Given that Stuff produce the news and the company is approx 130 people, I wouldn’t expect anything drastic yet
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They’re probably not going to do that
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Wowwwww was not expecting that!
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Hopefully sky relaunches three with decent programming esp early morning, & the 5- 6 hour & basically become a channel worth watching again
That seems a good move for Sky, for Discovery (to get the hell out of it) and for New Zealand viewers. Will it include Discovery’s other free to air networks?
I wouldn’t expect a huge push for Three - they’ll probably throw a little more at it than Discovery but won’t need to do much to appear to be doing much. May just move some content from Sky Open but doesn’t look like they produce much at all.
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Includes all four of their FTA networks in NZ and Three Now.
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Wonder what will happen to the other FTA networks? I’m surprised Bravo has lasted the distance tbh, but presumably it must rate well enough. Be very interesting to see what happens with Sky Open (terrible name, hope it gets rebranded at the very least. Bring back FOUR!)
Didn’t see this coming anyway, but it’s better than Three limping on as it has under WBD.
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With it only going for $1 NZD, I wonder if any of the Australian networks took a look at it or was 91c AUD too expensive.
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Agreed, but I would like to see them improve ThreeNow a bit in regards to infrastructure and library content. They’ll still technically have all of the WBD stuff available to use through Sky so why not take the opportunity to bulk up the free-to-air side a bit?
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Wow just wow, another twist in Three’s story. I wouldn’t be surprised if Sky Open transitions into a fully fledged Free to air sports channel now that Three is under their belt. I know it’s doubtful but I do wonder if Sky will get into the News business and expand Three’s news offerings to challenge TVNZ again albeit it would probably need to have NZ on Air funding attached. Interesting times.
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I am informed that, just a short time ago (at the time of writing), Sky has acquired Warner Bros. Discovery NZ for only $1.
With the new agreement commencing on 1 August at the earliest, what will happen to WBD NZ’s own free-to-air channels (Three, Bravo, eden, Rush and HGTV) and Sky Open (an existing free-to-air channel from Sky)?
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Yes there was an article posted just a few posts above.
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Big play, but not totally unexpected. Someone had to buy it from WBD, the WB clearly have had less interest in running it than D did. Could really alter some of the FTA sports we see.
Hopefully this will help Three regain a little bit of traction it lost over the years.
Also hopefully this will mean that the scheduling will be a little less messy than it currently is. Hopefully Sky will move some of it’s new content over to Three.
I’d assume Sky will probably add Sky Open and some of it’s content over to ThreeNow?
I look forward to watching Three News at 6pm on SkyOpen View 1, or the later simulacast at 8pm on SkyOpen View 2. /s
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Sky do own the rights to Big Bang and Friends via Neon, so Heres hoping they put friends or big bang on before the 6pm news to help drive the ratings for that show first.
Overall though it seems like a really good move for three and Sky and will be interesting what changes come about
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Doubtful they will expand News content. This is just further affirmation that FTA is on a downward death spiral. Won’t be long until NZ goes back to a TVNZ monopoly at this rate. The only content that works still for FTA is live sport, news and shiny floor shows, nothing else anymore. With less players in the FTA market, sports bodies won’t get traction for high rights payments anymore, leaving the door open for international streaming giants to gobble up sports rights thereby locking out TVNZ and SKY long-term. When that occurs, there will be nothing left to keep FTA viable anymore, fade to black sadly.
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Cant see them expanding the news content either, especially given for years how small prime news at 5.30pm was. Given that Stuff has essentially provided a cheaper alternative similar to what three did with prime news, i can only see this remaining as is for now
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What will happen to Sky Open Now? Convert it into a All Kiwi Music Channel?
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