John Knowles: From the newsroom to sports boss…

John Knowles began his broadcasting career as a television reporter in the 1960s. Later he ran TV One operations in Christchurch, and did stints managing TVNZ operations in both Dunedin and Auckland, before becoming the organisation’s Head of Sport. Knowles oversaw coverage of many major live events including the Commonwealth Games and sesquicentennial celebrations. Upon leaving TVNZ, Knowles spent several years managing the J-Sports channel in Japan.

In this ScreenTalk, Knowles talks about:

• An awkward on-air muck up in the early days of television news
• The hostility he felt as a journalist covering the Erebus disaster
• Tackling a large number of live events after becoming TVNZ’s Head of Sport
• His approach to managing staff
• The challenge of covering the 1990 Whitbread Round the World Race in darkness
• Stretching the rubber band to cover New Zealand's sesquicentennial celebrations
• Finding new ways to manage as head of J Sports in Japan
• His belief that there is too much tub-thumping in today’s political reporting

This video was first uploaded on 12 June 2018, 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