On the evening of Monday 17 February 1997, TVNZ launched Headline News for inclusion on TV2 (now TVNZ 2).
With (a very young) Kate Hawkesby and Megan Francis as anchors on alternate nights, Headline News was basically a concise update on the important national and international news of the day. Each Headline News bulletin had a duration of approximately 3-5 minutes and was shown five nights a week, Monday to Friday, on TV2 at around 8pm, 9pm and 10pm respectively.
Meanwhile, Monday nights on TV2 had Fair Go, NZI Crimescene (a weekly replacement for the monthly Crimewatch) and the two US dramas, The X-Files and Chicago Hope.
Hard to believe Fair Go once aired on the younger skewing TV2. I remember 2 Headline News with Stacey Daniels. TV2 tried so hard to establish a news product but it never succeeded, even the youth oriented Flipside never lasted and was only commissioned because of the old TVNZ Charter funding.
Some of CHTV3’s finest work from 1983. The great thing about living in Otautahi was seeing all these people out and about. As Russell Smith described it to the Listener:
People either loved it or hated it. And it didn’t seem to matter which, they still recognised you. It was one of those programmes which created a response. It doesn’t happen a lot with television.
When Sky initially launched it featured three channels: Sky Sport, Sky Movies and Sky News (a 24 hour channel of international news covered by CNN and the BBC via satellite). All these channels were subscription based and transmitted on scrambled UHF frequencies.
Subscribers needed a VideoCrypt decoder and a UHF aerial. The picture was scrambled using VideoCrypt technology and the decoder, as shown in the snapshot provided, was necessary to unscramble the picture.
Sky Movies was the only channel broadcast in NICAM stereo while Sky Sport and Sky News were transmitted in mono. The original decoder did not support stereo sound; therefore, subscribers who wanted to listen to Sky Movies in stereo had to use an external audio source such as a NICAM stereo capable VCR.
Free-to-air transmissions were available during the early morning on Sky News and from 5-6pm on Sky Sport until mid-1991. During these times viewers without a Sky subscription could watch the channels by tuning their TV to the Sky News or Sky Sport UHF channel as the signals were not scrambled then.
The original decoders were available for purchase at several electrical stores that were authorised Sky retailers, with a price of almost $400 ($399 to be precise). Inside the box, there was a subscription form and smart card with the form itself allowing potential subscribers to complete it and mail it to Sky. Subscribers who had a credit card could call Sky right away, provide their credit card details and have their smart card activated instantly.
Below is a snapshot of one of Sky’s old remotes (circa 1997):
