Television New Zealand (TVNZ) had a monopoly on TV in New Zealand until 1989. Its main channels are:

  • TV One - news, current affairs, general entertainment, documentaries and sport
  • TV2 - movies, soap operas, popular music, aimed at a younger audience

TVNZ also operated another station on UHF, called Horizon Pacific, which carried programming from BBC World, as well as documentaries, between 1995 and 1997, but this closed and was replaced by a local version of MTV, which itself closed a year later.

The private TV channels currently available in New Zealand are:

  • TV3 - news, current affairs, general entertainment, and sport
  • C4 - youth music channel
  • Prime TV - general entertainment

The country's first private TV channel, TV3, experienced serious financial problems before being acquired by Canada's CanWest, which owns the Ten Network in Australia, and part of TV3 in the Republic of Ireland. Prime TV is now partly owned by Australia's Nine Network. There are also regional stations, the first being Canterbury Television (CTV) in Christchurch, while in the largest city, Auckland, Triangle provides programming in different languages.

In 1990, Sky Network Television (then unrelated to its UK namesake) launched three pay-TV channels offering movies, sport and news on UHF. In 1999 it launched a multichannel digital satellite TV service, including a music channel called Juice.

There are also plans for a TV channel in Maori, known as the Maori Television Service.

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