TV9 will deliver local Chinese and Asia-oriented news and information to New Zealand viewers.

TV9 is broadcasting through Freeview digital UHF transmission signals, and it’s available in Auckland, Waikato, Wellington, Palmerston North, Napier, Hastings, Bay of Plenty, Christchurch
and Dunedin.

You may need to ‘RESCAN’ for your receiver or recorder to pick up the new channel on CHANNEL 29.

Check out the Freeview programme guide for whats on TV9 http://freeviewnz.tv/tv-guide.aspx

The channel, which has provided a different window on the world from other channels through the likes of Al Jazeera news in English, is no longer financially viable.

Co-founder and chief executive Jim Blackman says Stratos has survived four years because the people behind it have 15 years experience of delivering great television at low cost and without having the advantage of access to taxpayer dollars.

“We simply have not had the support we were seeking – despite a growing audience of more than one million and reaching the stage where AC Nielsen were able to include us in the TARPS audience ratings,” he says.

“It is hugely disappointing because New Zealand is a country where 25% of the population are new New Zealanders and providing a window to the world helps develop understanding in our communities.

“Stratos was founded on the principles of recognised public broadcasting. We could have also filled the gap the proposed closure of TVNZ7 will create, but after four years of proving ourselves, we are no closer to being given the opportunity. Auckland viewers in particular, where the demographic is rapidly changing to include more Polynesian and Asian peoples, will miss Stratos.”

Stratos TV has screened free-to-air on Freeview Digital Channel 21, on Sky Channel 89 and TelstraClear Channel 089.

It is a sister channel to Triangle Television, screens similar programming across Auckland on UHF channel 41.

Apart from the hugely popular Al Jazeera news, Stratos served up series like the worldwide top-rating “Jewel in the Palace”, a Korean drama about palace life and traditional cuisine, and the international talent quest Eurovision that discovered the likes of ABBA. Its news and current affairs programmes, screened in both English and mother tongues, has covered more than a dozen countries.

Stratos had international partnerships with the likes of DW-TV, France 24, Euro News in Europe, Voice of America, Bloomberg, Australia Network and CCTV, CQTV, NHK and YTN in Asia.

Blackman says his team studied the Australian SBS model and set out to “provide regional, multilingual and multicultural television services that informed, educated and entertained all New Zealanders and reflected the diversity of New Zealand’s regional and multicultural society”.

No further statements will be made at this time

- Stratos

General Manager Sam Irvine says the milestone is a huge achievement for Freeview and proves the free to air platform has a central place in the future of New Zealand TV.

“Freeview continues to enjoy the strongest growth of any digital TV broadcasting platform. We’ve gone from being in zero percent of Kiwi households to close to 30 percent in just five years.”

Freeview’s latest sales figures show more than half a million of New Zealand’s 1.6 million households were receiving Freeview free to air digital TV. As at the end of October 536,350 homes using Freeview for their television viewing and in total there are 792,878 homes who now have a Freeview device in the home.

“There’s an average of 2.4 people in each household, so our figure of one million viewers is conservative,” says Mr Irvine.

“Freeview’s increasingly rapid growth shows the TV most people want to watch is free to air.”

TV ratings from Neilsen TAM show 80% of all audiences, or 1,227,000 people watch free-to-air channels between 6pm and 10.30pm. Free to air TV also attracted the lion’s share of audiences for the Rugby World Cup final, with 1.4 million or 68% of all viewers.

“Free to air TV is still where we go to get our shared experiences. Go to any workplace in the country and people will talk about the latest news or what they saw on free TV last night,” says Mr Irvine.

With the exception of the Grand Final, the matches screened on Triangle and Stratos will be different to those screened on Sky Sport 3. giving fans the opportunity to see more matches in the critical lead up.

Matches will screen on Sunday night at 7:00 pm on Stratos and 8:30 pm on Triangle Television from September 4th.

Details of the games that are selected will be available on both the Triangle Television website (www.tritv.co.nz) and the Stratos website (www.stratostv.co.nz) from Monday prior to broadcast each week.

Reports of the outage came in to Dan News via Twitter and Facebook around 5pm when the outage occurred.

One News reported snow on equipment in Wellington affected reception for up to an hour.

Freeview said via their Twitter account that the snow had now been cleared from the dish and normal transmission was resumed before 6pm.

- Dan News

Mediaworks say an engineering team have fixed the problem at their transmission site and all channels are back in action.

The Freeview satellite service was not affected.

TVNZ launches U, a new commercial free-to-air digital channel, on 13 March. It features real life and factual entertainment programming, targeted at Kiwis aged 15-24.

TVNZ’s Head of Digital Media and Channels Eric Kearley says that TVNZ is delighted to bring New Zealand its first true “social television” experience through the Facebook integration.

“The backbone of the U schedule is U live, a hosted block from 4pm to 7pm daily, featuring chat and commentary driven by a U live Facebook application. Profile pictures, people’s comments and polling activity will be automatically pulled through into broadcast,” says Kearley.

“It’s the first true technology-driven integration of online social media with television in New Zealand.”

According to Kearley, U is an innovative step for broadcast in New Zealand and fills a gap in the market.

“We had identified that there was an opportunity to extend the kind of content available for young New Zealanders. And that opportunity has grown recently in light of the changes to Mediaworks channels and the demise of MTV locally.”

TVNZ’s GM Digital Channels Juliet Jensen says that in addition to the Facebook integration in U live, other parts of the U schedule will feature audience interaction.

“In this way viewers can use the channel platform as well as the real life content to connect, interact and socialise with each other.”

Every night from 8.30pm to 10.30pm themed programming will cater to a different audience taste. There will be shows for guys, shows for girls, action sports, competitive reality, music shows, and programmes about dating and relationships. Some of these slots will be hosted, with interaction driven via chat software on the channel’s website at tvnz.co.nz/u.

And on Sunday nights, viewers get to be the programmers. People can enter a competition to be the U programmer for a month via the channel’s Facebook page and website. The lucky winner will effectively “own” the slot, choosing what viewers watch.

Here’s how the channel’s going to break down:

4pm – 7pm: U live –  a daily live show with chat, interviews and music videos – as well as your input.

7pm – 8.30pm: General reality shows

8.30pm – 10.30pm: Each night will offer a different theme and experience:

• crush – shows about dating and relationships
• sound – music shows
• U tv  – the first chance you’ll get to choose which shows New Zealand sees
• guts – it’s all about the extreme sports
• dude – male skewed programming
• ursula – female skewed programming
• U win – competitive reality programmes

10.30pm – 11pm – Get your gaming on as U gives you an insight into the gaming world.

U will be broadcast on Freeview/TiVo channel 6 and SKY/Telstra channel 16.

To watch a reel about U:

www.u.tvnz.co.nz

For further information:

www.tvnz.co.nz/u

www.facebook.com/tvnzu

The New Zealand Christian channel will be available on Channel 25 via the satellite version of Freeview from April 1.

Shine is also available on Sky Digital 111, TelstraClear Digital Channel 111 in Wellington and Christchurch, Free to air in Christchurch and Nelson and on their website.

- Dan News

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The channel will give viewers an option as to when they do their television viewing. It will give audiences an extra opportunity to view some of the most popular shows on the network such as 3 NEWS, Campbell Live, New Zealand’s Next Top Model and Underbelly: The Mr Asia Story.

Plus 1 channels launched in the international markets have proved to be very successful, achieving very strong ratings results, particularly in the United Kingdom.

Rick Friesen, Director of Special Projects for MediaWorks TV says, “The channel is an exciting addition to the Freeview platform’s line-up and will give consumers another reason to move to digital television. So many viewers have told us they just can’t make it to their television set for the 6pm news. Well now, they can tune in at 7pm and get all the news at an alternate time.”

Steve Browning, General Manager of Freeview comments, “Plus 1 channels are very popular in advanced digital TV markets and Freeview is the first digital TV and radio platform in NZ to provide Kiwi’s with such a service. We are sure that Freeview owners will enjoy the added flexibility that two timeslots for each of TV3’s primetime shows provides.”

TV3 Plus 1 will be available on Freeview Channel 8 from midday on Monday, 30 March, 2009.

Update: The signal is now live on Freeview.