Top 100 Countdown Continues on Prime

day 28th October
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

TOP 100 COUNTDOWN CONTINUES ON PRIME

Last night on Prime’s new local history programme, New Zealand’s Top 100 History Makers, opera singer Dame Kiri Te Kanawa was named New Zealand’s 31st most influential kiwi of all time.

The ranking was decided by a panel of eight who have cast a Top 100 list of the greatest people in New Zealand’s recorded history.

Dame Kiri’s breakthrough came in 1965 when, at the age of 22, she won the Mobil Song Quest. The soprano’s biggest moment arrived in 1981, when she performed at Charles and Diana’s royal wedding to an estimated telecast audience of over 600 million people.

Comedian Raybon Kan, one of the eight responsible for the ranking, said of Dame Kiri; “She helped us get over a lot of things…rugby, bloke, farmer… She comes along in the sixties and is suddenly everything the opposite. Opera Singer. Hot. She got us through a lot of embarrassing stereotypes”.
The panel of eight ranked America’s Cup and Whitbred winner, Sir Peter Blake at number 34 on the list of influential New Zealanders.

Broadcaster Kerre Woodham said of Blake; “He was another in the line of great New Zealand adventurers. He seemed to embody a time of great confidence, when New Zealanders believed they could do or achieve anything”.

Four episodes of New Zealand’s Top 100 History Makers have screened so far and some contemporary figures included in the ranking to date are actor Russell Crowe at 100, David Lange at 43, and Prime Minister Helen Clark at 27.

The number one New Zealander of all time will be revealed on Thursday 10 November, with a People’s Choice vote being decided in a live finale on Thursday November 17.

Tune into New Zealand’s Top 100 History Makers,
every Thursday night at 7.30pm on Prime.

ENDS

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