Married At First Sight Australia | Premieres Sunday 8.30pm, or watch first from 1pm on ThreeNow
Definitely a step up in pushing ondemand - just a pity Three Now is such a shitty platform
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According to Freeview NZ TV guide, the season premiere of MAFS is actually at 8.55pm (after Holey Moley grand final), before returning to its regular timeslot of 7.30pm for the rest of its run.
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Much better, but it would be even better if they could fast-track it to ThreeNow rather than nearly a week later.
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They said 8:30pm.
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@LiamP @OnAir @nztv A new year of What Now begins this Sunday (28 February) on TVNZ 2 at 8am.
And speaking of former What Now presenters during the 1980s, some of the information mentioned in What Nowâs 30th birthday show (courtesy of NZ On Screen) were incorrect at the time of transmission.
Airing on New Zealand television for 40 years, What Now was created in 1981 by TVNZ producer Rex Simpson before he left the state broadcaster in 1988 to set up a childrenâs department for New Zealandâs first private television network, TV3 (now Three). The show was originally half an hour in duration and aired Saturday mornings on TV One (now TVNZ 1) at 10am. The original hosts in its first year were Steve Hooper along with four children, Merryn, Richard, Oliver and Lucy (and Murdoch the dog). It was first shown on 9 May 1981.
According to Rex Simpson at the time the âwhole idea of the programme [was] to create healthy leisure attitudesâ, and followed on from the template set by his previous childrenâs show, Howâs That, of introducing children to fun and educational activities (and which had been hosted by Stu Dennison the year before in 1980).
Within the next year (1982), new segments added to the format included illustrated comic book character Captain Leisure (drawn by artist Ashley Smith), comedic character Murray Slack (played by actor Tony Wahren) and a âNew Games Competitionâ co-presented by Peter Williams and Yvonne Moore.
In 1983 the programme format was revamped again and new solo presenter Steve Parr was brought in to anchor the show, with the timeslot shifting to 8.25-9.30am. While sitting behind a studio desk Steve Parr introduced segments covering morning keep-fit exercises, sketches involving recurring characters such as complaining old man Clive Grumble (played by Jim Hopkins), simple recipes by Alison Holst, trivia from Frank Flash (played by Alasdair Kincaid), law and safety with Constable Keith and Sniff (a puppet police dog), nationwide talent quest âStarboundâ, and a serialised interactive detective series called âThe Retrieversâ, interspersed with regular cartoons.
In 1984 the timeslot again changed from 8.30-10am, and then in July 1985 onwards increased to a whole two hours duration, screening from 8-10am.
When Steve Parr left the show after two years as the main presenter the number of hosts also increased, usually to three, beginning with Danny Watson (from Spot On) joining in April 1985. Michelle Bracey, who had been part of show segments the year before in 1984, became a more prominent co-presenter and Frank Flash was given a central comedic manic role. When What Now returned in April 1985 âGet Out of Your Lazy Bedâ - sung by Matt Bianco - was adopted as its theme tune.
When Michelle left the show, she was succeeded by Michele AâCourt in April 1987. When Danny left, Steven Zanoski took over in April 1988. Catherine McPherson and Simon Barnett came along later that year.
During the Steve Parr years onwards the show changed from being pre-recorded to live broadcast, and comedy sketches, interactive phone calls and competitions with the viewing audience, plus magazine-style segments going out and about, all became a more central part of the format. The style remained this way for many years, as hosts evolved and were replaced, until today where the format now involves live audiences of crowds of children, but still is closely faithful with the core concept established early on.
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A couple of big roles going at Discovery.
Head of Production - Australia & New Zealand
https://careers.tv3.co.nz/jobdetails/ajid/KPTe7/Head-of-Production-ANZ,2363.html
Head of Programming - Australia & New Zealand
https://careers.tv3.co.nz/jobdetails/ajid/DNTe7/Head-of-Programming-ANZ,2362.html
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Looks like they are consolidating roles across NZ & Australia by having them based in Auckland with FTA operations.
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What is it with NZ and closedown? (IDK if it happens in real life, but it seems to be a common theme in mock networks)
My guess is that weâre all just nostalgic for the good old days of the Goodnight Kiwi.
Plus (see what I did there, wink wink), the main channels donât really have any good shows afte midnight. I mean, Prime closes down too.
TVNZ 1 goes to infomercials between around 1:30am and 5:30am
TVNZ 2 goes to infomercials around 2am till 3am then there is 2 Overnight (not sure what that is) and some shows start again till 5 then 5am till 6am is infomercials
Three goes into infomercials from around Midnight till 5:58am when the AM show kicks off.
Prime shuts down and plays promos for Sky shows and channels between midnight and 6am
Bravo is infomercials from 12:30am ish till 10am
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Thatâs fine, but to switch off (eg like ABC Kids/Plus or ABC Me do here in Australia) just seems a bit stupid in the 21st Century. Then again, I donât know what the climate is in NZ.
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We donât have much of a 24/7 culture here we have a few 24/7 supermarkets and a Kmart in the big cities but most of the time except for shift workers are most people up before 5am and asleep after 1am
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And we are so backward here we canât even get a 24/7 news channel off the ground despite the amount of news and news infrastructure available.
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Watch this space. I suspect with Discovery taking over FTA networks in Europe and Australasia, they might be in the process of setting up their own global news brand. Imagine if they took the Newshub brand and it became an internationally recognised news channel, with localised news in markets in Europe, Americas and Australasia (already exisiting in NZ)? Wow.
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Neither does most of Australia. Infomercials money must outweigh ratings and ads in NZ because thereâs no other reason why networks canât put replays or on demand exclusives on overnight
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So literally just a still screen with loud, annoying music playing in the background.
I guess it helps that barely anyone watches TV at that hour.
Yeah, still donât know how itâs a better option than burning off some old reruns or whatever.
@ekindred will have an idea?
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Unfortunately advertisers have no desire to buy ads after midnight⌠because audiences fall off a cliff. So audiences are low and thereâs literally no money to be made (unless you sell off your airtime as an infomercial) and airing programmes has a cost. Some of them are hard costs like buying a show but others are less tangible like the work of the presentation scheduling, playout & media prep teams who have work to do with every hour of television we air.
We determined that we were better off focusing our time and effort on the zones of the day that audiences are watching and if people want to watch something at 3:30am - TVNZ OnDemand has a fantastic range of shows that are available anytime for free. So long story short⌠itâs more work than itâs worth and weâd rather focus our energy where our audiences are with our daytime, peak & ondemand schedules.
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Interesting and makes a lot of sense. Thanks for the response!
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