TV One
TV1 is the Flagship of the TV media in New Zealand, Originally the only channel it is now the "cultural station".
A political football controlled by the party in power and vested special interest groups; it fills in its programs with interminable cop shows - regurgitated crap, used as filler between the adverts.
It appears that the left wing art loving intelligentsia, whom not only rule TVNZ but the media in general in New Zealand, are lacking a few marbles.
For the first time ever I read that TV1 was going to make a financial loss for this year (2007).
We used to have some excellent local in depth documentaries, however under the new regime these have been cancelled and replaced by one tabloid low brow program on Sunday night called, imaginatively, Sunday.
Sunday, instead of focusing on quality articles, heads off towards the salacious and voyeuristic in an attempt to entertain the 18 to 45 market.
So as a result any topic remotely associated with sex is thrashed to death in the faint hope that wowserism and shock will appeal to the jaded chattering classes.
We also have a "Current affairs" program right after the news at 7:00pm. What a good slot for some background in-depth news! What indeed....
Mark Sainsbury has taken over the helm and steered the program just off shore from cheap emotionalism and shallow content. Its still there, only watered down from its previous potent mind numbing brew.
However it hasn't as yet, plumbed the depths of not lamented Paul Holmes with his "shove a mic under the victims nose and see if they are crying yet" style.
Unfortunately Holmes is trying to make a comeback with a hackneyed series of "Where are they now." Formula TV made on a shoestring budget.
Evening TV seems to be dominated at present by a surfeit of British and American dramas proving that the British can make just as awful TV as the Americans, when they try hard enough.
Somehow the cultural channel seems to be focused on other countries cultures.
Friday night ranges down the grubby alleys of inanity and perversity.
With voyeurism disguised as personal makeovers, the advertisements shout the clarion call of "nakedness" and "nudity".
When you can't attract an audience then cling to that bottom rung.
TV1 News
TV1 news has sunk to new lows and still going south.
I have found 4 types of news styles in TV1's news.
1 Real life current events internationally important.
2 Real life current events domestic mostly political
3 News filler of domestic issues that are not pressing news at all.
4 Articles that are nothing more than advertising for some sporting event, media personality, or sports personality.
Number 4 is scary. Its getting increasingly common in the news,
Many times now I cry in frustration at another article on a media personalty's childhood, or sports stars life changes, disguised as news yet IS NOT NEWS.
TV1 News in New Zealand, is decaying into a form of advertorials and irrelevance.
Thank God for the Internet. Truly if you relied on TV1 news for an understanding of the world outside of our shores you would live in ignorance.
TV Three
TV3 is a private struggling station owned by Canadian interests.
Its a "don't forget I'm here" station focusing on B grade programs with the TV3 News being the redeeming feature.
I have to admire Campbell Live, a current events program after the news that really does ask some hard questions.
Despite the Prime Minister describing John Campbell as a "little creep" he is a highly intelligent witty erudite presenter with skills at a level that operate above mere emotionalism.
TV3 has also struck the mother load of TV programming recently with a fantastic program called Outrageous Fortune, about an Auckland crime family trying to keep it together.
It does strike home sometimes with other good programs such as Target, a "secretly film the tradesmen" show, which sometimes seems to be run out of fresh ideas.
The weather on TV3 is appalling, with some vertigo inducing gee wiz graphics of the "look what we can do" variety. We are swamped by technology and miss the important information.
I just want to know what is going to happen in the next few days. I don't care about knowing the individual temperatures for morning, noon and evening.
And when you get a whole swathe of the country with the same temp, or within 1 or 2 degrees of each other how about just summarizing it?
Who really cares if its going to be exactly 15 or 16 degrees? The actually prediction is that, a prediction, this attempt at pretending to know the exact temperature is farcical. better to watch TV1, even with Brendan on it.
Am I the only person who is sick of the CSI clones that predominate on TV screens recently? Why does every program have to have a pretty female corpse in it?
Is it true there are only 8 types of plot? They are regurgitated ad-nauseam in diverse programs every night. The worst I saw recently was CSI New York with unbelievable plots, wooden dialogues and paint by numbers plot development.
These programs serve merely to give the actors employment, and the station advertising fillers.
Its a type of salacious voyeurism that I am afraid will be repeated in society by our more disturbed elements. Surely the diet of such appalling quality must influence viewers interactions with each other.
The debasement of females and the simplistic scenarios with unrealistic forensic procedures do nothing for police reputations or reality.
Apart from a total lack of imagination why the heck do we have to endure these crap clones during prime time? They lost their edge, if they ever had one, about 2 years ago.
How about some TV programming that isn't just an import of the darker sub culture of American life. I am sure even Americans are embarrassed by it.
Or totally agree that TV in New Zealand is crap?
Maybe you are just a wishy-washy ambivalent fence sitter, who really doesn't have anything to say but demands the right to say it anyway?
Then add your voice to the board here.
Whatever you add is welcome.
New Zealand News sites sites listed here
Need to tune your TV in? Check out this Tune your TV page.
Check out this interesting Media in New Zealand website. Worth a look.
What's on TV today and for the week ahead. Freetvguide.co.nz is an excellent site that lists the main TV schedules
TV Two
TV2 is the popular offshoot of TV1, This station plays programs for more 'mainstream' audiences, yeah right.
The crème of TV2 is Shortland Street a hackneyed soap set in a medical hospital without patients, where the staff bonk each other senseless and scheme behind each others back.You have seen it elsewhere, just change the accents.
Sadly TV2 has finished its great shows and we are left with filler dross. Its scary leafing through the TV guide trying to find something positive to say about the schedule, and realising there is nothing there worth watching.
Prime TV
The ownership of Prime bounces around like a pass the parcel game. . At present its owned by Sky and really isn't too bad. After the glitz and awe assaults of the other stations its still quaint and domestic.
Prime seems proud of its mindless game shows and seems to think we would love them as well. Well we don't, I suspect they are merely fillers for a lack of content.
Come on Australian "Deal or no deal" is the bottom of the barrel in hysterical inanity, its only marginally better than having the TV turned off. I can understand it on Australian TV, hell they would just be happy with the TV signal, but here? Its brain-dead programming, can't we at least have something with a plot?
Anything going up against the 6:30pm news would die on the vine anyway, so they are merely sacrificing a program Kiwis wouldn't be interested in watching.
However they do have the British version of Mastermind, which has just changed from being 2004 to 2006, which makes a wonderful interlude between watching the News on TV1 and the weather on the same station 30 minutes later. All that repetitive marketing of sport is missed.
However Prime does have some great niche programs, such as MythBusters, Dr Who, and the wonderful Top Gear, which has to be the greatest male program on TV in the last 10 years.
Prime now matches and surpasses TV1 and TV2 on a number of levels for quality TV.
Where else would you get grown adults driving real cars fast, making witty comments and generally acting like kids. In other contexts they would be considered hoons and boy racers
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TV Four
TV4 is the infomercial and music station, its programming is there to give the transmitters something to broadcast. I think its owned by a reclusive sadist who plays with the station.
He has developed some new tricks however in order to torment those not addicted to infomercials. Now its a part time music station.
Surely its a step upward you might think. Fat luck.
We are talking about arm gesticulating, rap spewing, bling bling flashing, rent a groupie, music videos.
Did you know that the only music released in NZ in the last few years is American black rap? No neither did I.
However watching TV4 you could be mistaken for thinking that gansta rap was the flava of the month babes, and shake that booty some more!
They also play NZ music, I think, strange that they don't seem to be specifically New Zealand, borrowed formats, borrowed ideas on borrowed instruments.
The joy of the channel is in the guests.
One evening they had a drugged up old rocker introduce his own videos whilst trying to make out with the young female announcer, who was making pleading looks for help to the cameraman whilst fending him off and reading the cue cards.. She since moved up in the world to TV3.
Every few months I try to update this page, and so far cannot think of anything positive to say about C4. There must be some purpose to its existence, but apart from using up a transmitting frequency I can't work out what it is.
I would have expected New Zealand music to find a home here, but no, awful American gansta rap predominates.
Its so divorced from New Zealand culture its like watching TV from the planet Mars. Ugly guys with studs on their teeth chant awful mindless lyrics to repetitive beats while half dressed "rent a bimbo" hang off them
Maori TV
New on the scene is New Zealand's only Television station, Maori TV.
Despite years of intrigue, backstabbing and financial disarray it made it to air early this year.
The haranguers have gone strangely quiet. It is starting to occur to people that this is truly television for New Zealanders. The scenery, the people, the issues, are pure homegrown Kiwi. It is to urban Maori as 'Country Calendar' and 'Dogs show' are to urban Pakeha.
Its not Australian owned, using American formats and imitated programs. But actually ours. Pity no one but a few radical Maori up north watch it.
Maori TV is worth the flick over. "Ask your Auntie" is a personal help show where supposedly viewers write questions seeking answers and solace.
Its now showing weird fringe movies from other ethnicities. Some of them are great, such as the story of WW2 in Papa New Guinea which interviewed the locals
Or a Palestinian movie in Arabic, or an Eskimo movie (I know they are not Eskimo's but I forget the group). Surprising and worth watching. How about this? Carandiru, a true story of a prison riot in Latin America. It looks awesome! Keep it up.