Kathryn Graham

Kathryn Ariana Graham spent over a decade working her way up the television career ladder before making the call in 2002 to move into the role of Kaikotuitui Rangapu (Programme Commissioner) at Māori Television.

"Directing is a really demanding job," she says. "In order to be really good at it, you have to devote a lot of creative energy and thought to it, and I found that having three kids just made it difficult to be as good as I knew I could be."

Taking on the Kaikotuitui Rangapu role saw her working once again with her first boss, Joanna Paul — a "dynamo of energy", who'd hired her back in 1986 to research a government film about employment. Paul had been the producer; now she was the General Manager of Programmes and Production at Māori Television.

Graham's first television gig was for live broadcast Te Poroporoaki of Te Māori in the mid 1980s. She researched taonga that had been returned to the Auckland Art Gallery from around the world. The hour-long prime time programme was filmed live at the gallery, for TV One; the hope was to film kaumātua tenderly greeting each piece. Instead they shot through quickly to hear whaikōrero (formal speeches) — it turned out they'd already spent months with the taonga. "It was a bit of a baptism by fire, and illustrated how things can really change in a live television situation. From that moment I was hooked on live telly."

Graham worked as a trainee with legendary all-rounder Don Selwyn at his company He Taonga Films, doing everything from research to acting. Then she joined TVNZ's Kimihia scheme, which was designed to get more Māori into television. Her intake of 50 also included Haunui Royal and Paora Maxwell.

Over the next three years Graham mixed research and writing for TVNZ, working on productions like magazine show Weekend, and daily children's show 3:45 Live!  She also did a brief stint on arts series Kaleidoscope as a researcher (her arts background helped — her father is sculptor Fred Graham). In 1991 she moved to TV3 (and later, to company Kids TV) for a four year stint researching, producing and directing for various shows, including youth current affairs series InFocus      . 

From 1996, Graham worked on the first two seasons of Mai Time as a director. "Mai Time was a show I feel very proud about working on. It was groundbreaking as it was the first series made for rangatahi Māori. Ironically years later when I was a Commissioning Editor I had a role in bringing in a new show to replace it."

Next came stints producing and directing for short-lived MTV hip hop series, Wrekognize, and directing coverage of Polyfest. Graham also worked as senior production coordinator on anthology series Aroha, the first te reo drama series written and directed by Māori. 

In 2002 Graham moved from content maker to content gatekeeper when she became Kaikotuitui Rangapu (Programme Commissioner) at Māori Television, 18 months before the channel's launch. She worked with Hone Edwards; the pair commissioned the long-running Marae DIY and Ngāti NRL. She remembers it as "a really stressful time as MTS had been in the media spotlight, so everyone was feeling the heat".

In July 2004 Graham shifted to TVNZ, to take on the role of Commissioning Editor for Factual and Entertainment shows — a big coup considering that at this point she'd only made two prime time factual shows for a mainstream network. After three years, Graham added the slate of children's programmes to her job. On top of those portfolios, she eventually became the first Commissioning Editor looking after Māori and Pacific content.

The highlights of Graham's 13 year career at TVNZ included getting kaupapa Māori shows onto TV1 in prime time —  such as award-winning reality show One Land, a show with 20 percent te reo — and commissioning long-running Pacifika series Fresh. She ranks getting more Māori content and te reo on prime time commercial television as "my greatest success so far".

In mid 2017, Graham left TVNZ. Soon after, she rejoined Māori Television as the channel's Kaiwhakahau Hōtaka/Programme Commissioner.

In 2020 she joined the NZ Film Commission as Whakawhanake Hinonga/ Māori Development Executive.

Profile written by Natasha Harris; updated on 29 April 2022

Sources include
Kathryn Graham
Erica Thompson, 'Better Viewing Than Fiction' (Interview) - The Dominion Post, 19 April 2011
Writer unknown, 'TVNZ 'devaluing' of Māori programmes' (Press release) Community Scoop website. Loaded 19 December 2017. Accessed 29 April 2023
'Our Staff' NZ Film Commission website. Accessed 29 April 2023