Horizon Pacific Television was a network of four regional television stations operated by Television New Zealand from 1995 to 1997, with services in Auckland, Hamilton, Wellington and Dunedin on the UHF 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 MTV Europe with local inserts.
Horizon Pacific Television started on 19 March 1995 (Sunday) at 3pm[1] as part of a diversification of TVNZ's business units post-deregulation.[2] 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.[3]
The network was composed of the following stations:
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.[3] TVNZ replaced it with MTV, which was seen as a more "competitive" alternative.[3][5] MTV would eventually become unprofitable and shut down less than a year later.[6]
The shutdown led to redundancies at TVNZ, some of which were compensated for gaining new jobs at TVNZ's news and current affairs division.[7]
At launch, Horizon Pacific carried news bulletins from BBC World, documentaries, drama series (such as Hill Street Blues), lifestyle and musical programming, as well as local programmes.[1] From its launch day, BBC World began being carried overnight on TV One instead of closing down.[1]
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.[3]
After closing, its imported output moved to TV One.[7]
