Brian Kelly has spent 55 years on the airwaves, and is New Zealand's voice of motorsport. Now he's been made a member of the NZ Order of Merit in the King's Birthday honours.
About 14,000. That’s where you land if you take Brian Kelly’s estimate that he does about 60 interviews a week, and multiply it over the four and a half years he’s hosted Gold Sport’s The Country Sport Breakfast.
And that’s just a small segment of the Tauranga radio announcer’s 55-yearcareer on the airwaves, and four decades as New Zealand’s voice of motorsport.
Kelly’s contributions behind the mic have been recognised in the 2025 King’s Birthday Honours.
BK, as many know him, has been made a member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to broadcasting.
Not bad for a lad advised early in his career to give up trying to be an announcer because he did not have the right voice.
Kelly ignored the advice and pursued his dream. Now he likes to say he’s never worked a day in his life.
Raised in Whanganui, his career started in 1970 selecting songs to play on national radio at the New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation.
The “Beatles nut” went on to spend most of his career in music radio, including with Coast FM in Tauranga. His current role, however, is “very different”.
Kelly rises at 3.45am and cycles to his Cameron Rd studio. He prepares for the show, then goes live on air at 6am for three hours. Bedtime is 8pm. His family - wife Ronata and their three adult children - are used to it.
He’s proud of the show’s balance between interesting interviews, and great tunes. Serving up a classic rock song every half hour feeds his love for music.
Tauranga radio announcer Brian Kelly has been made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to broadcasting in the 2025 King's Birthday Honours.
Motorsport is another lifelong passion, and Kelly spent 40 years reporting and commentating from the tracks of every major racing event in New Zealand.
He interviewed the likes of Sébastien Loeb and a young Liam Lawson.
His “all-time hero”, the late Formula One world champion Denny Hulme, became a friend, and Kelly cherishes the memory of sitting with him under Hulme’s apple tree on Ngatai Rd.
Brian Kelly is known as New Zealand's voice of motorsport.
Kelly is still involved in Rally Otago - “the best in the country”. He speculates whether someone in Dunedin might have nominated him for the Royal honour, but he really has no idea who put him up.
When the email landed, his first thought was, “Wow, I’m not deserving of this”.
“I’m just doing something I love and always have since I was 5. I wanted to be a radio announcer, and 55 years later, they still seem to want me.”
Of his many broadcasting awards, he says he is most proud of a 1980s New York Radio Awards gold medal for a documentary-style piece on the Royal New Zealand Air Force, called Operation Falcon Roost.
Brian Kelly spent a good chunk of his career as a breakfast host on Coast FM. Photo/ Andrew Warner.
“I went flying in a jet with the pilot and then not long after he dropped me off at the airport again, he got killed.”
Kelly says he always looks for ways to do things differently, and make his shows “more exciting for the listener”.
That’s listener, singular. His broadcasting bugbear is hosts addressing their audience collectively: “Hello, everyone”.
