One of the country’s most colourful radio hosts, Taranaki-born Murray (“Muzza”) Inglis, has died in Auckland’s Mercy Hospice after battling myeloma.
Inglis, who turned 80 just two days ago, worked at numerous radio stations throughout Australia and New Zealand, often at the prime-time breakfast slot and notched up a number of sackings for pushing the boundaries with on-air comments and antics that today would be no doubt considered completely politically incorrect. This was at a time in the 70s when local stations were independently owned after the government opened up private broadcasting in the wake of the Radio Hauraki pirate venture. Commercial stations were fiercely competitive and often poached successful on-air staff.
During his five decades of broadcasting, he also notched up major successes both in ratings and acknowledgements including in 1977, winning a prestigious American award from Billboard magazine as the South Pacific broadcasting personality of the year. In 2016, he was recognised locally at the New Zealand Radio Awards with an award for services to broadcasting.
His most famous on-air stunt occurred in Christchurch when rating highly on the ‘Muzza in the Morning’ breakfast show on independently-owned Radio Avon which opened in 1973. In 1977, the government’s poorly rated commercial rival 3ZM desperately decided to change its format to try to match Avon with the cheeky name of Radio Nova (Avon spelt backwards).
As Nova’s change was about to take effect, Inglis supposedly threw a tantrum in an “argument with station management” and locked himself in the studio and continued to broadcast by himself for 48 hours. Only a very few station staff personnel knew the sit-in was really a stunt to keep people listening to Avon which they did as the publicity overshadowed any hope of Nova’s success. The sit-in story as portrayed by Avon at the time made headlines in papers like the New York Times.
