Sky Open (formerly known as Prime) is a New Zealand free-to-air television network. It airs a varied mix of programming, largely imported from Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States.
It was originally owned by Prime Television Limited in Australia. Prime later entered into a joint-venture agreement with Nine Entertainment Co. (Nine Network Australia) in February 2002, causing the network's graphics to look like the Nine Network. On 8 February 2006, the Commerce Commission gave Sky clearance to purchase the station for NZ$31 million.
Prime's analogue terrestrial signals had covered 91% of the population via the state-owned Kordia transmission network. It is currently available free-to-air on Sky on satellite and Kordia on terrestrial.
History
Prime (1998–2023)
During early 1998, the United Christian Broadcasters purchased 34 TV licences of UHF spectrum from TVNZ that had been used for the defunct Horizon Pacific and MTV channels. Then during June 1998, Prime Television Limited in Australia purchased the unused 34 TV licences from United Christian Broadcasters for approximately A$3.6 million. The licences covered all major cities and towns, mainly on UHF, except for the Gisborne area, which is served via a VHF signal. On 30 August 1998, Prime Television New Zealand began broadcasting at 6.30 pm with Two Fat Ladies.
Originally the station broadcast classic British programming, documentaries, sports and dramas aimed at the 30 years and above age bracket. In Waikato and Christchurch, Prime produced a half-hour nightly news programme. Although these programmes rated well, they were unprofitable.
In February 2002, Prime New Zealand entered into an agreement with Australian media mogul Kerry Packer's PBL (parent of the Nine Network). Under this five-year agreement, Nine agreed to provide the station with content it owned the rights to, expertise and an amount of cash. In return, Nine was given the right to acquire 54% of Prime New Zealand at the end of the contract. If Prime New Zealand continued to lose money, Nine could choose not to take this up.
After this deal, Prime took on a broader and more expensive programming mix and axed the local content to cut costs. This increased ratings and profits significantly. This new format was modelled closely on the Global Television Network in Canada, whose parent company Canwest happened to own TV3 at the time.
Almost immediately, some Australian programmes produced by Nine Network and shown on Prime NZ took on a slightly New Zealand flavour. For example, one New Zealander per week began to appear on the Australian version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, and weather details for New Zealand cities appeared on the Australian Today breakfast programme. Localisation of Australian programmes increased, with New Zealander Charlotte Dawson becoming the presenter of a New Zealand version of Nine travel programme Getaway (Dawson left this position at the end of 2006). Many Australian programmes were simply broadcast on Prime without any adaptation for New Zealand audiences, however.
During 2003–04, the number of Australian programmes broadcast decreased. These were largely replaced with more expensive (and higher rated) British and American programmes, such as a Sunday evening British drama slot.
On 2 November 2004, TVNZ presenter Paul Holmes announced that he was resigning from his Holmes programme on the state broadcaster and beginning a new one on Prime in 2005. This new programme, called Paul Holmes, began on 7 February 2005. The arrival of Holmes was seen as a major sign of Prime's rise in status, from a small, second-tier network to a major player on the New Zealand scene, joining TVNZ and TV3 in this regard. The programme, however, did not rate well. In June 2005, Prime moved the show to 6 pm, directly following Prime News, in an attempt to increase ratings. This was ultimately unsuccessful and Prime TV cancelled the programme on 8 August 2005 due to poor ratings. Holmes returned to host a one-hour weekly current affairs/interview programme, which was still called Holmes, and screened on Thursday evenings. In 2006, the show was relaunched as a strictly entertainment-oriented talk show and screened on Wednesday evenings. It did not return in 2007, but two "specials" were filmed. For most of 2007, Holmes' work for Prime consisted solely of a weekly opinion segment, broadcast Sunday nights as part of Prime News.