New Zealand’s highestrating breakfast radio broadcaster for 26 years
RADIO legend Merv Smith (85), was one of New Zealand’s pillars of broadcasting.
Mr Smith held the number one position in the country’s radio breakfast ratings for 26 years.
He started in breakfast radio at 1ZB in 1961, aged 28, and left for Radio I when Paul Holmes came in to start the Newstalk format in 1986.
After he retired from radio he dived into his true love — trains — and ran Merv Smith Hobbies in Newmarket.
Former colleague Barry Holland said he was the first of the big radio personalities — but was a very humble man.
Mr Holland said his enduring memory of him was his humour and timing.
Mr Smith was very involved in radio drama, then on TV in Personality Squares.
His breakfast show included birthday calls and a spider, McHairy, for the children.
When he left 1ZB he started a country music radio show from Albany.
He volunteered for the Blind Foundation for 48 years, narrating nearly 200 books and countless magazines.
He also featured in numerous radio and television commercials, as well as a children’s video series called Buzz and Poppy.
Former Newstalk ZB station manager Bill Francis said Mr Smith was first heard on the station as a member of Tom Garland’s schoolage Friendly Road choir.
After leaving school, he worked as an office boy in radio stations in Auckland and Whangarei before getting his big break on the 1ZB breakfast show in 1961.
‘‘He was just a great guy to wake up to in the morning,’’ Mr Francis said.
‘‘In those days of 1ZB it really was all things to all people, so he would do all the birthday calls for the kids going off to school, but he could also be relating just as well to older people and working people and so on.
‘‘Despite the fact that he was a bit of a funny guy, he also believed intensely in the production of a good voice and correct pronunciation.’’
In his book ZB — The Voice of an Iconic Radio Station, Mr Francis said Mr Smith’s ‘‘natural talent for talk, clarity of delivery, facility for mimicry, jokes, great laugh and allround cheerfulness made him the number one choice of most Aucklanders for their first contact with the world every morning’’.
Mr Smith’s weekly conversations with his character McHairy were ‘‘frequently hilarious’’.
After moving to Radio I he achieved a further two years as number one before Paul Holmes eventually took the top slot back for Newstalk ZB.
He remained active until the end, but was admitted to hospital late last week and died on Monday.