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Provision was first made for the licensing of private radio and television stations in New Zealand by the Broadcasting Act 1976 (see sections 24(1)(g) and 95(1)(f)).
Television New Zealand
However, Television New Zealand (TVNZ) had a monopoly on TV in New Zealand until 1989. Its main channels are:
- TV One - news, current affairs, general entertainment, documentaries and sport
- TV2 - movies, soap operas, popular music, aimed at a younger audience
TVNZ also operated another station on UHF, called Horizon Pacific, which carried programming from BBC World, as well as documentaries, between 1995 and 1997, but this closed and was replaced by a local version of MTV, which itself closed a year later.
Private stations
Countrywide
Private TV channels currently broadcasting generally throughout New Zealand are:
- TV3 (New Zealand) - news, current affairs, general entertainment, and sport
- C4 - youth music channel
- Prime TV - general entertainment
The country's first private TV channel, TV3, experienced serious financial problems before being acquired by Canada's CanWest, which owns the Ten Network in Australia, and part of TV3 in the Republic of Ireland.
Prime Television is now partly owned by Australia's Nine Network.
Regional
There are also regional stations (either non-commercial public service or privately owned) such as Canterbury Television (CTV) (http://www.ctv.co.nz) in Christchurch and Channel 9 (http://www.channel9.co.nz/) in Dunedin.
In Auckland, Triangle Television (http://www.tritv.co.nz) provides public service and access programming in different languages on the Government-owned non-commercial frequency.
There is also Mainland Television (http://www.7media.net/), based in Nelson, offering four channels.
Wellington's Channel 7, which took the Horizon Pacific frequency, was relatively short-lived. A Christian group bought the frequency afterwards to broadcast TBN (http://www.tbn.org/) programming, but that venture was even less successful financially, and now Triangle Television is licenced by the Government to start broadcasting in Wellington. This project is in the planning stage at the moment.
There are over a dozen other regional television stations in New Zealand, grouped by the Regional Broadcasters Association (http://www.regionaltv.co.nz/).
Sky
In 1990, Sky Network Television (then unrelated to its UK namesake) launched three pay-TV channels offering movies, sport and news on UHF. In 1999 it launched a multichannel digital satellite TV service, including a music channel called Juice.
New Zealand Channel 58, owned by Gary Young, was operational between 1990 to 1991, and is currently looking to get back on the air in a venture.
A long-planned free-to-air state-supported TV channel, broadcasting partly in Māori, known as Māori Television, opened on 28 March 2004. Headquarters are in Newmarket, Auckland.
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