Tonight we were at TV3′s new season launch at the Auckland War Memorial Museum, hosted by Rove McManus (yay!) and Peter Helliar.
New shows are Journeyman, Bionic Woman, Life, Californication, Women’s Murder Club, Lipstick Jungle, Back to You, Cane and New Amsterdam.
New NZ shows: none mentioned.
Returning NZ shows include Outrageous Fortune, Downsize me, Target, Money Man, Sticky TV, Deal or No Deal, bro’Town and Pulp Sport.
Returning international shows include all the CSI shows, Prison Break, Sea Patrol, House, Boston Legal, Bones, Biggest Loser, Survivor, Rove, My Name is Earl and The Office.
Movies include King Kong, Mr and Mrs Smith, You Me and Dupree, The Devil wears Prada, Inside Man, X Men: the last stand, Miami Vice, Walk the Line, Nanny McPhee, The Break Up, The Holiday, Fever Pitch, Shop Girl, Fast and the Furious, Garfield 2, Ice Age 2, Cheaper by the Dozen 2, Big Momma’s House 2.
News and Current Affairs: TV3 will build on its online news presence strengths, continue with Sunrise and Midday News which are “doing well” and build on 3 News, Campbell Live, 60 Minutes and Nightline which are doing “incredibly well”. CanWest MediaWorks NZ chief executive Brent Impey said that their aim with Sunrise was to “get ahead of the other guys” and that Midday had already achieved that.
Sport: TV3 were “happy with the production” of their Rugby World Cup coverage and with their advertisers’ support. Upcoming sporting events include A1GP, V8 Super Cars, Melbourne Cup, and Shane Cameron’s boxing matches.
Programming decisions: as mentioned earlier on Throng, TV3 will be spreading out the airing of new shows and will have a “strong summer schedule” with new shows starting all the way through December and January.
Their aim over time is to move their air dates closer to US air dates. They point to being only a few weeks behind the US with Heroes – for two reasons: fans of the show are dedicated and loyal fans; fans are less likely to illegally download if shows screen less than two weeks behind the US.
We spoke with programmer Kelly Martin, who introduced the new season launch and asked why 24 screened so far behind the US. She explained that they held off until after the rugby world cup but want to air next year’s show much closer to the US date. I also asked why Home and Away screened 6 weeks behind Australia, when Neighbours screens only a week behind Australia. She said originally this was a technical issue but there was no reason why we couldn’t catch up this summer and be a week behind Australia and would keep it in mind.
Rove and Peter were pretty funny as hosts. They were flown in especially for the event and enjoyed making jokes about NZ, such as the need for a CSI:Whakatane (of course he couldn’t resist the ongoing Whaka- joke), playing a drinking game while watching The Biggest Loser (each time someone cries you have to take a drink), Helen Clark being a woman’s name and One Tree Hill being a let down.
They also tried coming up with slogan ideas for TV3 such as “screw you TV1″ and “Better than number 2′s”.
TV3 made special mention of the success of Outrageous Fortune, how it is being adapted in both the UK and US.
We also met CEO Brent Impey, helpful publicist Nicole Wood (nice to finally put a face to her name!), the always friendly and lovely newly engaged couple Brooke Howard-Smith and Amber Peebles and down to earth James Coleman.
Oh and one little observation: the TVs all around the room weren’t widescreen or flatscreen…
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