How Radio Sport found its voice
From calamitous World Cup exits to America’s Cup defections and cricket captaincy debacles, Dale Budge surveys 20 years of Radio Sport
A total of 254 All Blacks tests, five Olympic Games, six Commonwealth Games, 20 home summers of cricket and six America’s Cups — Radio Sport has been the home of sport for the past two decades.
The country’s only 24/7 sports radio station turned 20 yesterday.
Radio Sport started as an expansion of Sports Round-up, which ran from December to March covering live cricket and other summer sport on the YC frequencies owned by Radio New Zealand. When Radio NZ split in two, the idea of a full-time sports station became reality.
“People that were working in radio saw this as a great opportunity to extend it into something that became a commercial proposition where you started a radio station and ran it 24/7 and covered sport full-time,” said Bill Francis, the long-time head of talk at The Radio Network.
The idea was really born once The Radio Network obtained the live cricket rights, seen as crucial for any sports station. So the old Radio New Zealand sports team was moved to Auckland and a staff was assembled.
“John Howson was crucial,” Francis said. “John had done the work on bringing the Radio New Zealand sports team to Auckland. He did a lot of the planning around the concept of a Radio Sport station. I worked closely with John in getting the station up and running. There were other people who worked out how frequencies could be obtained — Norm Collison was essential around that. Eventually we had enough frequencies around the country to run a network into most parts of New Zealand.”
Because of the competitive nature of radio in New Zealand, it was important the right hosts were secured so that Radio Sport could compete. Martin Devlin was signed as the station’s first breakfast host and veteran broadcaster Brendan Telfer as the morning host — the two most critical hosts in the station’s history.
“I think Bill Francis was very smart in that he decided to get a breakfast radio host to host the breakfast radio show, regardless of what the format was,” Devlin said. “It is a very specialised kind of weird job getting up at that hour of the morning. I got asked to apply and came up and produced a whole document about how to plan the whole show and was lucky enough to be given it.
“It was absolutely brilliant. If I look back now, the biggest mistake I made was perhaps not to smell the roses at the time. We kicked off and got really well established and had a lot of success, and I suppose I was overambitious in wanting it to be bigger and more and more.”
Devlin struck up a superb balance with long-time morning show host Telfer. Devlin’s show was fast-paced, funny and entertaining to compete with shows on other stations, while the experienced Telfer provided the meat and bones of the daily sporting agenda.
“I thought the contrast was brilliant,” Devlin said. “He was our mainstay — he was our Kim Hill at that time. I thought the sound of the station was Brendan Telfer. He brought enormous experience, enormous knowledge and credibility, and just the most annoying twat to work with — I love him. He was brilliant.”
Original hosts also included Andrew Dewhurst and Glen Larmer, while Graeme Hill, Phil Gifford, Tony Veitch, Mark Richardson, Doug Golightly, Willie Lose, Miles Davis, Matt Gunn, Kath Harby-Williams and Andrew Mulligan also enjoyed stints as regular hosts. Malcolm Jordan and Bryan Waddle are the only original staff members to have spent all 20 years with the station. Two current hosts — Kent Johns and D’Arcy Waldegrave have been there for the majority of the station’s history.
Leading commentators such as Waddle, Peter Montgomery, Allen McLaughlin, Graeme Moody, Kevin Hart and Andrew Saville entertained listeners and helped pave the way for the next generation, including today’s current crop such as Nigel Yalden, Daniel McHardy and Brenton Vannisselroy.
I think 1999 [Rugby World Cup] was the thing that really galvanised the station. We were the grief counsellors for the nation. Martin Devlin
Radio Sport really took off with the All Blacks’ failure at the 1999 Rugby World Cup. The side was upset by France in the semifinals and the country went into a crazed state of mourning. Radio Sport was the outlet for the outpouring of anger and disappointment.
“I think 1999 was the thing that really galvanised the station,” Devlin said. “We were the grief counsellors for the nation.”
Current breakfast host Kent Johns started working at the station straight out of university in 1999 and he recalls just how big the World Cup exit was, along with other key stories in the station’s history.
“The big moments for Radio Sport are always the big talk topics,” Johns said. “They are always issues-based talk. Off the top of my head, the fallout from the 1999 World Cup — still the biggest fallout for any All Blacks defeat to this point. Coutts and Butterworth jumping ship to Alinghi was massive — just the fallout and the personal nature and the vitriol.
“I think about the Ross Taylor captaincy debacle in Sri Lanka. That was one of the big talkers of all-time. The cricket players’ strike, of course, too.
“I know it sounds like I am not talking up the big successes of New Zealand sport but when Radio Sport works to its maximum, when it is at its most engaging and in my opinion the most compulsive listening is when you have those big issues that can last anywhere from one to two full weeks.”
A feature of Radio Sport throughout its existence has been the noholds-barred approach of its announcers — something station management has always encouraged. Despite commercial arrangements with various sporting organisations, the announcers have demonstrated a freedom to speak honestly about any topic, even if that’s had an adverse impact on their partners.
“I learned that early — you have to call it as you see it,” Johns said. “There is no such thing as a positive opinion or negative opinion. I bristle when I hear that, because it’s nonsense. If it’s an honestly held opinion, then you can hold a position and argue it.
“Our management here have never once, in the close to 20 years I have worked here, said to me ‘I don’t think you should be saying that’ or ‘you shouldn’t hold that view’. A lot of the views we hold are controversial, they’re unpopular, they’re disagreeable, sports bodies don’t always like what we say, but again I come back to it — if it’s a genuinely held view and you can give good reasons for why you hold that view, it should be encouraged. Thankfully manager after manager here at Radio Sport have had the backs of their announcers, and that is something I’m grateful for.”
What has changed over the past two decades, however, is technology. These days, people listen to Radio Sport via the internet, they consume interviews on demand or by picking up topics on social media first. How the station moves with the times has been the single biggest challenge, according to Johns.
“Every time we ask people to text or email the programme, or now with Twitter and Facebook and other social media, in a way we are cutting our own lunch because fewer people are going to want to call into the programme and engage in the conversation. If we don’t do that, we are luddites and out of the picture and we cease to become relevant. That is the biggest challenge since I’ve been here, keeping pace with communication trends, trying to stay contemporary but at the same time sticking true to what we are about, which is obviously talking about sport.”
So long as New Zealand retains its passion for sport, there will always be a key role for Radio Sport to play. Francis, who has long since moved on from the company, is adamant the station has been a success.
“It has survived 20 years and I think you can say to do that in a very competitive radio environment illustrates it has been a really good success.”