Horizon Pacific Television was a network of four regional television stations operated by

Television New Zealand Television New Zealand (, "Te Reo Tātaki" meaning "The Leading Voice"), more commonly referred to as TVNZ, is a New Zealand state-owned media company and Crown entity. The company operates a television network, TVNZ+, streaming service, and 1N ...

from 1995 to 1997, with services in

Auckland Auckland ( ; ) is a large metropolitan city in the North Island of New Zealand. It has an urban population of about It is located in the greater Auckland Region, the area governed by Auckland Council, which includes outlying rural areas and ...

Hamilton Hamilton may refer to: * Alexander Hamilton (1755/1757–1804), first U.S. Secretary of the Treasury and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States * ''Hamilton'' (musical), a 2015 Broadway musical by Lin-Manuel Miranda ** ''Hamilton'' (al ...

Wellington Wellington 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 third-largest city in New Zealand (second largest in the North Island ...

and

Dunedin Dunedin ( ; ) is the second-most populous city in the South Island of New Zealand (after Christchurch), and the principal city of the Otago region. Its name comes from ("fort of Edin"), the Scottish Gaelic name for Edinburgh, the capital of S ...

on the

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band. The service carried a mix of local programmes and relays of BBC World. It was later shut down and replaced by a time-shifted feed of

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with local inserts.

History

Horizon Pacific Television started on 19 March 1995 (Sunday) at 3pm''

New Zealand Listener The ''New Zealand Listener'' is a weekly New Zealand magazine that covers the political, cultural and literary life of New Zealand by featuring a variety of topics, including current events, politics, social issues, health, technology, arts, f ...

'', 17-23 March 1995 as part of a diversification of TVNZ's business units post-deregulation. It was created following criticisms regarding the lack of regional programming on TVNZ's channels, and competed against established local services such as Max TV, Mainland Television and Eastland Television. The network was composed of the following stations: *ATV (Auckland) *Coast to Coast (Hamilton) *Capital City Television (Wellington) *Southern Television (Dunedin) These stations were joined by a fifth,

Christchurch Christchurch (; ) is the largest city in the South Island and the List of cities in New Zealand, second-largest city by urban area population in New Zealand. Christchurch has an urban population of , and a metropolitan population of over hal ...

Canterbury Television Canterbury Television (CTV) was an independent television station broadcasting in Canterbury, New Zealand. The name is synonymous with regional television in New Zealand as it was the name of the first regional broadcaster to operate in New Z ...

, which was an independent television station, in November 1995. In 1997, Television New Zealand announced that it was going to withdraw the operations of Horizon Pacific due to a lack of financial sustainability to continue. TVNZ replaced it with MTV, which was seen as a more "competitive" alternative. MTV would eventually become unprofitable and shut down less than a year later.''The Press'', 30 May 1998 The shutdown led to redundancies at TVNZ, some of which were compensated for gaining new jobs at TVNZ's news and current affairs division.

Programming

At launch, Horizon Pacific carried news bulletins from BBC World, documentaries, drama series (such as ''

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''), lifestyle and musical programming, as well as local programmes. From its launch day, BBC World began being carried overnight on TV One instead of closing down. Although the channel pledged "regional public service television", critics of the service called the supposed statement of the service as an "oxymoron" due to the abundance of foreign content. After closing, its imported output moved to TV One.

References

{{Navboxes, , list1= {{TVNZ {{Television in New Zealand TVNZ Defunct television channels in New Zealand Television channels and stations established in 1995 Television channels and stations disestablished in 1997 English-language television stations in New Zealand