Catherine Saunders

Catherine Saunders kicked off her radio career in 1961, then became a television announcer. She was a reporter for 60s magazine show Town and Around, and later began an extended run as a panelist on Selwyn Toogood’s Beauty and the Beast. In 1969 Saunders started working in public relations and marketing; she was a key player in marketing butter, Daffodil Day and the NZ Dairy Board’s 'Bigger Block of Cheese' campaign — one of the country’s most successful. She has also hosted TV's Tonight With Cathy Saunders, had her own Radio New Zealand slot, and produced RNZ hit Top Of the Morning for five years.  

We were the first group of people ... to actually speak publicly about sexual abuse, about contraception, adoption ... a lot of those letters were genuinely asking for serious advice on serious matters. Catherine Saunders on long-running panel show Beauty and the Beast, in her 2012 ScreenTalk interview with NZ On Screen