Paora Maxwell: a committment to Māori broadcasting…

Interview – 2016

Paora Maxwell was the Chief Executive of Māori Television, and a former General Manager of Māori and Pacific Programmes at TVNZ. He began his TV career as a director on children’s shows Play School and 3:45 LIVE!. Maxwell also ran his own company Te Aratai Productions for 15 years.

In this ScreenTalk interview, Maxwell talks about:

The arduous production schedule on kids show Play School
His grandmother’s worries about the way the doll Manu was treated on the show
Making best use of resources on 3:45 LIVE!, and discovering a piece of Milli Vanilli's hair
How Radio Wha Waho was inspired by real people
Why pre-school show Tikitiki is one of his proudest achievements
Working with entertainer Mika, who reminded him of Graham Norton
Being a change agent as Head of Māori and Pacific Programmes at TVNZ
Successfully doubling the duration of news show Te Karere
Taking the responsibility of being CEO at Māori Television seriously
How he deals with public criticism

This video was first uploaded on 7 March 2016, and is available under this Creative Commons licence. This licence is limited to use of ScreenTalk interview footage only and does not apply to any video content and photographs from films, television, music videos, web series and commercials used in the interview.

Interview, Camera and Editing – Andrew Whiteside

We produced I think about 150 of these programmes for Māori preschoolers in the medium of Māori. So yeah, it was a bit of a milestone . . . it certainly wasn't a well-trodden path. So in many ways, we were shaping the future of Māori programming and Māori television.
– Paora Maxwell on being proud of creating Māori preschool show Tikitiki

Paora's Full Profile