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Wellington loses Triangle Television; $20,000 a month could have saved it
Wellington.Scoop
by Lindsay Shelton
Tuesday night at midnight. Just one day after the decision was announced, Triangle Television disappeared from Wellington television sets. What a loss for us all.
Triangle has been an oasis of sanity on Wellington’s free-to-air television system since it began transmission here in August 2006.
As a counter to the inanity of top model shows, Triangle has offered informed and independent international analysis on the PBS Evening News from Washington.
For every interminable and artificial non-reality cooking show, Triangle has offered unique Middle East reportage from the unchallengeable Al Jazeera English-language news service. Its coverage of the Israeli war with Palestine was unequalled by any other channel.
And when Triangle announced that it would be broadcasting live coverage of the US presidential inauguration, the announcement became one of the most-read news items on Wellington.scoop.
But Triangle hasn’t been helped by the fact that its existence has been ignored by Wellington’s daily newspaper. The Dominion Post (unlike the Herald in Auckland) has failed to list its programme schedules. As a result, when I’ve enthused about the quality of its services, many Wellingtonians have asked “what’s Triangle and where can I find it?”
The Wellington achievements of Triangle have also been ignored by the government’s television funder New Zealand On Air, from whom it’s received only one payment – $16,000 for Noel Cheer’s series of interviews with notable Wellingtonians.
And money – or rather the lack of it – is the reason that Wellington is losing Triangle Television. The channel has failed to generate an income stream in the capital and till this week it’s been subsidised by the success of Triangle’s Auckland service.
To stay on air in Wellington, Triangle has, I believe, had to pay $20,000 every month to Kordia, the government-owned transmission authority which controls the government-owned frequencies.
The government is strangely selective in its support for television. The new TV6 and TV7 channels are reportedly receiving $6million a year in subsidies. But $20,000 a month to allow Wellingtonians to continue viewing some of the world’s leading news sources – not available.
Decades ago, the Australian government decided to establish the Special Broadcasting Service in order to give viewers a broader perspective of international news. The Australian government continues to pay a big subsidy for this channel.
Triangle, on the other hand, has existed (it began in Auckland ten years ago) without any subsidy at all.
As well as news and documentaries from PBS and Al Jazeera, it schedules English language news from Euro News and Deutsche Welle (DW) as well as news in many languages: Tongan, Fijian, Italian, Dutch, Spanish, French, Swiss, Flemish, Greek, Russian, Chinese, Thai and Japanese. A great and diverse alternative to the narrowness of New Zealand’s networks. As I write this article, the daily news from France is about to begin – with a guarantee that there’ll be an alternative perspective from anywhere else.
Together with Maori TV, Triangle has been providing the quality “charter” television that the two state-owned television networks have failed to provide for years. The charter money should be given to Triangle and Maori TV, leaving the state’s networks to pursue their blatant commercial ambitions and to deliver their profit to the government.
For Wellingtonians (like me) who want to continue to watch the varied perspectives on Triangle, the only option is to buy a Freeview box, where its free-to-air programming – with some time changes – continues digitally on its Stratos channel. We’ll also have to buy a satellite dish, however, because Triangle’s Stratos programmes are not available on the Freeview terrestrial service – this would, I understand, cost a further $400,000 a year.
Meantime the questions about TVNZ’s dumbed-down programming are endless. Most recently from the excellent Graeme Tuckett in the Dominion Post at the weekend:
“The Wire is one of the finest television shows ever made … the show has won numerous awards in competitions all over the world, including Time magazine’s best programme award of the year, twice. So why do the TV2 scheduling fairies think that 12.30am is an appropriate time of night to play a first run of The Wire’s latest season? That is laughably incompetent programming. … TVNZ hasn’t got a clue about what to do with a quality show when it finds one.”
The government owns the transmission authority and the government (i.e. the public) owns the channels? Yet a quality service has to be taken off the air … because the government demands a fee of $20,000 a month?? The government should be diverting a fraction of its dividend from TVNZ and using it to subsidise Triangle (only $20,000 a month) so that Wellington people can continue to view its rich and rewarding diet of news and current affairs.
Triangle TV’s output (along with Maori TV’s) is fine if you are from an ethnic and/or linguistic minority in New Zealand, but apart from PBS news from the US and ABC news from Australia, there’s not much that appeals to mainstream English-speaking audiences. TVNZ 7 has managed to provide more factual programming, but TVNZ 6 is a disappointment, however, at least Sky viewers will now be able to receive them..
How I agree with the article on the loss of Wellington Triangle Free to Air TV. The programmes from Al Jazeera, Deutsche Welle and PBS Evening News offered the most informed and international analysis of world news. Just last week I watched a very interesting progamme on the financial crisis in the Ukraine with the closure of steel works which I have not seen or read on local TV or newspapers.
The arts and travel programmes on DW and the panels on PBS including the McLaughlin group are so very entertaining…..so with the demise of this station, Earth Hour will occur regularly in our house.
TVpakeha takes a dismally narrow-minded view of life by implying that TV should only appeal to mainstream English speaking audiences. Anyway the “nothing much” comment is just plain wrong. As well as news from PBS and ABC, Triangle TV had several hours every day from Al Jazeera’s worldwide English language news service and several more hours every day from DW’s English language programmes. Sad that TVpakeha didnt bother to look. And sad for Wellington that the service has now ended.
Great article and I couldn’t agree more!
Having lived overseas for over 17 years, I have recently returned to NZ and was thrilled to learn that I could still have access to foreign language and quality news programmes.
When I don’t want to watch all the reality programmes that NZ tv stations tend to think we are interested in, I tune into Triangle. Once again, we’re being dictated to…the government needs to relook at its selection process when dishing out subsidies or else our voices will never be heard. We’ll continue to take what we’re given instead of telling what we want.
I logged on to find out what had happened to a favourite TV station! Thankyou Lindsay Shelton for an accurate obituary. Now, like being faced with a death in the family, I find myself asking if only I had acted, perhaps they would still be alive? Of course, alone I couldn’t have changed much, but group action could! For example, public pressure forced the reinstatement of Mark Amery’s Dominion Post arts column.
Is it too late for a letter-writing campaign? Or do I have to subscribe to Freeview for a truncated version of Triangle and run a second set to receive Prime?
I am missing Triangle’s news – that welcome alternative to the tear-jerking personal-interest-tragedy pap masquerading as news on 1 and 3
The way newspaper circulations are going internationally I’m not sure you can blame the Dominion Post for the lack of publicity about Triangle—or at least, not for long.
Iam really sorry that Wgton has lost Triangle Tv. I found it so informative about world events and found that I was spending more time watching it even though I didn’t always understand the language that was being broadcast.
I Googled to see where it had gone and found this article.
Both my wife and I are sad to see it has left our screens in Wellington.
Dancing with the Stars…
B*LL*X
Wellingtonians (plus almost all NZers) can receive Triangle’s Stratos programme via the Freeview Satellite service. In short, if you have a Sky satellite dish on your house (even if it is disused) you can probably just plug in a Freeview Satellite receiver in parallel with your Sky unit. Hopefully Triangle will also open a service on the HD Freeview platform (terrestrial) but I suspect the cost of doing that is a barrier for them at present.
[Note from editor: Triangle told me that they cannot afford the cost of the Freeview terrestrial transmissions].
I would like to thank everyone who has taken the time to drop a line here.
It is nice to know that we had built a team of loyal and appreciative viewers during our time in Wellington. This has been echoed in the emails and phone calls we have received directly.
We have also had numerous enquiries about when and if we were likely to transition to Freeview terrestrial (FVHD). The answer is “unfortunately not in the foreseeable future, unless we were to receive the same level of financial support and subsidies that other broadcasters have received to make that move” Truly this TV game is expensive and we need to cut our cloth to suit.
On the other hand we have some exciting programming coming up for both Stratos and for Triangle – Eurovision Song Contest for one – and viewers can expect some very newsworthy advances in our news and current affairs coverage. We expect to announce these within the next week.
So all is not bleak. WE do hope some of our viewers will elect to receive us on TestraClear, Freeview or Sky through our Stratos service.
Once again our sincere thanks – I am sorry we have disappointed you
Jim Blackman
CEO Triangle Television Limited