Rodney Bryant
A devoted adopted son of the South Island, Rodney Bryant was born in the English town of Pangbourne on the River Thames (where Kenneth Grahame wrote The Wind in the Willows). In 1957 his family moved dowunder, because "father had his bike pinched five times in a year. He heard that they didn’t pinch bikes in New Zealand".
They settled in Blenheim where Bryant attended Marlborough College. He captained the soccer and cricket First XIs, and edited the school magazine. A projected law degree at Victoria University lasted just one year and a stint selling insurance was equally short-lived. He began his broadcasting career as a talks officer with the NZ Broadcasting Corporation in 1965.
Bryant returned to England in 1969 with ambitions to work for BBC TV. He got no closer than a media liaison job with the Post Office. Homesickness for his adopted land saw him return to Christchurch in 1971.
Contract work in the television newsroom led to co-hosting regional news programme The South Tonight with Bryan Allpress. The show offered unashamed parochialism, solid local journalism and a strong underpinning of humour. The pair’s on-screen chemistry was an integral part of a success unparalleled by the other regional news shows.
Allpress, the urbane older man, and Bryant, the brash young upstart, happily egged each other on. The two talk about their partnership in this documentary (11 minutes into the third clip), with Bryant arguing that viewers "forgave us our indiscretions", almost as if they were family. Their search for the source of the Avon River (see clip above) and a champagne opening of an underground toilet in Cathedral Square (featuring ribbon cutting and brass band) became the stuff of local legend. Less successful, in personal terms, was Bryant’s dive from the high board at QE2 pool, which required eight weeks convalescence. It did fulfil his credo that "if people don’t talk about a programme afterwards it hasn’t succeeded".
Two channel TV arrived in 1975 with no place in its brave new world for regional news (despite a 23,000 strong petition in Christchurch). South Pacific Television introduced telethons and Canterbury viewers lapped up their local coverage. Bryant played a central role in their success but, otherwise, SPTV could only offer him variety shows to host. An ill-matched marriage ended when even these ran out and only general reporting work was offered.
Within days of another successful Telethon in 1977 Bryant very publicly resigned. He took a public relations post with a travel firm, and vowed never to return to SPTV “while the people running it now are in control”. A year later he moved to a similar position with the Christchurch City Council.
The amalgamation of TV One and SPTV in 1980 brought the resurrection of regional news. Bryant returned to Canterbury screens on The Mainland Touch, paired up with another older and more conservative co-host in newsreader Bob Sutton. Although The Mainland Touch was a worthy successor to The South Tonight, Bryant estimated that, by 1984, he had presented 1600 instalments of regional news. He told The Auckland Star "I’ve really done my dash. I’m enjoying it… but it’s becoming more difficult all the time to say something new and different everyday".
He moved to On Line — an Auckland based experiment in TV talkback. The weekly series was quickly overshadowed as Prime Minister Muldoon called a snap election. On Line turned into the daily Election Line; Bryant also fronted general campaign and polling night coverage.
In December he was making headlines rather than covering them, as he was dropped from TVNZ’s golf commentary team. But the year ended on a high note when he was named to anchor TVNZ’s flagship current affairs show Sunday.
His tenure was not a happy one, with the legacy of former host Ian Fraser looming large. Bryant said he was keen to tone down Sunday, which he saw as out of touch with the average New Zealander, but a less than successful interview with Prime Minister David Lange did little for his cause. He ruefully reflected that "the worst thing for a television presenter is to be ignored and I can’t honestly say that’s happened".
In 1986, he returned to TV talk back in a new daily slot in the Newsline midday news package, but it was cancelled at the end of the year. The timing of the axing was unfortunate. It came within days of a heated Newsline interview Bryant did with TVNZ Director-General Julian Mounter about staff cutbacks.
After a summer without a programme against his name, Bryant was appointed editor and presenter of children’s current affairs show The Video Dispatch in April 1987. The new role allowed him to return to Christchurch. In 1988 he reported from Expo '88 in Brisbane, where plans to look at the expo through children's eyes had to be abandoned because those interviewed were "so spaced out with it all that they were practically incoherent".
By the end of 1988, the perpetually changing late 80s television landscape had again undermined him. Video Dispatch moved back to Avalon and he resurfaced fronting Ten Out of Ten, a phone in homework helpline. When that finished there was no further work at TVNZ and unemployment beckoned.
In January 1991 he began a 21-year stint as Dunedin City Council’s communications co-ordinator — finding a niche in local government that echoed his involvement with regional television. In the early 2000s, he spent time on the Broadcasting Standards Authority. Bryant retired from the council in August 2012.
Profile written and researched by Michael Higgins; updated on 17 February 2022
Sources include
Glenys Bowman, 'Twenty-five years’ experience and now nothing' (Interview) –The NZ Women’s Weekly, 10 September 1990
Sue McAuley, 'Everyman and his friend' – The Listener, 31 August 1984
Chris Morris, 'Bryant retires from city council after 21 years' (Interview) - The Otago Daily Times, 1 August 2012
Helen Paske, 'The Rodney Bryant Touch' (Interview) – The Listener, 25 April 1981, page 19
Mark Thomas, 'Maverick Broadcaster' – The Sunday Star-Times, 5 June 1994
Unknown writer, 'Rodney to Leave Christchurch TV' – The Press, 29 June 1977
Unknown writer, 'Bryant Wonder Bubbles Up' (Interview) - The NZ Herald, 25 May 1988