Dana Youngman

The daughter of a Samoan mother and a Pākehā father, Dana Youngman counts herself fortunate to have grown up experiencing two very different cultures.  

When Dana was in her last year of primary school, her family relocated from the Auckland suburb of Avondale to the central North Island town of Dannevirke. The Youngmans were one of only two Pasifika families in Dannevirke. It was during this time that television provided a valuable window on the world — and inspiration as to where Dana's future might lie.

"When Tagata Pasifika first came on air in 1987 and I watched from my home in small-town New Zealand, it was a pivotal moment," she told the Samoa Observer. "There were people on TV that looked like me and back then, there wasn’t any other Pacific presence on TV at all." Years later Youngman was able to finally secure a decent timeslot for Tagata Pasifika, by placing it before the main news bulletin on Prime Television. 

At high school a documentary-making course fuelled Youngman's interest in TV. In her final year, she was tutored in filmmaking by Bruno Lawrence and sound mixer Chris Verberg: "Both such inspiring men — it was the encouragement of these industry legends that really gave me the confidence to seek out a TV career."

While studying TV directing and production at Unitec, Youngman got a month’s work experience at TVNZ’s Lifestyle department. There she had her first encounter with the long-running Maggie’s Garden Show. "Mostly it was filing and sorting tapes, and a lot of cleaning and dusting. One of the staff on The Great Kiwi Video Show took pity on me, and found out about a job making coffee in the green room for Good Morning advertorials, one day a week. That became my first paid job — my title was ‘hostess’. Thankfully the job only lasted four months. But it got my foot in the door."

Youngman quickly worked her way up the ladder: PA, Production Coordinator, Production Manager, Associate Producer, Director, Producer. She began in 1997 with a two year stint on Good Morning. "The joy of offpeak live TV back then was that we were pretty much left by the network decision makers to just get on with it, so it was a wonderful training ground to give things a go. We also created a platform for musicians to perform live."

In 2004 TVNZ Head of Production Denis Harvey offered her the job as Head of TVNZ’s Lifestyle unit. The unit (later known as the Production Unit) handled all of the organisation’s in-house productions aside from news, sport and Māori programmes: everything from Country Calendar to Dancing with the Stars.

In 2006 Youngman was invited to create a new look home and garden series. Her pitch did the trick; soon she’d left her old job leading 100 staff, in order to produce and direct New Zealand House and Garden. The show’s portraits of aspirational homes both here and overseas won solid ratings, though high production costs meant only one season was made. In this period she also created A Taste of Home and Ground Rules.

In 2008 Youngman was a producer, director and writer on the first, Prime TV version of talent show New Zealand’s Got Talent. Thanks to the liveliness of hosts Andrew Mulligan and Jason Reeves, "I have never laughed so much on a job — Andrew and Jason were a delight to work with". While Youngman had the support of co-producer Richard Hansen, she'd just become a mother for the first time, and had a six-month-old baby daughter. "I honestly look back and go  'what were you thinking?'. But it was a different time, and there was this ridiculous pressure to prove that being a mother wouldn't hinder your ability to make the big shows — and I loved making big complex shows."

Around 2009, multinational company FremantleMedia invited Youngman and chef Annabel Langbein to pitch a new cooking show. "We had a really special creative team: director Michelle Bracey and editor Sacha Campbell. We made a 10-minute pilot, and that got us the green light." The 13 episodes of Annabel Langbein: The Free Range Cook, would screen in 80 countries; the accompanying cookbook has sold 100,000+ copies.

Youngman left after the first series. She had other shows to brainstorm, including The Art of the Architect, which she created with "my dear friend, the late great Sue Donald" (producer of TV3’s Missing Pieces). It was another original concept, which exceeded expectations with excellent ratings and international distribution.

In 2014 Youngman co-created TV One lifestyle series Whānau Living, with Bradley Walker. She  describes it as "a combination of almost every show I’ve ever made — but on a tiny budget, so it punches well above its weight." Hosted by Stacey Morrison and featuring 30 per cent te reo, the show won a solid audience via five-day-a-week screenings.

Youngman went on to produce prime-time doco Life After Footy - Legends of the Pacific, before creating and directing two animated shows for younger viewers: Legendary Polynesia and Tales of the Moana.

In 2019 Youngman began a three and a half year stint as a network executive at Sky TV. While in the role, she commissioned several Aotearoa screen firsts, including Pasifika horror series Teine Sā and Chinese bilingual drama Inked. Also on her list was Raised by Refugees, created by comedian Pax Assadi, Polynesian sketch show SIS (for Sky affiliate Comedy Central), International Emmy-winner INSiDE and a number of documentary projects, including architecture show Designing Dreams.  

"I’ve worked on so many different shows over my 25 years in the industry, and I’ve done my best at every opportunity to advocate for the inclusion of Pacific people," she told Samoa Observer writer Priscilla Rasmussen. "It has become easier over recent years as funding has opened up for more Pacific projects. We just need more Pacific practitioners in the mainstream." 

Profile updated on 30 September 2022

Sources include
Dana Youngman
John Drinnan, 'Media: World conquest on menu for Langbein' (broken link) - The NZ Herald, 6 November 2009
Priscilla Rasmussen, 'Dana Youngman, A Woman of Influence, a daughter of Samoa' (Interview) - Samoa Observer, 19 February 2022
Whānau Living website. Accessed 30 September 2022