Danny Watson

Danny Watson died peacefully on Thursday 15 October 2026, aged 73, after a short illness, surrounded by his whānau. His family announced his death in a statement published by Newstalk ZB and the NZ Herald on 16 October. No further cause was given in the statement.

The family thanked medical staff, the North Harbour Hospice, friends and the wider community for the care and support shown to him. They said they would grieve and celebrate his life privately, and asked that people donate to hospice in lieu of flowers.

Danny Watson was 73 when he died in October 2026. His exact date and place of birth were not given in the reports of his death. His family described his deep connection to Te Ao Māori o Waitaha and his standing as a Ngā Puhi kaumātua, an elder of the iwi.

Before he found broadcasting he tried a variety of occupations, which led NZ On Screen to call him a vocational chameleon. His break came by chance, when a flatmate noticed a newspaper advertisement for presenters on the children's programme Spot On.

Watson's television career began on Spot On, the long-running children's magazine programme on Television One, and continued on another children's classic, What Now?. He went on to present several seasons of the junior sports programme World of Sport and the variety show Danny's Cafe, and fronted a TV3 version of Candid Camera.

In radio he became one of the best-known voices of New Zealand talkback. He hosted Newstalk ZB's Afternoons programme for fifteen years, from 2000 until the end of 2015. In November 2014 he broadcast live talkback from Scott Base in Antarctica, and that year he was named a finalist for best talkback host in the New Zealand Radio Awards. When he left ZB the network said he had decided to concentrate on his bee business and honey school.

Watson ran Māori Bay Honey in the Marlborough Sounds, a mānuka honey business that grew over about a decade to several hundred hives and used an extraction process that took honey from hive to shelf without added heat. Working with Te Puni Kōkiri and the Māori Business Facilitation Service, he led hands-on workshops in the Waikato to help whānau learn beekeeping and the business side of the industry. His honey school was later given the name Te Kura Tatakira o Waitaha.

In the 2019 Auckland local elections he stood for the Devonport-Takapuna Local Board on the A Fresh Approach ticket, winning 5,081 votes without being elected. In February 2021 Magic Talk announced that he and Leah Panapa would take over its afternoon show from Sean Plunket. In 2022 he joined the new talk station Today FM.

Watson was married and had four children and six grandchildren, whom his family described as the absolute centre of his world. His first beehives were kept at his home in Devonport on Auckland's North Shore.

Outside broadcasting he was a dedicated practitioner of Seido karate and a committed beekeeper, and he spent the years after leaving Newstalk ZB building papa kāinga, communal homes, for his whānau. His family remembered his boundless energy, his generous spirit and his extraordinary capacity for loving people.

For a generation of New Zealand children Watson was a familiar face from Spot On and What Now?, and for fifteen years his afternoon programme on Newstalk ZB was a fixture for talkback listeners across the country. His family said he brought warmth, humour and genuine human connection to television screens and radio airwaves for decades.

Through his honey business and workshops he also sought to help Māori whānau, hapū and iwi build their own beekeeping enterprises. In his honour his family encouraged people to do what he did best: share a good story, check in on a neighbour and hold their loved ones close.