Television New Zealand
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Television New Zealand (TVNZ) Te Reo Tātaki |
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| Type | Crown Entity |
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| Founded | Auckland, New Zealand, 1980 |
| Headquarters | Auckland, New Zealand |
| Key people | Rick Ellis, Chief Executive Officer |
| Industry | Media |
| Products | TV1, TV2, tvnz.co.nz |
| Revenue | NZ$436,732,000 (Year ending June 30, 2005) |
| Employees | unknown (2006) |
| Website | www.tvnz.co.nz |
Television New Zealand (TVNZ) is the main broadcaster of television in New Zealand.
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[edit] History
TVNZ was established in 1980, through the merger of Television One and TV2 (formerly South Pacific Television). Like Radio New Zealand, it formed part of the Broadcasting Corporation of New Zealand (BCNZ), but this was dissolved in 1988, and the two broadcasters became separate entities.
At present, approximately 90% of TVNZ's revenue is from commercial activity (such as advertising and merchandising). The remainder of its funding comes from government funding agencies.
The Labour-led governments since 1999 have 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 (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 privatisation 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 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.
It was clear, however, that the dual remit precluded any transformation of TVNZ into the New Zealand version of the BBC. Indeed, 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.
One reason for this is that TVNZ's dual remit requires it to continue paying dividends to the Crown, and although TVNZ now receives a modest subsidy towards implementing the Charter, the former has thus far exceeded the latter. The government has proposed a Programme of Action for broadcasting which would review the funding system.
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 [1] 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 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 Maori 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. [2]
On 15 February 2006, a group of 31 prominent New Zealanders signed an open letter[3], 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 programmmes from the 1970s, 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, 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 channel could show 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. [4]
On November 14, 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. [5] 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.
The proposal was criticised by TV3, which accused the Government of "bailing out" TVNZ and argued that the money would be betetr spent on new programming [6] Although Sue Kedgely welcomed the decision to make the channels (including children's programming) commercial-free, she accused the Government of tight-fistedness.[7]
[edit] TVNZ channels
[edit] TV ONE
TV ONE is primarily associated with more serious programming nature, with a broad range of programming including One News and One Sport. TV One also complements its own news coverage with carriage of BBC World overnight. The channel screens much of New Zealand's major sporting events such as the Olympics, the Commonwealth Games and America's Cup. TV One formerly screened All Blacks test matches prior to losing free-to-air rights to TV3 after being out-bid.
TV One features a full entertainment schedule that includes both home grown and international shows (predominantly from the United Kingdom and the United States) that New Zealanders have grown up with such as Coronation Street, through to a range of award winning documentaries, drama and comedy. International shows include Cold Case, Huff and The Office. TV One is also the primary news outlet for TVNZ, broadcasting news from TVNZ's News and Current affairs department and branded as ONE News.
[edit] TV2
TV2 focuses on entertainment and delivers a strong line-up of comedies, drama, movies and local programming. TV2 caters primarily to a young and family oriented audience.
TV2 has a wide range and depth of locally-produced content, with shows like Shortland Street, Mitre 10 Dream Home and NZ Idol. TV2 also screens many international shows (predominantly American) including Lost, The Sopranos, ER, Desperate Housewives and Alias.
[edit] Other channels
Between 1995 and 1997, TVNZ operated a chain of regional TV stations under the 'Horizon Pacific' brand name and through a subsidiary called Horizon Pacific Television, which also carried BBC World, as well as its own documentary programming. The network consisted of newly formed stations in Hamilton, Wellington and Dunedin and CTV, a station they purchased based in Christchurch. CTV is still broadcasting, but is no longer owned by TVNZ.
Horizon Pacific was replaced by a local 'free to air' version of the music video channel MTV, based on MTV's UK service and local programming, although the channel was dropped in 1998. Prior to MTV's demise, TVNZ had bought the channel's competitor, MaxTV. 1 New Zealand now has a separate, dedicated Māori TV channel, however TVNZ still produces and airs several Māori and Māori language television programmes.
Internationally, TVNZ has helped provide television services in Pacific Island nations such as the Cook Islands, Fiji, and the Solomon Islands. While TVNZ provides much of the programming, scheduling and continuity are done locally.
[edit] Other services
Because of its history TVNZ has inherited and developed its own services in the production and broadcasting services area. These include The New Zealand Television Archive, production facilities, television school.
TVNZ also operated the website nzoom.com for a number of years. The site was an internet portal with news purchased from Radio New Zealand its own content and also content produced by its own staff. It was rebranded in 2004 as tvnz.co.nz.
TVNZ also operated a satellite services division organising and downlink facilities and across the globe, but this service was wound down in 2005.
[edit] Transmission network
[edit] Technical notes
New Zealand has nearly identical PAL TV channel allocation frequencies as Australia.
- The UHF TV band allocation in Australia and NZ is identical, but the historical VHF frequency allocations of NZ differ somewhat from Australia. Except for the issue of NICAM (NZ) vs Zweiton (Australia) audio -- PAL TV transmitted in the UHF band is totally standardised in Australia, New Zealand and Fiji.
- Australian TV sets (when taken to NZ) will only be capable of mono sound reproduction on UHF and many VHF channels may not be recived (properly) or come in at all. This is due to substantially different VHF band TV frequencies in NZ.
- TVNZ (for historical and technical reasons) uses the greatest number of VHF frequencies in New Zealand.
[edit] NICAM Stereo
New Zealand has a near nationwide implementation of NICAM stereo sound for TV One and TV2. NICAM stereo was first made available on TV2 in the Auckland region in 1989, also during the early 1990's Simulated Stereo was available in Wellington on TV2. NICAM stereo was not rolled out to the rest of the country or onto TV One until 1996 and for some regions (such as Southland) NICAM was not available until 2001. Rival networks TV3 has offered NICAM stereo in all available regions since its launch in 1989 this is also the case with Prime TV. Stereo sound is available on TV One and TV2 if accessed through Sky Digital.
New Zealand has provisionally agreed to implement DVB-T HDTV, but there are no indications that TVNZ will be the first broadcaster to transmit in HDTV.
[edit] BCL, TVNZ's transmission partner
TVNZ's broadcast network is operated by Broadcast Communications Limited, a former subsidiary. The company owns and operates the terrestrial transmission network used for broadcast of all major terrestrial television networks in New Zealand, including TV3 and Prime Television, TVNZ's major competitors, along with other voice and data telecommunications services.
[edit] Regionalism
Along with TV3 both of TVNZ's current television networks TV1 and TV2 are fed as distinct feeds to viewers based on defined regions though this is only for the purpose of targeted regional advertising as the company discontinued regional news programming in the late 1980s. TVNZ's predecessor, NZBC started as distinct stations in the major metropolitan centres. Nationwide networked services were first introduced in 1969 to broadcast a tape of the moon landing flown specially from Australia simultaneously across all stations.
[edit] DVB-S Avalability
Both TV One and TV2 are also available "in the clear" over DVB-S on Optus B1. A SKY set-top box is not required, any satellite set-top box or tuner will work.
[edit] Civil Defence
TVNZ's functions are subject to lifeline utility requirements under NZ civil defence legislation. In practice, this status as a lifeline utility requires TVNZ to be able to function at least to a reduced level after an emergency, and to provide advice to civil defence authorities when requested.
[edit] Competitors
TVNZ's major competitors in the television market are
- CanWest Mediaworks New Zealand's TV3 and C4
- SKY's Prime Television .
- Maori Television (for a small percentage of the overall TVNZ audience)
[edit] New Zealand shows
[edit] See also
General topic
TVNZ specific
[edit] References
- Chief outlines 'major problem at TVNZ The New Zealand Herald, December 13 2005,retrieved Jan. 3 2006.
- TVNZ Annual Report for 2005 [8] Retrieved Jan. 3 2006
- TVNZ Charter 2003 [9] Retrieved Jan. 4 2006
- TVNZ Corporate Brochure 2005 [10] Retrieved Jan. 3 2006
