TVNZ

Television New Zealand (TVNZ; ), more commonly referred to as TVNZ, is a New Zealand state-owned media company and Crown entity. The company operates a television network, streaming service, and news service that is available throughout New Zealand and parts of the Pacific region. All of its currently-operating channels are free-to-air and funded through advertising.

TVNZ was established in February 1980 following the merger of the two government-owned television networks, Television One (now TVNZ 1) and South Pacific Television (now TVNZ 2), under a single administration. It was the sole television broadcaster in New Zealand until November 1989 when private channel TV3 (now Three) was launched.

TVNZ operates playout services from its Auckland studio via Kordia's fibre and microwave network for TVNZ 1, TVNZ 2 and TVNZ Duke, with new media video services via the American-owned Brightcove which is streamed on the Akamai RTMP/HLS DNS based caching network, as TVNZ+. Its former channels include TVNZ Kidzone (closed 30 April 2016), TVNZ Heartland (closed 31 May 2015), TVNZ U (closed August 2013), TVNZ 7 (closed June 2012), TVNZ 6 (closed 2011), and TVNZ Sport Extra (closed 2009).

TVNZ is commercially supported and receives no direct government subsidies. Under the Television New Zealand Act, the broadcaster is legislatively required to "maintain its commercial performance" while providing "high-quality content" which "encompasses both New Zealand and international content and reflects Māori perspectives."

There has been reoccurring debate about TVNZ's role and whether it should be treated as a public-service broadcaster or a fully commercial network. The broadcaster currently operates as a wholly commercial business.

History

{| class="wikitable" style="text-align:center;" ! Ownership ! !1 !2 !6 !7 !11 !12 !13 !14 !18 !20 !Sky 17 !Sky 46 |- !rowspan=3|Separate !1960 |NZBC TV | | rowspan="6" | rowspan="7" | rowspan="19" | rowspan="19" | rowspan="13" | rowspan="16" | rowspan="18" | rowspan="6" | rowspan="8" | rowspan="9" |- !1975 | rowspan="14" |TV One |TV2 |- !1976 |South Pacific Television |- !rowspan=50|TVNZ !1980 |TV2 |- !1989 |Channel 2 |- !1995 | rowspan="10" |TV2 |- !2007 | rowspan="3" |TVNZ 6 | rowspan="2" |TVNZ Sport Extra |- !2008 | rowspan="3" |TVNZ 7 |- !2010 | rowspan="50" | rowspan="5" |TVNZ Heartland |- !2011 | rowspan="2" |U | rowspan="5" |TVNZ Kidzone24 |- !2012 |TV One Plus 1 |- !2013 | rowspan="4" |TV One Plus 1 | rowspan="4" |TV2+1 |- !2014 |- !2015 |TVNZ Pop-up | rowspan="50" |- ! rowspan="2" |2016 | Duke | rowspan="50"

Formation TVNZ was created in February 1980, through the merger of Television One and South Pacific Television (which was renamed TV2). Until January 1989, it was paired with Radio New Zealand as the Broadcasting Corporation of New Zealand (BCNZ).

The broadcaster was initially based in Television One's former headquarters at the Avalon television centre in Lower Hutt, with TV One broadcasting out of Avalon and TV2 broadcasting out of Auckland. However over the course of the 1980s, operations were gradually moved to Auckland. In 1989, TVNZ moved to a new television centre in central Auckland.

In preparation for the launch of TV3, TVNZ became a profit-oriented state-owned enterprise in 1988.

Broadcasting in New Zealand was deregulated in 1989. Private broadcasters were allowed to operate in competition to TVNZ, and Radio New Zealand was split off from TVNZ, becoming a separate company. The Broadcasting Act 1989 also established the organisation now called NZ on Air which funds public broadcasting and independent media production in New Zealand.

In 1990, TVNZ competed with TV3 with an advertising campaign backed by "expensive imported programmes" and local sports coverage.

Commercial agreements A first-right supply agreement with Channel 4 was signed in October 2000. This disabled TV4 from having access to further programmes from the British channel's catalogue, although it still had a few programmes stocked at the time. The first programmes were set to come to the TVNZ channels within a two-month window.TVNZ goes for edgy Brit telly

In October 2002, it signed an agreement with The Walt Disney Company, displacing TV3 from its free-to-air rights.TVNZ gets Disney

Role as public broadcaster

The Labour-led government under Helen Clark from 1999 to 2008 pursued a programme of public broadcasting reforms. New Zealand's wide-ranging adoption of neoliberal policies in the mid-1980s and 1990s had large sections of the state sector privatised. As a state owned enterprise, TVNZ enjoyed enormous commercial success under CEO Julian Mounter (sustaining two-thirds of the overall audience share) and paid the Crown substantial dividends (over $250 million between 1989 and 1999). However, the commercial success had been achieved through an unabashed pursuit of ratings through populist and tabloid content, and prior to the 1999 election the National-led government was evidently positioning TVNZ for commercialisation Labour-led administrations since 1999 explicitly recognised the market failures of a wholly commercial broadcasting sector (e.g. saturation-level advertising, low levels of local content, heavy reliance on cheap imports and a disregard for quality genres and in-depth news and current affairs) and re-emphasised television's cultural and democratic functions in their policy thinking.

The Clark government's highest profile broadcasting reform to date was the restructuring of TVNZ as a Crown entity in 2003. This introduced a dual remit whereby the broadcaster had to maintain its commercial performance (continuing dividend payments to the Crown) while simultaneously implementing a new public service Charter.

The TVNZ Charter would require the negotiation and reconciliation of potentially contradictory commercial and public service imperatives. The final version of the TVNZ Charter included a range of public service objectives and expectations.

However, this dual remit precluded any transformation of TVNZ into fully-fledged public service broadcaster, and TVNZ's efforts to balance its pursuit of commercial performance and Charter objectives were soon being criticised. Despite some investment in local content, including new documentaries and discussion programmes, the content on TV One and TV2 remained similar to the pre-charter schedules, with a continuing high proportion of light entertainment and reality-TV shows.

TVNZ continues to pay dividends to the Crown. However, from 2006 until 2009 TVNZ received $15.11 million each year from Government to assist it with fulfilling Charter obligations. There was much debate about the initial secrecy surrounding funding allocations and the programmes supported. The allocation of $5 million toward coverage of the 2008 Olympics, the rights for which are secured by a competitive tender between broadcasters, was possibly the most controversial. In 2009 the Government gave control of that funding to funding agency NZ On Air. NZ On Air announced the creation of the contestable "Platinum Fund" in April 2009, setting aside the $15.11 million for high quality drama, documentary and other programme types. Following the election of a National Party-led government under John Key in 2008, the Charter was abolished in favour of a return to the 1990s model of a full commercial broadcaster.

There is much debate on the future of TVNZ, which focuses on the nature of public service broadcasting and its commercial role. An example was in a memo called A More Public Broadcaster written by outgoing Chief Executive Ian Fraser to the board of TVNZ in October 2005, was obtained and released by Green MP Sue Kedgley. The memo outlined three (four) options.

These were: TV One as a fully non-commercial network, like ABC in Australia, charged with delivering Charter values, and possibly merging with Radio New Zealand and Māori Television TV One a semi-commercial broadcaster with no more than six minutes of advertisements an hour like SBS in Australia TV One and TV2 remaining unchanged, but two new public service channels being broadcast via digital television. TV One and TV2 are now fully commercial with 15 – 20 minutes of ads per hour, plus ads overplayed over programmes.

On 15 February 2006, a group of 31 prominent New Zealanders signed an open letter, published as a full-page newspaper advertisement, calling for better quality programmes and less advertising on TVNZ. These included mountaineer Sir Edmund Hillary, and former governors-general Sir Michael Hardie Boys and Dame Catherine Tizard. However, they were accused of being out of touch and nostalgic for local programmes from the 1970s and 1980s, when New Zealand had only one or two TV channels. While the Broadcasting Minister, Steve Maharey, ruled out turning TVNZ into an entirely non-commercial broadcaster, on 25 February 2006, he stated that the Labour Government was "pretty much settled" on the introduction of two new free-to-air, non-commercial channels available via digital television. One screening high-end international documentaries, re-runs of One News and minority programmes with a high local content, and another, primarily for children, screening serious drama and arts at night. These channels would eventually become known as TVNZ 7 and TVNZ 6 respectively.

Digital era In early 2006, TVNZ purchased Harmonic branded H.262 encoding equipment for the upcoming Freeview DTH service, which is an Electra 1000 on-the-fly video re-encoder.

On 14 November 2006, TVNZ announced plans to launch two commercial-free digital channels. The first, with the working title TVNZ News 24, would feature news, sport and special interest content, and be launched in late 2007. This would be followed by a channel featuring children's, families', arts and documentary programming, with the working title of TVNZ Home, in early 2008. While 80 per cent of the programming would be local content, 70 per cent of this would consist of repeats from TVNZ's existing channels or its archive.

In April 2008, TVNZ made another purchase of more H.264 encoding equipment for the upcoming Freeview HD DTT service, which are the Electra 7000 for HD and Electra 5400 for SD on-the-fly video re-encoders. The proposal was criticised by TV3, which accused the Government of "bailing out" TVNZ and argued that the money would be better spent on new programming. Although Sue Kedgely welcomed the decision to make the channels (including children's programming) commercial-free, she accused the Government of tight-fistedness.

In late 2011, TVNZ and its pay-TV rival Sky Network Television announced the joint venture Igloo, which is to provide a low-cost pay-TV service for households not currently covered by Freeview or Sky. Igloo closed in 2017.

In mid 2013, TVNZ changed its on-screen branding to a more flat, modern look. TVNZ went fully digital in December 2013, with the accompanying shutdown of the analogue transmitters to free up spectrum for telecommunications use.

In January 2017 TVNZ launched their 'New Blood Web Series Competition' supported by NZ On Air. The competition is calling for aspiring content creators to submit a web series pilot episode. The winner will receive $100,000 to make a complete web series, which will launch through TVNZ's online channels.

Proposed merger

Bron en licentie