Canterbury Television
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Canterbury Television is a regional television station broadcasting in Canterbury, New Zealand. The station has a long and confusing ownership history involving many changes in ownership and sales of the name to other broadcasters.
The name is synonymous with regional television in New Zealand as it was the name of the first regional broadcaster to operate in New Zealand.
What is now known as Canturbury Television was most recently known for a short period of time as Now TV. Now TV was itself lauched as CHTV but then relaunched in March of 2001 by its then new owners West Media Services Limted. This change of name occurred after the sale of CHTV by its remaining founding owner George Balani (fellow founder Gary Watson having sold out of the station earlier).
The idea for Christchurch Television (CHTV) was born as the first incarnation of Canturbury Television CTV disappeared from the air in 1997. In the middle of that year the then owners of Canterbury TV or CTV the state owned Television New Zealand Ltd decided to replace their network of regional stations operated by a subsidiary called Horizon Pacific Television with a tailored feed of MTV UK. The move came at the end of a period of painful integration with the Horizon network, which had significantly changed the nature of CTV’s operation. From a completely independent station CTV had been transformed into a member of a network of regional stations created by Television New Zelaand with limited local breakouts. The channel while it remained profitable now belonged to a group of stations losing a significant amount of money.
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[edit] CHTV Managing Director George Balani
As the end of the original CTV approached some staff looked to a future for television in Christchurch that had no local content and even less employment opportunities but was intensely perocial. One who took the lead was George Balani, former radio talk-back host and then newsreader for the station. Balani announced that CTV would be back and began planning to setup another independent station by utilizing the equipment and expertise that would no longer be required by TVNZ.
All of Balani’s plans however did not go smoothly. TVNZ proved reluctant to see another local station setup in competition even if it was only in Christchurch. Negotiations to purchase the original assets of CTV proved fruitless and Balani was forced to seek other equipment and studios.
Most importantly, the failure to do a deal with TVNZ left Balani without the CTV name. The brand still retained considerable power in the Christchurch marketplace its loss would prove annoying for the new station and confusing for viewers.
[edit] CHTV Is Born
Balani had to find money (including he has said, most of his own) equipment, studios, a frequency and the people required to operate a TV station.
CHTV was to be a quality station and return the to days of the initially successfully CTV. Such plans however rapidly became quite different as the challenges of running a TV station became apparent.
Balani teamed up with two key groups of people. The first was the Plains Communication Trust who also operate Plains FM a non commercial access radio station and provided a non-commercial TV frequency that had been allocated to the group by the then Ministry of Commerce. The frequency was provided on the basis that Balani would provide time on air to broadcast material developed by community groups and NZ Broadcasting School Students and also funds from a lease agreement which would be used to develop programming within Canterbury.
The other group was the Gary Watson headed Mainland Television who had operated stations in Nelson City and surrounding region. Watson’s understanding of regional television was focused much more on providing programming picked from satellite combined with limited ultra low cost studio based shows. Watson contributed a significant amount of technical expertise allowing the station to be launched on a budget of under $1 million dollars.
[edit] Competitive Market
While CHTV was being brought to air rival CTFN had been able to grab the CTV name, which it later took on, and studios from TVNZ (even if it was at considerable cost) much to the dismay of Balani. CHTV had been forced to abandon their pitch for the name and equipment and setup in studios in Durham Street provided by local production company Vidpro. For a period the two stations remain fiercely compeditive.
CFTN was an odd organisation with links to another regional station called Family Television Network based in Warkworth in the Far North of New Zealand. Both stations had links to local evangelical Christian movements and were not completely commercial in their activities. Eventually however funding for the Family Television Network version of CTV dried up. The station was sold to a company called the New Zealand Media Group. How exactly this entity then transferred the name to the current incarnation of Canturbury Television is currently not known.
[edit] Local Content
As with any regional station CHTV was judged by its local content. With simple (and perhaps rather small) studios they pumped out hours of local content (most of it from in front of a particular set of blue curtains). The content was heavy on talk and cheap to make. Balani maintained his strength lay in the talent and personalities that he put in front of the camera however his commitment to local content ran him into trouble with his partner from Mainland Gary Watson.
Watson’s stations, based in Nelson, had been run on the smell of an oily rag and survied on low cost statellite programming such as Bloomberg News and Deutche Welle TV. In Christchurch CTV also makes extensive use of DW so CHTV focused on Bloomberg initially including it within the prime time schedule. The continued use of this programming is thought to have caused a split between the two who were eventually to part ways when Watson ceased to be involved and Balani bought West175 into ownership arrangements.
With the support of West 175 CHTV continued to expand increasing staff and currently (as of June 2000) launching a partner radio station to leverage the investment they have in newsgathering and on air talent.
