Opinion – Is TVNZ trying to bring down Freeview?

When Freeview was just in its infancy, hobbyists were scrambling for their TV tuners and expensive set-top boxes to discover the new service on offer to the public – the allure of free-to-air digital television was all too great.

Fast-forward some 5-odd years, and the landscape has been a never-ending flip-flop in terms of quality entertainment for the platform – one minute, there are an abundance of promising channels and the next, that offering is pulled away from the table in a rapid fashion. Promises of Stratos and TVNZ 7 saw the dawn of quality public service broadcasting in this country – and years later, they were pulled from our reach. Rising costs saw the demise of Stratos, while TVNZ’s offering is headed to the chopping block in June. But what’s even more devastating is the latter’s replacement.

Announced in early December last year, the replacement being ushered in is The Shopping Channel - with a name instantly revealing its proposed content, this channel aims to be a semi-live shopping channel – up to 9 hours a day – with certain delayed shopping offerings played later. Launching on Freeview and Sky in June, with a website due as early as April, the outlook for Freeview is looking bleak, bringing nothing much to the table – aside from the usual depressing content people don’t want to see (no matter how strong the business case may be).

The future frequency for this channel is being leased by no other than TVNZ, in a move that could be viewed as a sabotage of Freeview’s free-to-air offering. Now don’t get me wrong – TVNZ have a very strong interest in operating alongside Sky to bring Igloo in the first half of this year, and they’ll want Freeview to do well; the latter being necessary because they won’t have a core foundation for Igloo otherwise. However, are TVNZ trying to make Freeview look bad in the eyes of Joe Public, who doesn’t want the usual bombardment of international channels (no offense intended) and 24/7 televised shopping? It would make sense, and make Igloo appear as a more viable and attractive option, especially due to its part free, part paid nature. It certainly begs the question, at least.

Thoughts?