Chris Parkinson, New Zealand broadcaster, Died at 74

  Dead Famous

Christopher Robin Parkinson was born on April 30, 1941, and died on April 27, 2016.

He was a New Zealand broadcaster. He was one of the co-founders of Radio Hauraki in 1966.

Parkinson, along with David Gapes, in 1966, Derek Lowe and Denis O’Callaghan, was a founding director of the pirate radio station Radio Hauraki, which broke the state-controlled broadcasting monopoly in New Zealand.

He started out as a studio technician, Parkinson soon became an on-air announcer, Eventually the station was granted a broadcasting licence in 1970.

Chris Parkinson was an announcer and newsreader in Australia, from 1968 to 1970, on Sydney radio and television stations 2GB and TCN-9.

From 1975 and 1976, he was a news presenter on TV2 in Auckland alongside Jennie Goodwin.

Chris was operations manager for Radio Pacific from 1982 to 1988, managing director of Radio Pacific (Waikato) from 1988 to 1989., and a Radio Pacific director between 1986 and 1999.

Chris was the corporate voice for TVNZ news and current affairs (1991–99), Sundance Channel (1999–2003), Solid Gold FM (1999–2005) and Radio Pacific (1982–2007).

Chris Parkinson was awarded the Pater Award for “the golden voice of Australasia” in 1987.

Chris also won nine New Zealand Radio Awards between 1982 and 1999.

Chris Parkinson passed away at 74 yrs old.