Neil Roberts

Neil Roberts discovered that he loved making television programmes while working as a parliamentary journalist. In the mid 1980s he founded independent production company Communicado, whose staff grew to more than 60. Later Roberts oversaw a period of change at Television New Zealand, during a short stint as the organisation's Television Manager. He died of cancer on 8 November 1998.

Like him or loathe him, he will be remembered as a quite extraordinary human being: a New Zealander who did much to remind us who and what we are. Warren Barton in The Dominion, 9 November 1998