The History of Regional TV News in Dunedin (1990)
Channel: Patrick Te Pou
Date: 2021-09-09

John McDermott, TVNZ's Dunedin based reporter at the time, looked back at the history of regional television news in Dunedin - from the official opening of DNTV2 on 31 July 1962 all the way through to the final ever edition of The South Tonight on the evening of Friday 14 December 1990.

The bright lights of regional television began to fade in 1989 and within the next year, the lights went out completely on the local news. They stayed out until 19 March 1995 when TVNZ launched Horizon Pacific Television (HPTV).

HPTV was, in fact, a group of regional television stations based in Auckland (ATV), Hamilton (Coast to Coast), Wellington (Capital City) and Dunedin (Southern). By the end of 1995, Christchurch's CTV joined the HPTV group. Each station had its own local news bulletin at 7pm but by mid-1996, it moved to the earlier timeslot of 5.30pm.

HPTV was shut down in June 1997 due to a lack of profitability, and replaced a month later by MTV (which, in fact, combined the UK/Europe feed of MTV with the inclusion of local programming such as Havoc). 

MTV was shut down in June 1998.

Special thanks to Noel Lee and Dwayne Carey for the use of this video.

Please note: A music track contained in the "Town and Around" opening titles was muted due to copyright restrictions.