Tim Bickerstaff

Herbal Ignite director Tim Bickerstaff plans the company’s radio advertising, voices many of the the ads and personally answers many of the customer calls, because he understands men like to talk to men.

He enjoys running a company offering the men’s sexual enhancement product Herbal Ignite because he's in the age group to need them himself, and he doesn't mind admitting it.  He’s “been there, done that and got the T-shirt.”

Men’s health is a second career for Tim, who enjoyed a prominent radio and television profile spanning 40 years in New Zealand and Australia before starting Herbal Ignite. In the mould of Melbourne’s Derryn Hinch or US “shock jock” Howard Stern, he enjoyed provoking controversy.

Tim began his broadcasting career as a TV sports reporter with the New Zealand Broadcasting Service in Rotorua, Dunedin and Wellington. He worked for 3DB in Melbourne in the 1960s before he returned to Auckland with his young family and began broadcasting with Radio I.

With his passion for sport and a prodigious memory for sports trivia he pioneered talkback on Sportsline with Geoff Sinclair on Radio I, and then moved onto more general talkback with his two hour Radio Pacific show, interviewing 2000 outstanding world personalities including Glen Campbell (singer), Mickey Rooney (actor) Billy Connelly (comedian), Ruth Westheimer (sexologist), Jack Nicklaus (golfer), Jackie Collins (author), and Xavier Hollander (porn actress)

 When interviewing high profile real estate auctioneer Dick Gladding ‘live’ on air in 1989 Tim asked Gladding if his agency used “ring-ins” to boost the bidding. Gladding replied “Tim, I feel sick”. To which Tim replied “I thought you would say that”.

There was a long silent pause and Tim looked at Gladding. He had suffered a heart attack and was dead in the studio chair. (This was believed to be the first time in the history of world radio that this had ever happened).

From a keen sporting family, Tim’s athletics career ended almost before it began when he damaged his right knee contesting the junior national hammer throw title. He moved on to golf and then billiards, (he was NZ master’s billiards champion in 1982). He reckons giving up golf for billiards was one of his stupider decisions, because instead of enjoying the health benefits of roaming golf courses he ended up standing around billiard tables late into the night - with subsequent impact on his weight and his fitness.

Boxing has been a lifelong obsession, and Tim attended several world title fights which included Muhammad Ali regaining the title from Leon Spinks and Sugar Ray Leonard avenging his defeat at the hands of Roberto Duran. In Tim’s best-selling sports book Heroes and Villains, Muhammad Ali was his pick as the greatest fighter that ever lived.

Another highlight was attending the Superbowl in Atlanta in 1994 when the Dallas Cowboys defeated the Buffalo Bills. The trip was made more memorable when he managed to lock himself out of his hotel room in the nude while pushing a room service trolley into the corridor.
 
A “man's man,” Tim made his own rules on his own show and sank his Vodka with the same vigor as his billiards balls. So when he noticed the inevitable effects of aging and excess on his sex life in his mid 50s, he wasn't about to just “grin and bear it.”  He investigated this “hidden health issue” for mid-life men first hand – and found he wasn't alone. In fact 50% of men over the age of 40 suffer from some episodes of sexual inadequacy – but most of them don't want to acknowledge it.

It takes most men three years from the time they first notice they can't perform sexually as they want - experiencing isolated episodes – till when they gather enough confidence to make a call seeking help.

Not Tim. He tried all the sexual enhancement products available, talked widely with his mates about erectile dysfunction, and then came up with a scientifically formulated erectile dysfunction solution – the male enhancement product Herbal Ignite.

He hung up six times before finally making the call to a specialist men’s clinic for help. “It’s a bloody hard call to make,” says Tim. “I know what it’s like." In the days before the little blue pill made men’s sexual health an acceptable conversation topic, Tim was a pioneer in his willingness to “talk about it”.

The specialist clinic gave him an injection which he says “pretty much worked – but injecting yourself didn’t exactly excite me, and I couldn’t stand having a syringe beside the bed – I found it just horrific, not natural.”

That was the mid 90s - before US Senator Bob Dole fronted his sexual performance issue on television commercials, before Rugby League coach Graham Lowe appeared in Cialis ads, Tim was talking about his personal experiences in looking for support for sexual health.

Just about then, Viagra, the little blue pill was launched in the US and Tim was one of the first New Zealanders to legally import it for his own use. But when it became an accepted pharmaceutical item Tim says “I didn’t like having to go to the doctor to get it, I found sometimes it didn’t work, and I got bad headaches with it.”

Research shows it still takes men a long time to make that first call, but the whole subject of sexual performance is getting a lot easier to talk about, says Tim.

“We get men who have been recommended Ignite by a mate in the pub, and we have a lot of couples who discuss the problem together and then the wife rings up and orders for her husband or for both of them. People from all walks of life ring up now.”

There’s no doubt that Viagra and people like Bob Dole coming out and talking about it has helped get rid of the ‘cringe factor’.

“Men still make the excuse they are ‘too tired’ or ‘too pissed’ or they try to get to bed first or last so they don’t have to think about performing… The great thing is now there is a natural alternative that doesn’t involve doctor’s bills and men can feel free to talk to me or one another about it.”

After many years living on a country lifestyle block on the outskirts of Auckland (where he was one of the first people in NZ to get satellite TV with a backyard dish) Tim moved to a smaller property on the Coromandel peninsula with panoramic views. He loves to sit on his deck and watch sky, sea and boats.

Years of hard living have had an impact on his health, but Tim is fighting back, seeing personal trainer Justin Murphy twice a week to help control his diabetes and keep well.

Tim and his wife Sue amicably separated 15 years ago – he admits his media life style was never very “family friendly” – and Sue, son Scott and daughter Brenda and their partners all live in Queensland, Australia.