New Zealand's Top 100 History Makers

First Air Date:

Overview - New Zealand's Top 100 History Makers was a weekly television programme first shown on Prime Television New Zealand on 6 October 2005. 430 notable New Zealanders were ranked by a panel to determine the 100 most influential in New Zealand history. There were six episodes to present the list, and a final episode, screened live on 17 November 2005, showed the rankings of the top ten of these people as a result of votes collected from the public via text and internet. Diana Wichtel, reviewing the show in The New Zealand Listener, described it as "surprisingly watchable", but commented that the format was "history as striptease, with the programme counting down over the weeks to the big winner." Scott Kara, writing in The New Zealand Herald, called it "educational but not dull". Another review described it as "history ... as an Idol-style talent search". Joseph Romanos, one of the panellists, produced a book later in 2005 containing profiles of the same 100 people. The book was revised for a 2008 edition.