2 posts were merged into an existing topic: 1 News NZ
As you have probably noticed, Sky is turning 30 today (18 May)!
On this day 30 years ago, transmission of Skyâs service to the Auckland region began with three channels on scrambled UHF frequencies: Sky Sport, Sky Movies and Sky News.
On Sky Movies, the first movie to air was, in fact, the 1986 space adventure film âSpaceCampâ, starring Kate Capshaw, Kelly Preston and Joaquin Phoenix (credited as Leaf Phoenix). It was shown at 2pm.
On Sky Sport, its first local production was âThe Opening Shotâ. It was a preview of upcoming sports action, both local and international, to be seen on Sky. Initially, the Sky Sport team were small; a youthful Stephen McIvor (at age 25), who has been at Sky since the beginning, was joined by the likes of Bill McCarthy and John Gallagher (rugby), Richard Simons (rugby league), and John Dybvig (basketball).
On Sky News, it was all world news around the clock, 24/7. The Sky News channel featured a combination of CNN and BBC content.
Within two months, Sky launched its service in Hamilton and Tauranga.
As a subscriber in those days, letâs go back in time. To join Sky you had to live in Auckland, Hamilton or Tauranga. Then you needed a VideoCrypt decoder and a UHF aerial, both of which were supplied by when joining Sky.
The signal was sent with the picture scrambled using VideoCrypt technology; the decoder was used to unscramble the picture. Sky Movies was the only channel broadcast in NICAM stereo; Sky Sport and Sky News were broadcast in mono. The original decoder didnât actually support stereo sound, so if you wanted to watch Sky Movies in pure NICAM stereo, you had to feed the audio from another source such as a NICAM stereo capable VCR.
30 years later, everythingâs changed.
Happy 30th birthday, Sky! 
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I canât help but think this isnât the type of project they had in mind when they went to TVNZ 
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TVNZ Ondemand launches branded channels for its platform with more to come later in the year, fingers crossed a news channel is one of them:
https://www.screenscribe.net/hot-off-the-press-release-new-branded-channels-on-tvnz-ondemand/
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Ratings for Friday 15th May:
https://www.screenscribe.net/hd-ratings-friday-nights-light-up-for-tvnz-1/
That Fear Factor really was rather buzzy scheduling. Dated and notâŚgood.
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Yeah bizarre scheduling from TVNZ (probably trying to recapture some nostalgia from the originals 2000s run), more suited for TVNZ Duke imo.
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Despite the current state of the sporting world I do wonder if this one was inevitable anyway.
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Same. Not surprised in the slightest. The old CEO John Fellet had a lot of critics for not doing a lot of what Martin Stewart has implemented in a short time & they have all sounded great in theory but I couldnât see it lasting long at all in a small & declining market even before Covid
My Kitchen Rules: The Rivals (season 11 of the show) began on TVNZ2 on Monday this week, and airs on Mondays and Tuesdays at 7.30pm.
Do you think itâs a broadcasting rights thing why they canât show these Aussie shows closer to their original broadcast, or they get decent ratings regardless that they just show it where thereâs room in the schedule
Iâd say itâs the latter, thereâs no real incentive to fast track them since itâs not exactly captivating viewing like streaming shows etc. Most wouldnât even realise theyâre airing behind the Aus broadcast.
However NZ networks are willing to fasttrack shows like The Bachelor/ette, Married at First Sight and Lego Masters (both last year and this yearâs seasons).
Some of this years fast tracking for three is down to holes in the schedule due to there not being any Block or DWTS nz
Disappointed this didnât last, as a sporting nation I thought a sports news channel would work here but clearly Sky doesnât see a future in it. Nine months wasnât really enough time to make it work coupled with the Covid crisis, the channel didnât even get to cover all the winter sports. Wonder if Sky will just air Fox Sports News here even though it has faced itâs own cutbacks but still remains on air.
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Itâs the kind of product Sky should have had when it entered the satellite transmission era around 1998-ish?
A fully staffed newsroom to go with its sports broadcast rights that gives them more access to players and officials, with journalists that know how to break news. It could have had quite the multiplatform presence. Unfortunately these fine people are ultimately paying the price for Felletâs short-sightedness of a generation ago (on some things he was a genius, but in others he did have a blind spot).
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Totally agree with you. They had the sports rights and should of had a sports news channel to go hand in hand. Such a missed opportunity.
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Very true indeed! So shortsighted and far too late by the time they started. News gathering of any description has never been a large priority for the business.
I think they briefly operated a sports news update service in the late 2000âs across their sports channels but again it didnât last long.
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