Rachel Antony

Rachel Antony — Greenstone TV's Chief Executive since 2017 — is proud of the company's long run of high-rating factual television, and the range of its output. Greenstone first made its name with a series of reality shows which took viewers behind the scenes with zookeepers, policemen and customs officials. Under Antony's leadership it has expanded its drama output, while continuing a strong slate of factual content.

Armed with a journalism degree from Auckland University of Technology, Antony began her screen career as a publicist for TVNZ's short-lived regional TV operation, Horizon Pacific. On an OE in the United Kingdom she continued in publicity, this time on BBC comedy shows. After coming home, she did research for Greenstone, Cream TV (which Greenstone later bought), Top Shelf and TVNZ. The roles involved uncovering stories and talent for documentaries on everything from human giants and alcoholics, to Coromandel medics. 

Her journalism training — producing pithy copy at pace — was put to further use as a writer on weekday show Good Morning. While working at Nigel Snowden's Cream TV in 2001, she witnessed the birth of hit reality show Border Patrol, and took on her first gig as producer, on Coastwatch. The series followed fisheries officers protecting New Zealand waters. Further producer roles followed on hit reality shows Neighbours at War and Motorway Patrol.

Motorway Patrol was "pioneering", in terms of "sneaking" documentary content into a primetime entertainment slot. "New Zealand was really among one of the first countries in the world to be doing this kind of observational documentary, so there was a lot of time spent building relationships and trust with the different agencies, while still ensuring that editorial control and integrity rested with the producer."

The innate 'Kiwi-ness' of Motorway Patrol and Border Patrol helped take them around the world. Antony pondered the ongoing success of Motorway Patrol in a 2022 Radio New Zealand interview. "First and foremost we still make them for a New Zealand audience. The humour, the tone, the way the police interact with people out on the motorways, it's still so distinctly of this place..."

Antony also recalled a favourite Border Patrol episode. "My favourite story is a woman who brought her cat in her hand luggage . . . the audacity of it just makes me smile."

The success of another Greenstone TV reality show, Serious Crash Unit, saw the format being exported. In 2007 Antony set up Greenstone's Sydney office, to produce an Aussie version for Channel Seven: C.I.U. (Crash Investigation Unit). She felt immensely privileged that crash survivors and police agreed to go on camera and talk about what they'd been through.

A four-year tour in Australian TV followed; she won production credits on Seven’s Conviction Kitchen, and on primetime shows like FremantleMedia’s So You Think You Can Dance Australia and The X Factor.

While in Sydney, Antony spent two years completing a Post-Graduate Diploma in Screen Business from the Australian Film Television and Radio School (AFTRS). She also won funding from Screen NSW to produce Great Western. The short film — chronicling a Sydney encounter between an Iraqi-born taxi driver and a dispirited local — won awards at festivals in Sydney and Los Angeles.

In 2011 Antony returned to Aotearoa, where she was project leader on a digital spinoff from Geoff Blackwell’s runaway publishing success Milk. The series celebrated humanity through photographs; Antony worked on an online self-publishing venture where customers could create their own Milk photobooks. By 2014 Antony was back at Greenstone as a development executive; she became Director of Development and Production the next year, then in early 2017, she took over the reins from Richard Driver. 

Greenstone founder John Harris had retired in 2014, the same year Greenstone was sold to Australian company CJZ. With Antony at the helm, the company's slate has encompassed long-running reality TV successes Motorway Patrol (and its Aussie cousin Highway Patrol), plus history shows Decades in Colour and Artefact (presented by Professor Anne Salmond), and teen sci-fi drama The Cul de Sac. 

In 2016 Greenstone began developing dramas aimed at older audiences, and appointed Harriet Crampton as the company's Head of Drama. The first primetime scripted project under Crampton drew on real life events: award-winning docudrama The Tender Trap starred Rima Te Wiata as the victim of a romance scam. Rotorua-inspired crime drama series Vegas followed, plus quirky sitcom Kid Sister, and multiple seasons of crime comedy My Life is Murder, featuring Lucy Lawless. 

Greenstone has also ventured into Slow TV, a, longer, more immersive style of television — starting with rail travel show Go South, and the 12-hour long Go Further South (aka Antarctica: The Frozen Time).

Antony has described the company as "platform agnostic" in terms of where its content screens. But she is keen for global streamers to invest more in local content.

In February 2024 Greenstone celebrated 30 years in the business. On and off, Antony has been involved with the company in some way for over 20 of those years. In that time she has witnessed a sea change in New Zealand's media landscape. As she writes in this backgrounder for NZ On Screen's Greenstone Collection, she is "not nostalgic for a time of few channels, narrow voices and linear schedule limitations. I’m also not nostalgic for a time when female CEOs were a rarity". She remains optimistic about the future of the local screen industry — and for the way it can continue to let New Zealanders see themselves on screen.

Profile updated on 26 September 2024

Sources include
Rachel Antony
Greenstone TV website. Accessed 26 September 2024
Ricardo Simich, 'Spy: Greenstone TV's glittery milestone celebration draws big Kiwi names' (Interview) - The NZ Herald, 24 February 2024
'Greenstone TV looks ahead' (Radio interview) Radio New Zealand website. Loaded 13 March 2022. Accessed 17 September 2024
'Rachel Antony' (broken link) Greenstone TV website. Accessed 16 March 2017
Unknown writer, 'Rachel Antony appointed Greenstone TV CEO' (Press release) The Big Idea website. Loaded 6 March 2017. Accessed 26 September 2024