd given him some offcuts of the 88 toour
00:32:22
it for his own private stuff and um he's like oh we should do a a video you know
00:32:28
and at that stage there wasn't a a VHS market like there was there was Allison
00:32:35
house cooking show and Jeff Thomas' Snapper secrets were the only two that were for sale and um so yeah so we I
00:32:45
didn't really know what I was doing I just thought I was I was there as a news
00:32:49
reporter and I was just like well if I just film a bit extra and then when I come back I'll cut
00:32:55
it together into a into a documentary and put it on the VHS um the players were amazing they just really embraced
00:33:02
it and I'd come down in the morning and I'd go where's the crew and I say oh the
00:33:07
boys have gone out to play golf taking the crew with them or you know the boys have gone here they're taking the crew
00:33:11
so so they really bought into it and it's it's very unpretentious say the
00:33:15
footage yeah and I think a lot of the um motivation was you know for someone that
00:33:22
had come into the environment from the outside like myself to realize that they were just
00:33:28
normal people it's like a club team you know just the same personalities and
00:33:31
stuff like that they're just really good at rugby and uh and yeah it was uh I came
00:33:39
back at the end of the tour and I just cut it in my spare time uh with an nitor over the Christmas break and then we put
00:33:46
it out and I remember at that stage the biggest selling book was um colum's um
00:33:53
biography which had done 55,000 copies and we were well over 100,000 you know you know so um for the video yeah the
00:33:59
video went nuts and and people had to buy it out of garages and ws and all that sort of stuff cuz there were no
00:34:06
there was no shop selling videos you know um but now you know Actually I don't even have a coffee of the good the
00:34:14
B the rugby on VHS it's it's on YouTube now I watched some footage the other day
00:34:18
it's it's great it's really really um yeah it sort of breaks down that wall
00:34:22
between the All Blacks and the fans I feel like that Wall's back up now they
00:34:25
were great people like I was really lucky I spent a lot of time you know guys like
00:34:30
Fitzy and um you know back and frano and Foxy and those sort of guys you know just just really good people really had
00:34:38
a good balance cuz you know they're working at the same time and then they you know I mean back then they train
00:34:44
Tuesday Thursday you know only allowed like three days I think before a test match to assemble and stuff like that so
00:34:51
yeah they were just good people and I I really enjoyed my time yeah it's crazy
00:34:55
to think cuz it's um I've had JK the podcast and we talked about how during
00:34:59
the 87 World Cup he was like bulleted out at people's houses and stuff so yeah
00:35:04
I mean obviously ' 87 to 9 quite quite a big difference but it was still very
00:35:08
just talk about JK we had so he got injured early in that tour in ' 89 and um he's he's got such a great brain as
00:35:18
he's getting carried off he blew as Archilles as he's getting carried off
00:35:22
he's yelling at the crew follow the ambulance get some shots me going into the
00:35:29
surgery so the crew took off jumped in the car drove behind the ambulance and they get these shots of JK getting
00:35:36
wheeled into surgery and stuff like that you know um so yeah I mean that was a real team effort that was me and him all
00:35:42
those all those videos you know um and uh I had no idea what I was doing so I cut it it was like two hours long or
00:35:50
something two and a half hours long um because I just wanted to put everything in I had no idea about structure and
00:35:55
pace and all those sort of TV terms I just chucked everything in it was like a giant home movie i' I've heard you say
00:36:02
that a lot about about almost every Venture you've done like you know Sports
00:36:06
C I had no idea what I was doing but it's true must just be like um like an instinct you have though no it's true I
00:36:13
I think I like I like putting stuff in order like in in an order and that's essentially
00:36:20
what you do on television is you get a whole lot of stuff and you put it in the right order and the right pace pace and
00:36:28
structure for me is everything and I worked out pretty soon that I was you know quite good at that and um and so
00:36:36
you know I that's what I really enjoy but but yeah that's not a self-deprecating sort of comment I
00:36:44
literally knew nothing about making documentaries when I made the good and bad rugby I worked it hours I went along
00:36:48
I literally knew nothing about doing chat shows and live shows when I did Sports CA until I started doing it and I
00:36:56
think that's that New Zealand and you you we're so naive sometimes we don't
00:37:00
understand the challenge oh yeah I'll get there to go I'll be able to do
00:37:03
that sweet you know how hard can it be I've just come back from running a rugby
00:37:08
club in New York I've never done that before you know so um but it's important
00:37:14
I reckon to not be like have a little bit of fear because that that get the adrenaline flowing but not let that um
00:37:24
that fear stop you trying um I say the people you know like the first episode of Sports Cafe it was so bad and I
00:37:33
walked off the set and the crew wouldn't look at me like so I'd look at the
00:37:38
camera when they go no one would look at me except we had this one producer working with us alen
00:37:43
thirst who was a genius thirsty and as crazy as I was and he looked at me and he gave me the thumbs up and he said it
00:37:50
was [ __ ] but there's something there and I was like yeah you're right there's
00:37:53
something there you know let's let's let's build on that um so so you've got
00:37:58
to start I mean that's the the easiest piece of advice you just got to start it
00:38:03
is and fail and learn from your fail failures is is where the growth happens right yeah or just you know just I
00:38:09
always think that when you make a TV series um that you know that the first episode's going to be a bit crap um
00:38:16
because you put all this thought into it and then you put it out there and you overthink it and then you it's not till
00:38:23
you see the first one you go ah I just change that and change that and change that and then the second one's better
00:38:29
and then the third one's normally humming that's that's what I found yeah
00:38:33
well dig deep on that soon the TV stuff because um yeah [ __ ] you've had two TV
00:38:38
shows that lasted for a decade or more which um is incredible by New Zealand standards right that's remarkable but um
00:38:45
yeah just back to the Jonah stuff so so Jonah comes on the team he's how old
00:38:49
like 18 19 yeah so he's a k really young and he played two tests against France
00:38:54
and um and then they decided to drop him was not really the right word they they
00:39:00
sort of said look I think you need a bit more time so um um they replaced them uh
00:39:08
whatever the next test were I think we played South Africa and then um the 95 World Cup he was close to the squad but
00:39:16
didn't make the initial Squad um and I remember Eric Rush the team was due to
00:39:23
play a warm-up game in Hamilton Eric Rush got injured and so they called joner up from the
00:39:28
I know water the training group or the New Zealand 15 and he came up and he just destroyed everyone at training I
00:39:33
remember he hit the bag and Richard low went back 20 M back and then he hit the next bed and Jamie Joseph went another
00:39:40
20 M back I was like oh man I think we need to pick him and um but like when we got to the World Cup because hadn't set
00:39:49
the world on fire in 94 I went down the night before the first game with him to do talk to media
00:39:55
and no one showed up like not a single person and him and I were just standing in the floor of the hotel really
00:40:01
awkwardly going I don't think anyone want to talk to you Jonah go back to your room was there no sort of heat
00:40:05
around him at that time no because he wasn't a star at that stage you know he
00:40:10
was a guy who' played two tests um and then missed the the the test against South Africa and you know um even the
00:40:19
game before the World Cup warm up test was against Canada and he came off the bench
00:40:24
so the next night the guy has opened the World Cup against iseland and he just destroyed isand like I unbelievable and
00:40:34
from then on it was like um on know rugby version of Taylor Swift it was just incredible far out everywhere we
00:40:42
went he was just getting mobbed and um so my job after a test match was to run on the field and protect them um and
00:40:52
help him get off the field um see you you must have been in a good spot cuz you've been media a for 3
00:40:58
years at that point so you you sort of created this job and job description for yourself but 3 years and you got a few
00:41:04
idea what you're doing but you sto to a degree must have felt like a deer on the
00:41:08
headlights cuz i' never de anything like that before um you know must have been
00:41:13
insane and um there we we did a supermarket visit and before we went and and mixed with the with the fans went up
00:41:22
and did some signing for the um for the managers and stuff and then outside there was about 300 people waiting for
00:41:28
the All Blacks and so I said oh Sean if you can lead them out and so sea LED them out and this lady came up to sha
00:41:34
and she said I've been waiting for you for so long um for 3 hours I've been
00:41:38
waiting here for you you know please you're my favorite player can you sign this rugby ball and he wrote sea and
00:41:44
Jonah walked past and she ripped the ball off him and Jonah started running and and
00:41:51
everyone ran with Jonah I remember standing next to Sea there was no one left like like the rest of us were just
00:41:56
standing there go oh well I was going to have a coffee then boys wow what a crazy time to be part of
00:42:03
that yeah crazy thing to experience he was what was he like was he quite quite shy the was quite there was a real sort
00:42:09
of hierarchy thing at that point who did he hang out with was Russ and Frank and
00:42:13
Eric and and those guys but um he's a good guy had a good sense of humor the
00:42:18
only thing like for some reason he decided he wanted to play fight me all the time so I'd be walking down a
00:42:24
corridor and he'd jump out and just give me a hook into the guts or something
00:42:28
like that and then he disappear and I'd be doubled over oh good one Jonah oh God
00:42:33
you so yeah I I I really enjoyed uh Jonah's company he was um one day he um he ate a bowl of boiled eggs and he must
00:42:43
have been 20 of them in there and so and then Lori decided he didn't play that
00:42:47
well the next game so eggs were off we went no one else was allowed to eat the eggs so um yeah it was just I mean he
00:42:54
was really young um I think he was calm though I I always felt him really calm you know all this
00:43:02
crazy was going on he had Phil Kingsley Jones who was managing it all so he could just let Phil do that anything in
00:43:08
the team he could let me do this and one of the things I always felt with Jonah is um he loved being part of the family
00:43:15
you know he loved being an all black and he loved you know his friendship with Russia and and and Frank and those boys
00:43:22
and in the team and he he really blossomed as the stronger a sense of belonging to
00:43:29
the team the better he played and um you know no more so than when he destroyed England um and I think that was really
00:43:37
important to him I think to to to feel part of that all black family was a big part of it for him yeah I mean yeah a
00:43:43
tragic end um to to his to his life and uh you you look back at some of the stuff he went through like having to go
00:43:48
on the home show to apologize when he got married and didn't tell his family
00:43:53
you look back now it's like personal personal [ __ ] it shouldn't have been uh
00:43:56
it's aling you look you look back in um but thanks for sharing those stories I
00:44:00
love nothing more than a Jonah story yeah he's a good man I think at the end
00:44:04
of the day you know when you what was Jonah like Jonah was a good man that's
00:44:09
cool um so then the TV stuff so Sports Cafe how did they there'll be a lot of
00:44:13
people listening to this that are like me massive massive fans of it and have nothing but fond memories of it there be
00:44:18
a lot of people that won't even remember but this this was groundbreaking stuff
00:44:22
and you say you don't know what you were doing but I was in um commercial radio
00:44:25
at the time and we had Consultants all the time so what you were essentially doing was like um whether you knew it or
00:44:31
not was like a breakfast radio show on TV you like the the goofball yeah you had the the straight man you had the so
00:44:38
that was my background you know so breakfast radio and um so that very much um was on my
00:44:45
mind we created it cuz um again you know Jak and I having a couple of beers and we're talking about how um we never
00:44:54
really got to see the players Express themselves on TV shows you know cuz um and we wanted to create
00:45:02
that sort of touring sort of type environment you know was really loose and stuff like that and initially it was
00:45:08
going to be JK me and and ziny um and then JK couldn't make the pilot show I brought in a um Tanya from
00:45:19
Radio b and the only person on you in the Warriors cuz I got JK cuz he was a warrior at that stage the only person on
00:45:26
you in the Warriors other than JK that was available was meca so I rang Maca up and I said do you mind um filling in for
00:45:33
the pilot and I remember he walked into the makeup room wearing normal clothes and came out with a suit from the
00:45:40
1970s don't know where he found it and he changed at that moment he changed what was going to be a serious relax
00:45:47
show into what it turned into be and um and then JK rang me up he said man I'm
00:45:53
really busy I don't think I do the first few shows I said don't worry about it we
00:45:57
we'll use Mecca and um he was a phenomenal Talent wasn't he just incredible I I I was at that age I
00:46:04
suppose in my early early 20s my 20s at the time me and all my mate started sort
00:46:07
of talking like him I still see it today I still see people a lot of people um um
00:46:15
you know even sometimes when I listen to some of the ACC guys I think they sound
00:46:18
like meca you know um yeah massively influential and um you know like a just a genius around timing and all that sort
00:46:27
of stuff he he he sometimes he put zero thought into it sometimes he put you know 3% thought into it but um he just
00:46:35
he used to sit behind me on the old black bus and um he used to just crack me up all the time just you know just
00:46:42
abusing everyone and taking the piss out of everyone so I knew he was funny didn't realize it was that funny and
00:46:48
then he just became really annoying yes so your your role on Sports Cafe was like the anchor or straight man whatever
00:46:53
you the links man whatever you want to call it um and you looked [ __ ] off with them were you or was that oh there
00:46:59
was sometimes I was yeah I mean he he thought that the show was funny because I put so much effort into it and he
00:47:08
ruined it he thought that was the concept of the show like like oh yeah you're going to make a show and I'm
00:47:13
going to ruin it that's a brilliant concept I was like no that's not what
00:47:16
I'm looking for but um the the one time I got really angry was when he was drunk
00:47:23
and I'd put a lot of work into the show and you know had some good guests and
00:47:27
stuff like that and I rang him at 1:00 I knew it was at lunch and I was like mate
00:47:32
you sound like you've had a few are you going to get home soon yeah yeah I'm my
00:47:34
way home they keept ringing him kept ringing him he was still there 6:00 still at lunch you know and we used to
00:47:40
start let's say 8:30 um 7:30 still at lunch I said mate I need you to come I need you to leave now
00:47:49
so we started the show pretty sure we started he wasn't even there but we might have he might have been there 2
00:47:55
minutes before we went live on air he walked in and he was so drunk and uh I'm like what what are we
00:48:02
going to do here and he had this because he was always trying to sell his new Day
00:48:06
t-shirt so he grabbed a New Day t-shirt put it over his big jacket he was looked
00:48:11
like the Michelin Man and um and then I the way my brain works it was like he's
00:48:17
really drunk I'm just going to keep throwing questions at him I'm just going
00:48:21
to catch him out I'm just going to make his life a nightmare and then at the
00:48:24
commercial break I said get him out of here I'm going to kill him get him out
00:48:27
of here he'd kicked the ball into someone's face in the audience he just
00:48:31
had so they took him over to get some coffee into him and we put a um we had a fiberglass cow in the set and we put it
00:48:41
in mark spot and just as we came back from commercial break I looked over and there's Maca arguing with the cow I was
00:48:48
like what are you doing in my spot mate like so after the show everyone knew to get out of my way so I I'm like upstairs
00:48:58
mate so mea went upstairs ripped into him I was like that is so unprofessional you've made me look like an idiot you
00:49:05
know who do you think you are blah ripped him the reality is is that now that show's gone down in history is for many
00:49:12
people it's the funniest show we did so you know once again he wins you know but
00:49:19
on on reflection um yeah what makes you wi I I had Lee Hart sitting in that chair he he he's talks years on about
00:49:27
regretting about you killing a snail live on TV which seems like a small thing but he just thinks it's pointless
00:49:32
and it's something he wouldn't do now what about you is there anything that
00:49:34
you look back on and go um oh yeah posing for photos for new day was probably not my finest um no new was
00:49:43
like a a cultural phenomenon though wasn't it what I loved about you know these these influences nowadays I I I
00:49:49
think back then we could get most of New Zealand to go naked for a day MAA would
00:49:54
say you know you have permission from the police which they didn't and um and
00:49:59
people would send us in videos of themselves nude doing stupid stuff like that's influence yeah well there were
00:50:06
even cops involved weren't there like cops posing nude on the cop car and no
00:50:10
the gor policeman um did a whole thing um and he got the sack wow and it was front page of news and then um about
00:50:21
couple of weeks later the local fire brigade also did the New Day stuff so yeah people really got into it was funny
00:50:27
it was so funny oh it was just an incredibly well done show now we get all these lawyers and doctors coming up to
00:50:33
me at functions going you know in uh what in 1998 the new day tapes do you still have those cuz um I seen an entry
00:50:42
and I'd prefer if no one ever saw it you know well the hard thing that is to be
00:50:46
finding like a a player to play the tapes on even if they were still in existence and um yeah it was amazing and
00:50:53
then your final show you even had like a a video message from Helen Clark who was
00:50:57
the Prime Minister at the time you think now um whoever the prime minister is even if it's a fun prime minister like a
00:51:02
John ke or a Chris Lux that' have people saying no think of the Optics yeah she
00:51:06
was she was I mean she had a good sense of humor I mean the thing is the reason I think Sports care worked because um
00:51:12
and you know you got to take the guys that um John fet and um Nate Smith who were the sort of people that run sky
00:51:20
that they said so they didn't give us any money they just said here's an hour
00:51:24
of TV um you've got a raise the money through sponsorship and advertising um but we're going to let
00:51:32
you go just just don't get their license taken off you know and um and they were
00:51:38
really supportive um even in the early early days um so they gave me the confidence to try things because I knew
00:51:47
I wasn't going to get taken off air I mean the first year we did 40 shows the
00:51:50
first year and the reason we did 40 is I worked out that if I got paid x amount of dollar per show I'd have to do 40
00:51:56
shows to get enough um um so but we yeah and and and and like that's not always the case in
00:52:06
television you know you don't normally get that freedom and um and so yeah really thankful for those guys and was
00:52:12
it live live yeah was live for probably 90% of the time we we did this our 10th year anniversary by that
00:52:22
stage we were on tvnz and um cuz our sponsor one of the big audience and we did our 10- year anniversary show and
00:52:30
for some reason there was a problem with the link and I I said welcome to the show and then it cut out and no one saw
00:52:38
the rest of the show we didn't realize we did the show and no one saw it they
00:52:41
had to run a stand by show so then TV and Z rip ripped me apart and they're like this is disgraceful you need to you
00:52:49
can't do that again you need to record it an hour early um so we can make sure
00:52:54
it's in house before we play it and and so that was what we did the last year
00:52:58
but um the irony of that is we so our show was I think 46 minutes and then the the rest of the hour was made up
00:53:07
commercial breaks but we had this new person working for us and she timed it at 46 minutes then took commercial
00:53:16
breaks off so we did this recorded show which they wanted us to do and I was like [ __ ] that was over quick and um
00:53:23
then we're inside having a beer and then um I get this call from TB andz going
00:53:28
hey guys you like I know 30 minutes short I'm like well we can't there's
00:53:34
nothing we can do about it like like I don't know I'm on the floor I don't know
00:53:38
how long I'm just waiting for the director and the director assistant to give me cues so yeah so that didn't work
00:53:44
that well oh my God but um like I'm thinking uh there was another sort of Master of New Zealand TV at the time in
00:53:50
my opinion Mikey havoc and he did he did a live show Once which was just diabolical and disastrous so there's um
00:53:56
came yeah him and news boy started I think this the year after us and it was a good time we'd watched their stuff and
00:54:03
um you know Graham Hill had come from bfm so he knew them pretty well and um there was a bit of crossover and then
00:54:09
Graham went and worked on um uh Jeremy's um I can't remember eating media lunch
00:54:15
or something eating media lunch yeah gr was one of the guys on that one of the Geniuses behind that so it was it was
00:54:20
nice it was a nice little crew of people lot you know poor castle and stuff they
00:54:24
were really smart guys you know so there's a lot sort of um uh you're sharing each other's success yeah yeah I
00:54:31
mean yeah I'm just thinking as you're you're speaking so there was the core
00:54:34
cast of um Sports Cafe but then this just that peripheral cast which was phenomenal you know the human cannibal
00:54:40
Eva from Bulgaria um yeah that guy who we met before Lee it's incred you're um
00:54:46
yeah you're quite the talent spot right I'm interested to see how you deflect
00:54:48
this one because you've made so many careers yeah I think um I think it's
00:54:54
sort of giving people a chance like and being given them time to find their voice I think that's been the key um you
00:55:01
know I love watching the news at night and saying Haley h on the news you know um you know those sorts of things um I
00:55:09
really enjoy that's probably what gives me the greatest PA is seeing people um
00:55:14
that come through you know the M richardon sort of stuff um Lee Hart you know I mean Lee's I still I'm biased but
00:55:22
I's the funniest guy in New Zealand and um you know we just in an outlet and
00:55:27
then he just took off and you know the rest is on him and um we got him in we got him in because Ma and I were talking
00:55:35
about this character and we want to do something funny and he he knew Lee you know he said I've been talking to Lee
00:55:42
about it and Lee's got a whole bio about this guy you know he's he's he's really
00:55:46
prepared and it's very funny so um so he came in and Lee had done a brilliant job
00:55:53
in in in really putting a backstory behind the character which is not something we ever did before and then
00:55:59
about um a week later two weeks later um Norm hu had had done had to do a very tearful apology on TV that's right he
00:56:09
got drunk and ended up um smashing a r slider to the wrong hotel room or something yeah I can't remember yeah it
00:56:14
was awful but then we then Lee Hart did a parody of it and he did an apology cuz
00:56:19
he said look you know I'm not really a snail racer I don't really know how fast
00:56:23
these things can go you know and so um I knew so the next year I was like cuz Lee was working for a greenstone at
00:56:33
that Stage production company as a researcher and I was like mate you need to come full-time and be with us so um
00:56:42
the first three or four weeks he made a different name every time I remember he was doing a a um piece of camera the
00:56:53
vict and he goes and he's signed off Rick and he turned around the boat was called Crescendo Rick Rick Crescendo you
00:57:00
know so then I said M we just need a generic name let's call you that guy and
00:57:04
let's just let's just go from there and um yeah I mean he is so clever you know
00:57:10
but so is you know the Cannonball and either the Bulgarian I mean they were really smart people they knew their
00:57:15
characters and um they knew um you know it's really playing you you take some of your own
00:57:24
qualities and you you exaggerate them into a character and that's why it's
00:57:28
always funny for me whenever I go into meetings you know serious business meetings people see me as the guy that
00:57:34
presented Sports Cafe not the guy that made it so they think I'm an idiot you
00:57:38
know so I'm trying to get something really important across and they go yeah
00:57:43
where's Eva the Bulgarian you know so um you know and we haven't talked about
00:57:46
Lana I mean without Lana yeah yeah Lana's um dry humor um I heard her at a function before she worked for us and I
00:57:56
was like oh man she everyone thinks that she's like this and she's like that and that's funny and
00:58:03
so when we had the opportunity to put her in there um she was only supposed to do a couple of weeks and she did like
00:58:08
you know 12 years um yeah she was sort of the glue that kept us together oh she played that role particularly well too
00:58:15
like sometimes she' side with you sometimes she'd side with Mark cuz I think what would happen with me is I'd
00:58:20
get angry with Mark and then he'd suck me in and I'd get caught up in his
00:58:25
stupid ideas M you know no we're not going to do that no no no well actually
00:58:29
if we do you know then and then Lana would slap me across the face no R don't
00:58:33
don't be fooled by them you know so yeah and none of that was um like contrived
00:58:39
not not in the early days and as we got through sort of started to understand the Dynamics and and and work out how to
00:58:47
play with them very much like breakfast radio you know it's like well I know my
00:58:51
character you know your character so let's let's do stand your lane yeah yeah
00:58:55
so it was it was very much like a breakfast radio and then and then Crowd Goes Wild after
00:59:00
that well I'm I'm brushing over Sugar Shack you don't want to Sugar shet was
00:59:05
cool because um cuz I got it wrong right you know what I've got a really good
00:59:09
memory about um like pop culture on TV I don't remember this at all no Sugar
00:59:13
Shack at all but is this the only fail you've had oh know there's a few there's
00:59:18
Sugar Shack which um had a great group of people I don't know why I couldn't
00:59:22
make it work um but I was St starting Crow go wild at the same time and I was spreading myself a bit thin um
00:59:31
and uh I also did a show I did a show called The Bradley Bunch which which we did one episode of and um the the idea
00:59:41
was that newses changed so we brought Tom Bradley back um which was actually Jeremy wells's idea and and then we put
00:59:51
everything around them so we had Paul ego as a cons he was a consultant and we had kyli B who was his female presenter
00:59:57
cuz you couldn't do the news without a female and we had a band and I'd been at the comedy club
01:00:06
like classic like 5 days before we were do to film this pilot and I was watching
01:00:12
this act and never heard of them before and um afterwards they're in the foyer
01:00:16
selling CDs and stuff and I went up to them I said do you want to be in my TV show and they're like what do you mean I
01:00:22
said I'm doing a TV show on Thursday um and you guys are really funny so you
01:00:26
should be in it and so they were in it and they fly the Concords and um and so they were hilarious I'd never seen them
01:00:35
before they were just starting out and um I remember when tvnz after the show um and it wasn't my greatest work but um
01:00:44
it was just you know we're just trying some stuff and they were like nah don't
01:00:48
ever talk about that show don't even try and resurrect it don't even don't even
01:00:52
mention it in the hallway I was like yeah I know I know I get it but but the band were quite funny and they're like
01:00:58
oh were they iuck I think so um I love a story like that you they they had um they were really sort of um uh bruised
01:01:07
by their experience at TV when they they they wanted to change the entire sort of
01:01:12
concept of the show and make it I I don't know what they wanted to make it but then um the BBC saw something in
01:01:17
them I love I love their success I I just yeah it's phenomenal he there two really good people you know I and Reese
01:01:24
you know they're all really really good people and so you know sometimes in New Zealand
01:01:29
you know people sort of go if they see someone else's success they get a bit
01:01:33
shitty because it's like oh you're leaving me behind I want to pull you down etc etc but the Concords are just a
01:01:41
incredibly talented you can see from that first first time we saw them um and and you know so I mean I love their
01:01:49
success because it's true Talent finding its true true place and um yeah that
01:01:56
yeah but but they didn't find it in the Bradley Bunch that's is it on YouTube or
01:02:02
anything I don't know I've got a copy it's it's a long sugar shck and um so
01:02:06
Crowd Goes Wild I remember seeing um uh Ms Andrew Mulligan at a mate's party one
01:02:11
Christmas and I think it was at the end of year one of cred go wild and I was saying how much I love the show and he
01:02:16
was saying it was about to about to end or it wasn't looking likely that it was
01:02:20
going to so they so Sky used to have a show called sport 365 which was their first sort of attempt at the new show
01:02:26
and um and it was it was fine it was going okay and and Andrew Mulligan was working as a producer on that show and
01:02:32
then um I got a call one day out completely out of the blue John fet who was running Sky rang me and he said look
01:02:39
I I need to change 365 it's not working for me can I give you the resource of 365
01:02:46
and can you turn it into something I'm like yeah I can but um I'm a little bit
01:02:52
busy at the moment because I'm with Mark Ellis and two policemen they just let them
01:02:58
come home to put a suit on because we're going to court so he was going to court
01:03:02
oh it was just for the selling some ex yeah um so um so so that I remember it vividly you know um so we we got through
01:03:13
that and then um and I came into Sky and I was like I got a whole lot of people for auditions and because mes was
01:03:22
working for Sky I asked him to sit in on the auditions and we went through I know 10 people I'd
01:03:28
already knew I knew that I wanted to use mark because I'd actually used mark on
01:03:31
an episode of Sports Cafe M Richardson but um I wasn't planning on using Andrew
01:03:37
and then uh I looked through all the additions and I was like man Andrew is better than nor he's the best he's so
01:03:44
good and the chemistry between him and Mark will work really well so so we put them together and um and then what was
01:03:51
that 2006 um and it's still going today I'm not involved with it anymore are you are
01:03:57
you still executive producer no no no no so when I went to the US I I sort of moved away but um yeah I mean I all
01:04:06
right Andrew's done a phenomenal job and um yeah I I think I mean I really in
01:04:11
those early years it was so much fun CU again you're just finding your voice and
01:04:16
um some you know some brilliant people gone through I mean we started Glenn Osborne was the original reporter for
01:04:23
Kos World um and um and you know and Mark you know Mark's very good just so clever knows his character really well
01:04:33
bounced off Andrew really well you know then we during that first year we brought McCone in you know um which is a
01:04:39
master stroke yeah and it was so i' saw McCone at a um at a rugby function a
01:04:45
blues function and he was just leaving the herald you know and I said what are you going to do he said I don't have
01:04:51
anything on I said well come and help us out give you a couple of shifts you know
01:04:55
and um and then he just got you know just realized just how talented he was but you you've sort of given um like
01:05:02
opportunities or TV jobs to people that would never have got it from like one or
01:05:05
three for whatever reason and it's proved to be like a master strike there's been um some just as You'
01:05:11
mentioned Haley hul before some remarkable careers like yeah it's cool as I say I mean it's just giving the
01:05:18
people the opportunity and and then I think sometimes in our industry um you know a producer or someone will will
01:05:25
hire someone because they see something in them and then they'll try and turn
01:05:29
them into what they think they should be whereas it's actually easier just to let
01:05:35
them be themselves yeah I think what you're describing is what happened with
01:05:38
Flight of the Concords right try to mold them into what they thought I think it happens with lots of people you go and
01:05:44
someone sees you've got some Talent um and this I'm talking Global they see
01:05:49
you've got some Talent they go right we're going to give you this show here's
01:05:52
your script this is what I want you to say this is how I want you to this is what I want you to be whereas my
01:05:59
strategy is a lot easier it's like okay can you come in and just be yourself and
01:06:03
I'll just sit back and watch yeah I've had marike Richardson on the podcast and
01:06:07
he he talked about um we talked about the sketch that he did with Steven Fleming oh yeah and he his recollection
01:06:12
is that that's when he came onto your radar yeah cuz you thought that sketch
01:06:17
with Steven Fleming was funny yeah hilarious yeah so awkward to watch yeah yeah brilliantly awkward but that's the
01:06:23
thing about Mark is he understands his character really well so he knows he knows why it's funny so he can replicate
01:06:31
it you know cuz he's like well this is what I do really well I can play that
01:06:34
role so every time he gets that opportunity he comes in with a one liner um he knows his character and that's I
01:06:40
think that's what he does well yeah [ __ ] we've talked about a lot of high-profile
01:06:44
stuff there's there's something um that I want to talk about it's a book that
01:06:47
you've done which is probably not very high profile I've got the book right
01:06:51
here it's called I know this to be true uh which is amazing it's basically um
01:06:55
it's a beautiful coffee table book came out 2016 I don't know something like that
01:07:00
yeah and it's um it's just beautiful photos and yeah glossy photos and uh
01:07:04
sort of interviews with like 60 well-known new zealanders and not so well-known new zealanders um it's kind
01:07:10
of like a a podcast yeah long form podcast pre podcasting I so I worked on that with um a m of Mine Jeff Blackwell
01:07:18
who's a incredible book publisher and he's just he's just really good at that
01:07:23
stuff and um there you go deflecting again yeah and I did the I did the interviews and stuff
01:07:29
and sort of created the format as we went which was we had the piece of art um that I know this to be true and we
01:07:37
had the Trap set around everywhere yeah like a mess of canvas spec drop it's
01:07:41
ridiculous they just got so sick of carrying that thing it's such a great idea and then everyone I I do this
01:07:47
interview with them about their values and about what they knew to be true in their lives and stuff and then I'd get
01:07:51
them to come up with a word that summed up who you know their values and what they thought
01:07:56
um and we' take a photo of that word on their body and then we'd get them to
01:07:59
sign the canvas at the back put the word up and they auctioned it for PL strange
01:08:03
you know because a lot of it was for Mike chun's PL strange but for me um like it was a gift because I got to
01:08:10
speak to 60 incredible people and have a really sort of private intimate conversation with them about the about
01:08:18
what was important in their lives how long was each chat um probably 40 minutes to an hour each one
01:08:25
um you know I was lucky to grab um colum mes just just before he passed away actually and he was a very good friend
01:08:33
of mine and it was a really special time and um yeah I mean they all you know all
01:08:39
of the everyone left a mark on me and I learned a lot from doing them I did JK and maca
01:08:49
um uh I think they both made me cry actually I know meca did and then um did they you can't remember what
01:08:56
um I think meca we're just talking about love and um yeah I mean it was such such
01:09:04
great gift and then one of the people I spoke to was a Lady Elizabeth Ransom who
01:09:10
had sold her business to Google for I think $250 million you know wow she done incredibly well and she was an amazing
01:09:17
amazing story of go I just really love talking to her and I interviewed her over in poo Alto and in California and
01:09:25
at the end of it she sort of challenged me a little bit she what are you going to do next you know are you doing this
01:09:29
book when this is finished what are you going to do next I'm like ah she's like
01:09:33
because the media world's changing you know television's changing um so you
01:09:37
can't just try out Sports C again I oh buger um and so I came back from when
01:09:43
that book got published and I started to really think about what next and um as a
01:09:50
result of that I started building I built an app a platform really around Fan engagement around how
01:09:59
to because again JK and I talked about there was a real problem getting um you know 20 year olds to watch live Sport
01:10:08
and you know that was so important to us live Sport and so we sort of built this
01:10:12
thing and it was was testing really well and so I thought well let's just go to
01:10:18
America I'll just move to America so um and it was all because of that conversation I had doing the book and I
01:10:25
ended up in Austin Texas and um been a year sort of trying to get things off the ground and then Co
01:10:32
hit so um that sort of put an end to that oh well still on the still on the Scrapbook of ideas yeah yeah know man
01:10:39
it's very much so yeah now you mentioned Colin Colin Ms in in that book this I
01:10:42
know to be true I've actually got that highlighted here this is one of my favorite Parts in the book and I think
01:10:46
when I when I read the book when it first came out I thought it was kind of Savage and badass and in the time that's
01:10:51
passed I've gone through my own mental health stuff and I actually find this
01:10:55
paragraph kind of sad now and way so he was um I think 80 at I know there about crying yeah yeah yeah yeah he was 80 at
01:11:02
the time it was like a year or two before he died I can't remember it was like months before he died oh was it
01:11:07
yeah yeah he still talked in the the article about enjoying going out for a few beers yeah yeah um but yeah the
01:11:13
paragraph is um I can't remember when I last cried probably when I got a hiding
01:11:16
at home as a kid or when I was seven and had romatic fever and got tght I had to
01:11:20
stand bed for 8 weeks I might have cried then yeah um at the time I thought [ __ ]
01:11:25
this is cool this is so colon Mees pine tree Mees and then I look back now and it's like um like vulnerability and
01:11:31
being able to cry and stuff is like a really you know it was probably perceived as a weakness then it
01:11:36
definitely was when I was growing up but you look back now it's like a a key part
01:11:39
of living a full human existence yeah that's kind of sad yeah he was I love Colin he was such an amazing man so when
01:11:47
I Whi the O he was the manager um so we a pretty close Bond and um I me I I think I I couldn't believe
01:11:57
it when he told me that [ __ ] three qus of a century without crying it's insane like no and it wasn't it wasn't a
01:12:05
um when he said it it wasn't a contrived comment for effect he genuinely thought because I I asked that
01:12:14
question of a few people and he genuinely thought about it oh Jesus i f [ __ ] I don't know um or probably when I
01:12:22
was you know five or six [ __ ] col crazy but it just we don't know it was different time you know and you know
01:12:33
he he had it he had it tough man he worked hard you know he he he would tell me about um you know his his father
01:12:41
bought some land up the road and he had him and Stan had to cut cut all the shrub you know do after school and he
01:12:48
said to me that um he loved going to rugby because it gave him a break from cutting shrub in the farm you know give
01:12:55
him a [Music] just sitting back and going oh my God that person has just got something
01:13:59
special I'm not and I'm not not not talking about rugby players and stuff
01:14:03
like that I'm talking about just you know seeing someone do a song or or or put a show
01:14:10
there like I love The West Wing and Aaron sain and quite often at the end of that I'll be in tears and I'll I'll be
01:14:18
in tears not because the show was was something that that got to me it's just because i' been to go that
01:14:26
was just an incredible piece of work I can't believe someone managed to make that
01:14:32
piece of art for me you know and um and those are the times where I just yeah I just a tear come to the eye and arms
01:14:41
just ging and that's just incredible you know wow yeah it's funny yeah when I had
01:14:46
Matthew Ridge on the podcast he he said a similar sort of thing actually he said
01:14:49
he loves a good cry now he said he can be just driving along this car thinking about you know people or things that
01:14:54
he's grateful for and just to have tears great great human being Rie yeah he's
01:14:58
wonderful wonderful chat I think it feel like he's got better with age you knowed so JK and I did a documentary
01:15:04
with him when he changed codes so we followed him from the moment he landed in Australia to um to his career at
01:15:13
Manley that's on YouTube as well by the way want to look I think actually it's
01:15:18
still the highest rating Sports stock over all time because there was only like one channel when we did it but um
01:15:25
and I got to know him really well then and um such a yeah such a really smart um really good
01:15:33
man how's um how's your mental health been over the years yeah I I think I'm
01:15:38
pretty good I think um I got a shock obviously being really close to JK watching him go through his
01:15:47
um through his issues and I didn't understand it I didn't know couldn't
01:15:53
help I just didn't know you know when he when he tried to talk to me about it I
01:15:56
just didn't understand what he was talking about CU back then it was just not spoken about um so I think um I
01:16:05
think because of our friendship I've always been really conscious of it um you know I probably don't want to talk
01:16:12
too much about you know um losing Kathy but that was pretty tough time for me and you know I was really thankful to
01:16:19
have JK in my corner you know to sort of help me get through some of that stuff but um
01:16:26
you know I mean we all go through tough times I think what you learn is you can't judge people because you just
01:16:33
don't know what's going on and the what what their story is you know you know um
01:16:39
and uh so yeah I'm I'm conscious of it but it's it's always a work on you know
01:16:44
like anyone like you know particularly when you're when you're a creative person you make something and
01:16:51
you put it out there you know and you get called a read ritar whatever you know it's it's you know it's funny to
01:16:57
laugh at it but but it can be hard I remember yeah it stings I used to um I think it so
01:17:06
Sports Cafe was always on a Wednesday night and I became really conditioned on a Thursday to
01:17:14
be like it was almost physically I would sort of curl into a ball even when I'm
01:17:18
walking out I'd be really tight because I was just waiting for people to um you
01:17:24
know we'd got something wrong or we'd done something naughty or something like
01:17:28
I you know in a supermarket or something I'd be waiting for someone to attack me
01:17:32
and um so even after the show finished like for couple of years afterwards I would always be really really tired on a
01:17:41
Thursday and really quiet because I would just want to hide from the world on that day and then once
01:17:50
we got through Thursday I was okay you know but um I remember one day I was driving down the wah Beach and I stopped
01:17:58
to get some petrol and I um I was filling the car up and you you can sense when someone's behind you you know and I
01:18:06
could these people behind me I turn around they looking at me laughing and I said um what's what's the
01:18:13
problem and they said ah we're just seeing if you had a hairy ass like meca said on the show last
01:18:23
night cuz mea decided because I'm half Italian I must be here so you know that
01:18:29
was my life for like for a long time that's great yeah um I I don't think
01:18:34
like the fact that we can sit down and have a conversation like this now um we can't underestimate the the cultural
01:18:40
impact that John kin's head on this country you know it's like remarkable
01:18:44
it's easy to talk about mental health and resilience and um vulnerability now
01:18:48
but he was doing it when no one was doing it I can't imagine how terrifying that was to come out I remember when he
01:18:54
he rang me cuz he he would send me the chapters of his book to read and give him some
01:18:59
feedback and he sent me the one on his depression called Black Dog and um he's
01:19:05
like I don't know if I'm going to put this in and I read it and I was like oh my
01:19:09
God why didn't you tell me that this was happening I didn't understand cuz we
01:19:12
were working together we had a company together past the Productions and um and he's
01:19:21
like I think I need to put it in I think I need to but it was it was a lot of thought about you know exposing that
01:19:28
side of his life because at that stage no one had ever done that before and and it was a rugby book you know it's like
01:19:34
you tell me how many Tri you scored and what it was like the night after the World Cup final and stuff like that's
01:19:39
what rugby books were and he had this chapter about you know um dealing with depression and and where where it got to
01:19:45
him and stuff but I know and I'm sure he's told you this that you know when he
01:19:51
goes out I mean you know obviously we go out of here but people will come up to him constantly and go you've saved my
01:19:58
brother's life my my father my husband you know particularly MC mes you know um
01:20:04
and you just wonder whether you know his all black career was really designed to
01:20:09
give him the profile to really do as good work yeah the platform yeah yeah I mean yeah he's he's he's normalized it
01:20:16
um I do worry about like the likes of Herman Mike King and uh my friend jez thoron as well like they they take a lot
01:20:22
on and then you get people coming coming to you not with just positive stories like that but also wanting help or
01:20:27
advice um the good thing with JK is he's written a beautiful book All Blacks
01:20:31
don't cry which is what I you know when people because people a lot of people
01:20:36
still come to me and say well I'm struggling you know and can you give me JK's number and I go call you need to
01:20:41
read this book first you know um um yeah it's I mean I I agree with you that that
01:20:47
if you're going to be that person you know like JK is then then you take a lot
01:20:52
of stuff from other people you know you carry a all the stuff from other people but I I've seen him up and down the
01:20:58
country do his speeches and talk to people and stuff like that oh God it's it's it's lifechanging you know and um
01:21:05
yeah I mean I'm really proud of him you know I'm really proud he's a good
01:21:10
friend and just really proud of the impact he's had on New Zealand yeah it's
01:21:16
incredible um you you mentioned um Kathy before and you said you don't want to
01:21:20
talk about that in too much detail is I've noticed on your Instagram there's
01:21:23
not a lot there about about that as well you just prefer to keep it private or is
01:21:28
it just too hard to talk about still I just um always been a big believer in my private life being private you know you
01:21:34
know you you give that character that that people watch and and happy being that character and stuff like that but
01:21:42
um you know so what when did I start in TV ' 86 so it's a long time and and you
01:21:48
just can't give them everything you know um you got to keep part of your life for
01:21:53
you um and and I've always felt that my family life is is really mine for me and
01:21:59
um you know I was really you know when it was tough I was you know loved all the support we got from everyone and and
01:22:06
and people were amazing um but I've always been quite private just just as I say I play that role and do
01:22:15
that stuff but um that's s of stuff's really for me yeah I I respect that
01:22:21
fully coming from like a breakfast radio background it's the same sort of thing
01:22:25
like here you're looking for personal content cuz the more of that you give away the more of a bond you form with
01:22:29
the audience um but you know me and JJ we talked a lot when we were married about our fertility issues and stuff and
01:22:35
once you've once you've given something away you can't take it back it's tough I
01:22:39
remember talking to you know advising people when they're looking at doing You
01:22:43
magazine stories and stuff about their relationships and stuff like that it's
01:22:46
like oh think twice about it you know because as you said you know once you give it to them it's gone yeah are you
01:22:52
have um have you been in and love since then or have you seen anyone since then or I've seen lots of people I just
01:22:58
walked down the road there's like 30 people walking past me yeah again private life you know yeah so yeah so
01:23:05
sorry I'm just it's probably I'm I'm lucky I guess I'm 51 now and I've never
01:23:10
lost anyone super I've lost friends to cancer and suicide unfortunately but I've never lost um both my parents are
01:23:15
still alive and I've never lost anyone that's really close to me but I yeah I'm
01:23:19
probably projecting in that um yeah I can't imagine like how difficult it is
01:23:22
to start start a new relationship and the guilt you feel or even though it's
01:23:26
what your your former partner would want it's a really good try but I'm not going
01:23:31
to answer the question no not not trying it all a good point but yeah as I say I
01:23:36
mean yeah I just um I just like to keep something for me yeah and and and and and that's my private life you know like
01:23:45
you know all my friendships uh with you know a lot of them are with really high-profile people
01:23:51
and like you know I mean I don't think ever done an interview without talking
01:23:56
about JK or MAA you know um you know um or dropping fitsy in there or whatever and these are my friends you know so
01:24:04
that part of my life is really public you know um and um but um yeah and then and there's part I just like to keep for
01:24:12
me what about a book one day a ret a book like every every um question or topic that anyone throws at you there's
01:24:19
a good yarn behind it yeah funny you thought about that you've been offered I
01:24:23
um I uh when I was in New York I had Andy Ellis with me he's a great BL and he was getting so sick of my stories
01:24:33
it's like oh man don't give us another the Yar of the All Blacks from the 89
01:24:38
tour or something like that and then I had the um one of their players Jory who's a New Zealand multiplayer
01:24:47
came to my house and then Andy popped in and by the time Andy popped in I had you know
01:24:52
showing him zenam Brook videos and Good The Bad and The rugby and stuff like that poor old jaay was so um yeah I
01:24:59
don't know I think um I mean the thing is I'm only halfway through you know so um maybe maybe at
01:25:08
one stage but you wouldn't want to write a book now and then do something great
01:25:12
next week so I I think um someone asked me you know you go back that question at the
01:25:20
top about what next what I want to do next is I want to do something that's really really great
01:25:27
you know I just really want to um I don't know what it is but um I want to I
01:25:32
just want to keep getting better I just want to so I I I don't want to try and
01:25:39
match what I've done before I just want to do something better oh man I love
01:25:42
that attitude so much um yeah I feel like a lot of people can can think you're done think that you're over the
01:25:48
Apex and uh and that's it because you're in your 60s but um only you can
01:25:52
determine that yeah could bring bring Sugar Shack back in nice yeah learn learn from the mistakes the first time
01:25:59
around oh one thing I forgot so yeah the um the Rugby World Cup last year what was your involvement you like a a
01:26:04
Content guy no so um yeah so I spent all that time with rby New York which greatest city in the world what a what a
01:26:14
um what an opportunity for me to live in New York and and work and um and I probably I probably learned more about
01:26:23
sports marketing and fan engagement and how to connect fans in in three or four years
01:26:30
there than I did in 30 years here I mean they're just incredible yeah I was I was
01:26:34
like taking to school every day and the thing about New York too is if you don't
01:26:39
bring your aame you just get crushed and so you just got to have your aame all the time even crossing the road um but
01:26:47
um yeah so I I made the decision so I did four seasons one of whom got shut short uh shut down because of Co and I I
01:26:56
made the decision at the beginning of last year that that would be my last season and then um uh they reached out
01:27:02
to me to see whether I'd um make some content around the All Blacks for the World Cup and initially I wasn't that
01:27:09
King cuz I was like I sort of been done that but then I was like yeah I wouldn't
01:27:13
mind I hadn't made content for a long time and so um I said to them I said who am I
01:27:20
working with and they said well we' we've only got one person so far and
01:27:23
it's Andy ell I was like oh my God I just had him in living upstairs for 3 years or whatever two years in New York
01:27:30
you know it's like I've adopted him um but he's brilliant so it was good to
01:27:35
work with him and then I brought in um George B who was um injured prop you know from the Crusaders new or blacks
01:27:43
and I didn't really know but i' I'd seen something on social looked all right and
01:27:48
I thought I could work with him and then and then Stacy Walker who I'd always
01:27:52
liked on on TV and um and a couple of others um LJ from Wales and and Elma from South Africa and we um we did this
01:28:04
thing called the front row show so we had to make I think we made like 12 minutes a day for 50 five days in a row
01:28:11
or something wow that's a lot of content yeah it was a real challenge but um um once I got into it I really
01:28:18
enjoyed it it was just good to reconnect good good way me reconnecting with New Zealand again even though I was in
01:28:24
France um so it was good fun and um and we did some good stuff yeah God hell of a
01:28:30
tournament too you must have been pleased when you were over there like with that when was The Island Game was
01:28:34
that quarterfinal can you believe it I went to every game by The Island Game I had Co got up in the morning and I was
01:28:41
like of the Irish game and I'm like oh I don't feel too well I do a covid test
01:28:45
and I like no wonder I can't so I was I I spent that week in my room but um yeah
01:28:51
it was it was a good tournament it's it's good my my favorite World Cup I reckon would be the 95 World
01:28:57
Cup and so that was an incredible tournament and I really like um not sure why but I really like the 2015
01:29:04
tournament in in England in the UK that we won I thought that was a fantastic tournament oh Richie last game yeah just
01:29:10
it was a really really well-run good crowds um had a really good Buzz about it and and the 87 World Cup was just
01:29:18
brilliant I mean people forget that the first game you know when JK scored that TR against Italy um
01:29:24
I think there was like 170,000 people there it was like a midweek game and it was raining and it was shitty and they
01:29:30
they they did a little um opening ceremony with Walker Nathan running out and Chile just slipping over in the rain
01:29:38
and stuff like that but um um it was it was it was really interesting to watch it unfold because no the the Six Nations
01:29:46
didn't want a World Cup and they eventually got talked into it so starting that it was you know like
01:29:51
starting the Sports Cafe I mean they no one had a clue what it was going to look
01:29:55
like M and uh and it really built momentum during the World Cup um because of the way the or blacks were playing
01:30:01
and there was some exciting games so I enjoyed the 87 World Cup but um yeah and and uh I was enjoying the last one until
01:30:10
the last 10 minutes oh it was good though any any same as the um the uh the other one we were talking about the 95
01:30:16
one any any any final where it's a close game I think that's all you can ask for
01:30:20
right yeah yeah you can ask for the ones that you win but that were good no I mean I mean I've always enjoyed New
01:30:27
Zealand South Africa clashes so um you know being old and being brought up on that stuff um been amazing and and and
01:30:35
and it you know was it was an it was funny cuz I'm sitting in the stands watching the final and um there's these
01:30:43
Six South Africans and you know not quiet people when they're at a rugby game no very and and um and I can't help
01:30:51
myself so I just dropping a little smart ass comment and I thought they were going to kill me and then I you know I
01:30:58
got half them on side against the other half and then so we're talking at half
01:31:03
time and they're like oh we're such and such and we play cricket and blah blah
01:31:07
blah blah blah and they're like do you know gr Elliott and I'm like yep [ __ ] you don't know Grand Elliott I
01:31:14
I know Grand Elliot ring him so they ring him on a video check do you know this guy hey it's
01:31:22
Rick that's New Zealand we all know it's amazing it's amazing so talking to Grand
01:31:27
at half time um cuz they play cricket with them in South Africa unreal yeah hey that's been um 90 90 minutes of your
01:31:34
time do you enjoy doing things like this you enjoy reflecting or you you're too
01:31:37
busy looking forward to what's next No I um I enjoy it I I as I say I'm really
01:31:41
grateful I'm really grateful because for everything I've done someone's given me
01:31:45
that opportunity you know whether it's the guys at sky or you know Jeff with
01:31:49
the book or um you know someone said you know you can do this um sometimes I've had to bash the door
01:31:57
down a little bit but um and and just be a bit pushy I mean when we did the Matthew Ridge documentary
01:32:04
um uh the people at TZ didn't want it and um so I went to John mccre who was
01:32:11
running TV2 and he said look just make it on your credit card I'll get it sorted while you're away and so I came
01:32:17
back and I had like 50 Grand on my credit card and um my God they could have easily gone no we don't want it um
01:32:26
but they said yeah yeah and they clean my credit card I didn't get paid a cent
01:32:29
for it um but I got a clean credit card and this was like late 80s so 50 Grand is 50 Grand is a house um so um yeah I'm
01:32:39
just really grateful I'm just really grateful that um you know people just believed in me
01:32:46
enough to give me an opportunity to to be creative and um you're the same that's all you want you just when you're
01:32:54
creative you just want to be able to create and someone's got to pay for it and someone's got to put it on for an
01:33:00
audience you know so um you know my job's to create but someone else got to pay for it and someone else got to put
01:33:07
on an audience I mean it's a bit different now like you're doing this here so I think that's really exciting I
01:33:13
think it's a really exciting move for people now is that they can create their
01:33:18
own shows they're not stuck by going to have to pitch to a broadcaster but but it's more
01:33:23
competitive than it's ever been like so you're trying to get an audience on
01:33:27
YouTube where the greatest collection of content of all time lives so um so it's
01:33:34
competitive but if you can find your Niche it's just brilliant it's what a
01:33:37
what a great time to you know I mean when we when we did Sports Capo I had to buy a studio you know when we did
01:33:46
it at a bar and it cost me 800 900 Grand to buy a studio you know and I just backed myself that we
01:33:54
would stay on air long enough to pay it off so it took about 5 years six years to pay it off um oh my God but um but
01:34:04
now you know you know for a fraction of that you know you're able to put a show
01:34:09
together you know and how exciting is that yeah it's great I yeah I mean no one knows where the where the future of
01:34:13
media is going to go but I just feel like it's going to be in micro audiences
01:34:17
so instead of having like TV 1 TV 2 TV3 with big fat audiences it's just going
01:34:22
to be far more fragmented yeah yeah and like having been there when it was easy you know where if you put something on
01:34:28
TV one and everyone watched it um to to you know making content for the All Blacks where it's competitive um but you
01:34:37
just need enough I I always think that um when you make something if three or four people tell you they love it then
01:34:45
then you're on to something yeah you can build from that yeah that's all you need
01:34:49
just that snuff of success just three or four people and not your family all right Rex so it's been um I I I feel
01:34:55
like I know you particularly well from years and years of of um you know TV um but I do think this is the first time
01:35:01
we've met but I've um thoroughly loved sitting down and picking your brains
01:35:04
it's been a real honor and I I can't thank you enough for the opportunity oh
01:35:07
it's been fun mate I already enjoyed it nothing better than talking about myself
01:35:11
no I love your work love the modesty and I genuinely can't wait to see what you
01:35:14
do next yeah me too yeah good luck with the new replacement all right thanks [Music]
01:35:22
mate a