It’s a shame the Nine/Prime union didn’t work out. I feel like that was a bit of a missed opportunity. Maybe it came 10-15 years too early? I’m sure someone here will be able to explain why it didn’t work in the end.
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Didn’t SKY Network Television acquire Prime NZ from Prime Media Group and subsequently terminate the existing arrangements with PBL/Nine because they intended to rely exclusively on their own pay-TV content pipeline to program the channel—both to keep the service cost-effective and to position Prime as a free-to-air window into SKY’s offerings?
Yeah, that’s it. Used to have a real identity, but it’s nothing now. Which would almost be okay if they had a passable internet presence but they don’t.
It became a distraction for Nine, if memory serves they’d just lost the ratings year in 2005 in Australia and they had an option to take up a majority share but it wasn’t the right time for them. It didn’t cost them too much to this point as they were essentially providing programming they owned and support staff etc. Sky wanted the FTA platform - I think they were going to unencrypt a UHF signal if they didn’t get one but they did.
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It’s a shame WBD couldn’t have made a real go of it, launched Max in NZ and used Three as its shop window (though I appreciate there are very good reasons why they didn’t do that, as we’ve discussed multiple times!). Ultimately, being sold to Discovery was probably the worst thing that happened to Three.
That would certainly explain why Nine got rid! Prime (or Sky Open) has always felt like kind of a missed opportunity as a channel. They’ve had a few good shows on there over the years, and they have a lot of sport now, which is obviously good, but I always felt like it could have been something more. But maybe the ratings don’t justify Sky putting in more effort, I don’t know.
I used to like the 5.30 news with Eric Young - it was cheap and cheerful but often more to the point than the bloated (IMO) 6pm bulletins on 1 and 3.
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Spot on!
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Also back in 2002 when when Australia’s Network Ten try to increase the stake in New Zealand’s TV3 which both owned by CanWest at the time. Imagine a similar union with Ten/TV3 like PBL’s Nine/Prime
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Yes that’s right, if Nine hadn’t sold Prime to Sky, it would of unencrypted Sky1 at the time. If the expensive Paul Holmes strategy had paid off and they managed to squeeze out a chunk of the 7pm audience away from TV One, I suspect Nine would of retained ownership. 2005 was such a great year for local current affairs with all three networks battling it out at 7pm, what a time to be alive.
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I think poaching Paul Holmes in the first place was a mistake. Prime didn’t seem to understand that his show only did so well on One because it followed the 6pm news. Still, we got Campbell Live out of it over on 3, so I guess all’s well that ends well.
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It also proved that you could have the star power/ratings on Newstalk ZB but still couldn’t pull in that audience to Prime at 7pm. That terrible UHF frequency also didn’t help Prime’s cause either. The birth and success of Campbell Live is definitely something to celebrate during this time of change. Such a sad state of affairs that we have no nightly current affairs show now (Seven Sharp doesn’t count).
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I don’t think that had much to do with it by the time Holmes joined… the real issue was getting people to press any button on their remotes other than 1.
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Yep - and the content began to get tougher to put together as ratings dipped.
The big interviews would go to Close Up and Campbell Live and Prime would miss out.
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They did pay for a few interviews, I remember the Cherie Blair interview was one of them.
That’s right - and they had Cher I recall.
But as the ratings dipped and there was a big story in politics or wherever else, they went to the bigger eyeballs on 1 and 3.
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I forgot Cher was on Paul Holmes. They really did have some deep pockets at Prime at the time. All this couldn’t help save the show, even moving it to 6pm to try and retain the 5.30pm News audience was the final nail in the coffin for the show.
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TVNZ will reveal the host of The Chase New Zealand tomorrow. Who do you think it will be? pic.twitter.com/smnRNGfPhI
— NZ Media News (@thetvnews) June 3, 2025
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Hilary Barry one hopes
I’m putting my bet on Jeremy Wells
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There can be only one…
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Paddy Gower - This is the F++ken Chase
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…sshhh
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