DNTV2 was a television station in

Dunedin Dunedin ( ; mi, Ōtepoti) is the second-largest city in the South Island of New Zealand (after Christchurch), and the principal city of the Otago region. Its name comes from , the Scottish Gaelic name for Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland. Th ...

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

established by the then

New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation The New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation (NZBC) was a publicly owned company of the New Zealand Government founded in 1962. The Broadcasting Act 1976 then reformed NZBC as the Broadcasting Corporation of New Zealand (BCNZ). The corporation was ...

in 1962. Its base, and studio complex operated from the historic Garrison Hall in Dowling Street. Until 2010 Garrison Hall was occupied by NHNZ which has since moved to a larger facility in Melville Street. Garrison Hall remains a television production hub to this day, it is now home to Animation Research, Taylormade Media, The Video Factory and Kahawai Productions.

History

Broadcasting to Dunedin began on 31 July 1962. This followed successful start ups in

Auckland Auckland (pronounced ) ( mi, Tāmaki Makaurau) is a large metropolitan city in the North Island of New Zealand. The List of New Zealand urban areas by population, most populous urban area in the country and the List of cities in Oceania by po ...

Wellington Wellington ( mi, Te Whanganui-a-Tara or ) is the capital city of New Zealand. It is located at the south-western tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Remutaka Range. Wellington is the second-largest city in New Zealand by me ...

and

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. Initially there was no networking between the four stations, imported programmes and news footage needed to be physically sent between the different centres meaning differing transmission dates. The first network news was read by

Dougal Stevenson John Dougal Stevenson (born 1942) is a former New Zealand television news presenter. Early life Born in Dunedin in 1942 to a young unmarried mother, Stevenson was adopted out while still a young infant to a family living near Wānaka in Central ...

on 5 November 1969. Initially, DNTV2 was broadcast from a transmitter at

Highcliff Highcliff is a luxury apartment on a south slope of Happy Valley on the Hong Kong Island in Hong Kong. The 75- storey building's construction (70 floors of which are liveable space) began in 2000 and was completed in 2003 under a design by ...

. Coverage was extended to South Otago and Southland in 1964 with the commissioning of relay stations at Kuriwao and Mount Hedgehope. The

Mount Cargill Mount Cargill, known in Māori as Kapukataumahaka,Place names'' on Kāti Huirapa Runaka ki Puketeraki website, viewed 2012-01-04 is a volcanic outcrop which dominates the skyline of northern Dunedin, New Zealand. The peak is named for Captain ...

transmitter was commissioned in 1970 to replace the Highcliff transmitter. Following expansion in the 1960s, news, administration and production staff moved to other locations nearby including Orbell Chambers and the Methodist Central Mission, both in Stuart Street. The set construction unit moved to Fryatt Street in the city's wharf area. This left the Garrison Hall facility as studios, transmission control, wardrobe, make-up and dressing rooms. On 1 April 1975, DNTV2 was folded, along with Wellington-based WNTV1 into Television One. The newly created network would have two production facilities, those being Garrison Hall and the newly opened Avalon Television Centre. Although the Avalon facility was larger and purpose built, at times the production output from the Dunedin operation exceeded that of Avalon. In 1980 Television One was combined with Television Two to create a combined Television New Zealand. The

operation becoming one of four TVNZ production sites along with

and

. Although it was the smallest of the production centres, its share of output to the national networks stood at around 30% before

TVNZ , type = Crown entity , industry = Broadcast television , num_locations = New Zealand , location = Auckland, New Zealand , area_served = Nationally (New Zealand) and some Pacific Island nations such as the Cook Islands, Fiji, and the So ...

began cutbacks in the late 1980s and early 1990s. In effort to stave off competition from the soon to launch

TV3 Channel 3 or TV 3 may refer to: Television *Canal 3 (Burkina Faso), a commercial television channel in Burkina Faso *Canal 3 (Guatemala), a commercial television channel in Guatemala *Channel 3 (Algeria), a public Algerian TV channel owned by EPTV ...

, TVNZ production was scaled back nationwide and centralised in a new facility in

. While TVNZ was scaling back production, one exception was the Natural History Unit, which continued to thrive and was eventually sold off by TVNZ as a going concern as

NHNZ NHNZ, formerly Natural History New Zealand, is a New Zealand-based television production house. It works and co-produces with multiple major global broadcasters: Discovery Channel, Animal Planet, Discovery Science, A&E Television Networks, Natio ...

. Other offshoot production companies were born out of TVNZ's retreat from Dunedin. Notable companies being Animation Research, Taylormade Productions, and Kids TV.

References

{{Reflist

External links

Animation Research Limited

Taylormade Media Limited

NHNZ

Television New Zealand
Television stations in New Zealand History of Dunedin Mass media in Dunedin Television channels and stations established in 1962

History

See also

References

External links