Ric Salizzo: the king of unconventional sports television...

Interview – 2012

Producer Ric Salizzo started out on the radio, as a sports reporter and newsreader. After moving to television, he was criticised for frowning during news bulletins, and he freely admits that conventional sports broadcasting was not his forte. Salizzo found his niche with popular rugby documentaries The Good, the Bad and the Rugby and Blood, Sweat and Touring. He also produced and co-hosted long-running sports entertainment show SportsCafe.

In this ScreenTalk interview, Salizzo talks about:

Believing he was terrible as a sports newsreader on One Network News
Having his face compared with a rubber tyre by a TV reviewer
Showing the "human" face of the All Blacks in The Good, the Bad and the Rugby
How the need to create a job for himself led to SportsCafe
Lana Coc-Kroft joining the show partly because Marc Ellis fancied her
Trashing the set in the final programme — his favourite episode
Learning a huge lesson from the "terrible" Sugar Shack
Creating a new twist on sports news with The Crowd Goes Wild
Coming through the tough times of losing his wife Cathy Campbell, and still wanting to tell good stories

This video was first uploaded on 30 October 2012, 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

...I'm really proud that The Good, the Bad And the Rugby changed the way we sort of covered sports. It was really the start of that behind the scenes stuff, and showing sportmen as human beings. Nowadays thats quite normal, but back then it was just unheard of.
– Ric Salizzo on All Blacks video The Good, the Bad and the Rugby

Ric's Full Profile