The show is the recipient of this year’s Screen Legend honour at the New Zealand Screen Awards being dished in a couple of weeks.<\/p>\n
Henry told RNZ the accolade was “mind-blowing” and “humbling” because competition for\u00a0television viewership was tight.<\/p>\n
“The fact that we can be pulling a 60-plus percent share on a Sunday night at seven o’clock really underlines the importance of the show and the value of the show.”<\/p>\n
Rural news that appealed to ‘townies’<\/p>\n
The show’s\u00a0ability to adapt over decades also speaks to its triumph.<\/p>\n
Henry said, when it first aired in\u00a01966, it was conceived as a rural news programme for farmers, but then evolved and appealed to “townies”.<\/p>\n
“These days, most New Zealanders live in the urban areas and towns, and in cities, so if we were to make a programme that was still solely pitched at farmers alone…\u00a0we’d be off air pretty quickly.”<\/p>\n
Henry said the rural-urban divide has occasionally been “appropriated for political divide”.<\/p>\n
“It’s kind of used to sort of conjure up a bit of anger and misogyny,\u201d he said. \u201cI think there’s so much more that we all have in common than that which divides us, so I think we do have a key role.”<\/p>\n
Ensuring the audience stayed diverse was a balancing act.<\/p>\n
“It’s a fine line to walk to make sure that we’re not dumbing things down too much for the farmers… but making sure we don’t leave behind the urbanites who may need things explained a little further.”<\/p>\n
When it came to approaching participants for the show, Henry recalled the words of Frank Torley, who had been involved with the show for 50 years and passed away in 2016.<\/p>\n
‘Start with a cup of tea’<\/p>\n
![\"Frank](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/frank-torley-on-country-calendar-in-1975-HTBMRNTBNVFPFP6SD4U6BGUTAQ.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Frank Torley on Country Calendar, in 1975 (Source: TVNZ)<\/p>\n
“One of Frank’s great expressions was ‘no interviews on the first day’.”<\/p>\n
“What he meant by that, of course, is that you don’t just run in and set the camera up, and take somebody’s story off them.<\/p>\n
“You need to make friends, you need to break the ice, you start with a cup of tea, you leave the gear in the car and you build a platform to go forward.”<\/p>\n
Henry, who has been involved with the show for about 20 years, said he’d seen cultural changes played out on the screen, especially around gender.<\/p>\n
He recalled\u00a0watching scenes from the 1970s,\u00a0when women were the wives of farmers and the homemakers.<\/p>\n
“Now,\u00a0we’ve got women out there doing it and going hard, and running the farm.”<\/p>\n
A favourite episode<\/p>\n
Henry had his favourite stories, the one from this season being Gerard and his wife\u00a0from West Auckland, who moved to\u00a0Roxburgh, after buying a stonefruit orchard.<\/p>\n
“Not only did they not know anything about growing stonefruit, but Gerard’s wife didn’t even know where Roxburgh was.”<\/p>\n
Henry had seen the show come full circle and inspire viewers to make country life their reality.<\/p>\n
“I know that, this year, we have had two or three people or farmers or families write in, and suggest that we come and do\u00a0a story on them, because Country Calendar was the reason they got into farming.”<\/p>\n