TV3 (New Zealand)

TV3 is a New Zealand nationwide television channel. Launched on 26 November 1989, it was New Zealand's first privately owned television channel. The channel currently broadcasts nationally (with regional advertising targeting four markets) in digital free-to-air form via the state-owned Kordia on terrestrial and satellite. Vodafone also carry the channel for their cable subscribers in Wellington and Christchurch. It previously broadcast nationally on analogue television until that was switched off on 1 December 2013.

TV3 is general entertainment channel owned by MediaWorks New Zealand with a significant news and current affairs element under the banner of Newshub. About 50% of TV3's programming is local, most of which airs at prime-time.

History

Original TV3 logo

Later version logo

Applications to apply for a warrant to operate New Zealand's third national television network opened in 1985. The Broadcasting Tribunal announced in 1987 that TV3 had won the warrant. TV3 initially aimed to provide a regionally based television service, with linked studios based in each of the four areas (Auckland, Wellington, Waikato/BOP, and South Island).

There were numerous delays to the launch date of TV3. Litigation surrounded the granting of the warrant, as did the share market crash in October 1987, which wiped out a large proportion of the capital that TV3 required to establish the channel. The then Minister of Broadcasting, Richard Prebble, announced in late 1987 that much of the UHF spectrum in New Zealand was to be auctioned to allow for an increased number of television channels, resulting in a reduction in the value of TV3's warrant due to the increased competition. The drawn-out tribunal process of frequency allocation that TV3 had just won would be replaced by a bidding process that would allocate frequencies in weeks rather than months or even years.

These problems resulted in the ambitious regional plans being rationalised before being shelved completely. The network was to be based in Auckland with limited studios and news and sales teams in the other main centres.

Broadcasting started on 26 November 1989 with a preview of what viewers could expect to see. Its first broadcast was a two-hour special previewing the network's programmes and featuring comedians David McPhail and Jon Gadsby playing cameramen. TV3's initial slogan proclaimed 'Come home to the feeling'; a derivative of the 'Come home to the best' slogan used on NBC in the United States at the time. The following day about 60 percent of New Zealand "came home" to TV3's regular broadcasts.

Early in TV3's life, financial supporters of the network included ABC and NBC as a minority shareholding, who later sold their interest.

TV3 failed to gain ground against a recently revitalised TVNZ and was placed into receivership on 2 May 1990. TV3 continued to broadcast with the major creditor, Westpac Banking Corporation, supporting the network by taking a large shareholding.

As TV3 needed investment during a climate of economic recession, the government liberalised the rules on foreign ownership of television stations (raising the 15 percent cap to 49 percent and later removing all restrictions), allowing TV3 to search for an investor overseas. In December 1991, CanWest took a 20 percent shareholding in TV3 and secured a management agreement allowing it full control to operate the station. CanWest introduced tighter controls on budgets while targeting the lucrative 18- to 49-year-old audience. TV3's audience share and advertising revenue steadily increased, leading to significant profits. TV3 also steadily increased its coverage within New Zealand, adding dozens of transmitters and translators, often with the assistance of New Zealand On Air. By 1998 about 97 percent of the population could receive the channel.

On 2 October 1996, TV3 announced a reshuffling of its broadcast frequencies to enable it to launch a new network, to be called TV4 Network Limited, on the VHF band. TV4, which started on 29 June 1997, is a free-to-air network aimed at a younger audience than TV3. The launch was considered successful, with high brand recognition and ratings significantly higher than MTV, TV4's television rival. TV4's opening broadcast was the controversial Tyson–Holyfield boxing rematch.^[1]

In April 1997 CanWest purchased Westpac's 48 percent shareholding in TV3, taking CanWest's stake to 68 percent. In June CanWest picked up the More FM Radio network, followed in November with the purchase of the remaining 32 percent of TV3. In April 1998, CanWest announced that it had made C$22 million in the six months to February 1998 in New Zealand, up a third on the same period the year before. TV4 contributed positively to the result, with some of the increase due to the inclusion of More FM, while TV3 was continuing to experience strong revenue growth.

Canwest's investments in New Zealand had developed considerably in New Zealand over the period that it had interests in the country. TV4 continued to be a source of concern for the broadcaster, but the position of TV3 was strengthened by alliances with SKY Television for sport and a series of high profile mistakes by TVNZ as it dealt with the dominance of SKY in pay television. The election of the Labour government in 1999 refocussed TVNZ as a semi-non-commercial broadcaster, meaning its focus on driving ratings and dominating the free to air television market would stumble. TV3 took advantage of this, steadily working on ensuring a friendly public image.

During 2004 the station was transferred into the ownership of Canwest MediaWorks New Zealand as a way of listing 30 percent of the Canadian company's New Zealand assets on the New Zealand share market. TV3's parent company TVWorks announced its annual revenue at $124 million in October 2004, which was $13 million up from the previous financial year.

In May 2007 it was announced that Ironbridge Capital, an Australian private equity firm, was paying $386 million or $2.43 a share for the 70 percent of CanWest MediaWorks New Zealand owned by CanWest Global Communications. It was also offering the same price to minority shareholders under a full takeover bid.

On 1 April 2008, TV3 was the first New Zealand television network to introduce high-definition television, to coincide with the launch of Freeview HD and MySky HDi in New Zealand. The first programme to broadcast in true 1080i high definition (i.e. not upscaled) was that night's screening of Boston Legal.

During 2012, TV3 with partial funding from NZ On Air purchased and installed a Microsoft Windows-based DVB RLE subtitle encoding system for on-the-fly conversion of their MXF playout encoded Teletext stream sourced and synchronised from TVNZ Access Services converted EBU STL subtitle files. The purpose was to provide captions that were previously unavailable on the Freeview HD service. After the install TV3 discontinued all existing Freeview Teletext captions in favour of the new format. The bitmap based captions currently use more than double the previous bandwidth and due to a pre-rolled duplicated single frame in the MXF output can suffer either from a lag or shortened duration in caption timing. The Sky provided versions of TV3 do not have this issue as they still only use Teletext on their transmissions. Also, not being in Teletext form has made the captions incompatible with set-top boxes that use composite video pass-through to a connected TV's built-in Teletext decoder. There was originally a sync issue due the extra caption encoding between the SD and HD feeds that was corrected by creating a two-second delay on the SD feed.

On 17 June 2013 the parent company of TV3 went into receivership, this being the second receivership for TV3. When TV3's parent company Mediaworks was purchased by Ironbridge Capital they took on $700 Million of debt which could no longer be sustained. Following the receivership TV3 and the radio stations owned by Mediaworks remained on air and all staff have retained their jobs.^[2]

From 19 August 2013, TV3 no longer broadcast Home and Away due to being out bid by TVNZ for the new season.^[3]

Content

Current

In-house produced

News

TV3 operates a significant in-house news department, responsible for over nine hours of peak programming weekly. TV3's flagship one-hour bulletin, 3 News, airs nightly at 6 pm presented by Hilary Barry and Mike McRoberts, with Firstline in the mornings from 6 to 8:30 am with current affairs content, and 3 News at 12 for a midday half-hour update. Nightline was shown after 10 pm, but was not renewed for 2014 and was replaced by a talk show called The Paul Henry Show, which premiered on 27 January 2014.

Foreign news stories are sourced from Seven News, TechExplained, ITN News, Reuters and CBS News.

Current affairs

TV3's current affairs flagship half-hour, Story airs Monday-Thursday at 7:00pm, while Newsworthy airs Monday-Friday at 10:30pm, weekly New Zealand-focused hour 3rd Degree airing Wednesdays at 8:30pm, and weekend morning show The Nation airing on Saturday and Sunday at 10am.

Sport

TV3 previously held the free-to-air rights to New Zealand cricket tests and one day internationals from 1999 to 2004, All Blacks rugby tests, Super 12 and the National Provincial Championship from 2000 to 2005, as well as the NRL from 1998 to 2002, but lost these when Sky Network Television bought Prime Television, TV3 also had a weekly sports show and became broadcaster for the Wellington 500.

NZ On Air funded

Foreign

Primetime

Revoked

In-house produced

• 60 Minutes (NZ stories only)

Local

Foreign

Output contracts

Mediaworks acquired a first-run and re-run contract with HD sourced material for 20th Century Fox Television content (which includes films under the brands 20th Century Fox, DreamWorks Animation – 2008 to present, Fox Atomic, Fox Searchlight Pictures, Icon Films – 2007 to 2012, now belongs to Prime Television New Zealand and Regency Enterprises), which was previously held by TVNZ. When TVNZ outbid them for their previous Disney Media Distribution contract. In 2015, they had the rights to Metro Goldwyn Mayer for more recent films.

Exclusive contracts with CBS News, ITV News and Seven News for international news coverage.

Mediaworks has long held first-option contracts with NBC Universal (which includes films under the brands Focus Features and Universal Pictures) with select HD material from February 2011.^[4] As well as until the start of the US 2012 season,^[5] a first-option contract with CBS Television Distribution (which included films under the brands Paramount Pictures and non-animated DreamWorks Pictures) with select HD material from the end of 2012, this deal came to an end for new content from the start of 2013. From mid-2013, TV3 secured a first option deal with Sony Pictures Television for new content for TV series and movies that will be scheduled for late 2013 and the 2014 season. This deal signals a move away from the more expensive exclusive Fox deal, which is still under re-negotiation following the broadcaster's change in ownership.^[6]

On 20 December, MediaWorks re-signed a revised down scaled exclusive deal with Fox.^[7] As a result of their receivership, they lost their first-option rights over NBC-Universal shows, which resulted in TVNZ acquiring the rights to Brooklyn Nine Nine in 2014. They also lost their rights to air 20th Television programmes, which resulted Prime Television New Zealand to air Sleepy Hollow, and Television New Zealand to air Empire.

Broadcasting details

From launch in November 1989 until digital television transition is completed on 1 December 2013, TV3 broadcast terrestrially using the analogue PAL-B&G. Except for Kapiti where it broadcast on ITU Band IV (UHF), TV3 broadcast in the main urban areas on ITU band III (VHF high). In other areas and infill transmitters in the main urban areas, it broadcast on either band I (VHF low), band III, band IV or band V (UHF).^[8][9] In some areas, TV3's analogue broadcast was on a different transmitter from TV One and TV2's analogue broadcasts, and viewers needed an additional antenna to pick up the channel; these included Hamilton, Tauranga, Taupo, Gisborne, Kapiti, Masterton, and Nelson.

TV3 is a broadcasting member of the Freeview platform as well as broadcasting on SKY Digital. TV3 began screening widescreen transmissions on both platforms on 11 April 2007, although TelstraClear InHomeTV, which gets most of its content from SKY Digital, switched back to screening the cropped version of TV3 for a couple of months due to non-widescreen customer complaints. TelstraClear resumed broadcasting the widescreen version of TV3 on 24 July 2007. In April 2008 TV3 commenced 1080i high definition broadcasts on the Freeview|HD terrestrial platform and on SKY Network Television's HD satellite platform.

3NOW

3NOW logo

TV3's and sister channel FOUR's programmes are streamed on-demand through 3NOW. 3NOW is available on the 3NOW website as well as on iOS and Android devices.

Timeshifting

The TV3 Plus 1 logo

TV3 as part of their contract with Freeview to provide at least four channels launched a low cost timeshift service for terrestrial viewers from 30 March 2009. It is a standard hour delayed timeshift channel of the TV3 broadcast taken from their Auckland feed that was created originally for the Sky platform, meaning the channel broadcasts Auckland regional advertising. TV3 Plus 1 is available on digital terrestrial and digital satellite.^[10]

Digital H.222 transports

See also

• Freeview
• C4

References

External links

• Official Site
• Official On Demand Channel
• 3 News TV3's News Portal