The costs of doing business and setting up a new streamer outweigh the income versus just on selling it to Sky etc - given NZ’s size. I’ve heard some speculation that NZ is about maxed out with streamers in the market - so consolidation is more likely than new entrants.
WBD have signalled they can’t really make money in this market through advertising so setting up a new streamer is probably unlikely.
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NZ would be an incredibly tough market to launch a new streamer in, unless you’re a Disney, Netflic etc. Despite Max having some good HBO content, I don’t think it would have the same pull as more established players.
The market also seems to have consolidated a lot in the SVOD space, with Sky acquiring Lightbox and merging it with Neon in 2020 and then Spark Sport closing last year.
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Yeah, I think you’re probably right, Mark Jennings seems to think handing it all over to Stuff would be the way to go. He’s all over the place, still an interesting read though.
The American owners of TV3 need to be good guys and sell the network to Stuff’s owner, Sinead Boucher, for a dollar.
The precedent is there. The Australian company Nine Entertainment sold Stuff, which included a bundle of newspapers as well as the digital platform, to Boucher in 2020 for that nominal amount.
The Aussies felt a local owner could do a better job than them and basically handed Stuff over to its chief executive, Boucher.
The same is true of TV3, and Warner Bros Discovery should give it away before it is too late, and they end up shutting the doors and waving goodbye to the remaining staff.
Things already seem grim. This past Sunday night, in the prime time 7.30pm slot, TV3 was showing an Australian show about tow trucks.
Within three years the company could be producing few, if any, local programmes and viewers would be left with only American and Australian reality TV shows.
The ratings will slip away and so too will the already dwindling advertising revenue.
TV3’s owners are also likely to be distracted by the rapid decline in their US legacy television business. Its share price was pummelled recently when it announced a US$9b write-down of its TV channels.
Then there are the challenges of its own merger. Warners and Discovery got together in 2022 but the company’s CEO, David Zaslav, recently told analysts it was like “painting a mural on the side of a building, and all kinds of stuff is falling off. It looks messy, and it is messy. It’s really hard and it’s really challenging.”
Zaslav is also suing the NBA in an attempt to get back the crucial sports rights WBD has just lost.
With all this going on, a tiny television business in far-flung New Zealand won’t get much attention. Closing it down may take a minute or two of discussion at WBD’s board table.
So why should Boucher risk taking over a network that, even with all the major cuts its made, is probably just breaking even?
Well, Boucher took a significant risk earlier in the year when WBD awarded her a contract to produce the 6pm bulletin. This saved WBD at least $20m but the effort required to put out a reasonable quality news programme on a very skinny budget looks like it is starting to weigh on Stuff.
Saturday night’s Three News bulletin had just one proper video news story by a local reporter – the search for a person lost in the Manukau harbour. The rest of the programme was filled with international stories from Britain’s ITV and a big chunk of sport’s news. The only other local video story was a magazine-style piece at the end of the show about a hospital garden.
The ratings are on a downward path and competing with 1News, which completely overpowered Three News at the recent Olympics, is going to be very hard unless something changes.
Three News needs more than one scheduled programme. If a big story breaks overnight viewers have one option – TVNZ breakfast. It is then likely that the household TV will stay on that channel for the 6pm news and perhaps even the 7pm programme.
If Boucher took over TV3 she could truly use the strength of Stuff. Her stable now has some serious TV firepower including Paddy Gower, Lloyd Burr, Tova O’Brien, Sam Hayes, Laura Tupou and others. With the backing of other Stuff journalists these experienced operators could really dent TVNZ at breakfast and 7pm. More so given that TVNZ is losing money and looking to cut $30m in costs.
Boucher would then have real skin in the game and could use Stuff’s huge reach to out market TVNZ. She would have economy of scale with her sales teams and be able to offer advertisers truly integrated campaigns. The advertising industry would support Boucher as it will not want competition in the free-to-air market to disappear.
NZ on Air is also likely to look a lot more favourably on funding programmes screening on a New Zealand-owned channel than it would on an American-owned one.
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All seems a bit pie in the sky, to be honest. But a very interesting thought experment nonetheless. I admire Jennings’ outside-of-the-box thinking.
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What was this program, is it a Haka competition? What’s the Sport connection (other than the obvious)?
Quick google search showed this 
On 29 September, up to 10,000 New Zealanders of all cultural backgrounds will meet on the pitch of Eden Park, New Zealand’s National Stadium, in the event of a lifetime.
We will stage a record-breaking spectacle and stand as a nation to not only reclaim the title but also to raise funds for the Raukatauri Music Therapy Trust.
This is about more than just setting the record straight. It is about returning the mana of this world record to the land of its origins, and we will be doing it alongside some of Aotearoa’s most celebrated musicians, sporting icons and kapa haka legends. We invite you to join us.
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Some good news: The record was broken with about 6,000+ participants broke the Haka record at Eden Park last night.
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: Channel launch on Sky today with BBC First (ch. 207) starting at 3pm with the first program: Death in Paradise.
Sky Box Sets, which was launched back in August 2017, is closed in line with the new channel launch coming in.
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The first season of The Summit USA, based on the Australian show of the same name and filmed in South Island, premieres on TVNZ 2 next Monday (October 14) at 8.30pm. It is hosted by Manu Bennett.
Trailer
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Media Insider on the Hearld website reports that WBD are moving into new premises next year which are where the Warner Bros TV production offices currently are, right next door to Mediaworks HQ in Hargreaves Street.
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Not too sure if I post this in this thread, apologies if not. I watched Th Hui on YouTube last night and noticed that the set is different and was wondering that as they have been using the old newshub set still, has there been changes to the set or have they now moved to green screen or a new set altogether, and slightly altered to a new version of that set. Anyone have any insights.
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I could be wrong but maybe they are using the facilities at Whakaata Māori. They should move Three News there as well instead of the expensive old The Project studios.
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Isn’t that new set on the opposite end of the 1 News studio?
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Ahhhhh, so its being filmed at TVNZ now
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Thank you! I only saw part of a clip, weird to see them using TVNZ but wonder if that means that the newshub set is being dismantled now
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