How many New Zealand archival TV shows have been digitally preserved?

TVNZ archive titles would be a subset of the figures for 2019 onwards which record all audio visual material processed. As the TVNZ material has often been categorised as "at risk" I've always assumed that they make up a majority of titles being preserved each year, as one stated aim was to have 200,000 at risk tapes digitalised by 2025. In the 2024/25 annual report the number of TVNZ in-scope items digitised was 156,393.

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2020 to 2025 - Utaina

7 October 2025: New Zealand’s largest ever audiovisual digitisation project has been deemed to have been a success

Utaina, one of the largest audiovisual digitisation projects in the world and the largest in New Zealand to date, has concluded. Over 400,000 items from the collections held by Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision, the National Library of New Zealand Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa and Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kawanatanga have been preserved for generations to come.

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2025 - New Zealand Screen Awards winners

The New Zealand Screen Awards (NZSA) announced the winners Friday 21st November 2025.

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Kordia marks 60 years of Christchurch’s iconic Sugarloaf transmission tower 

• Kordia

Christchurch, New Zealand – 16 October 2025 - Kordia is celebrating a major milestone this month, marking 60 years since the official opening (16th October 1965) of the Sugarloaf transmission tower, the 120.9-metre steel landmark that has kept Canterbury and much of New Zealand connected for six decades. 

Built by Kordia predecessor the New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation as part of New Zealand’s first nationwide television network, the Sugarloaf tower on Christchurch’s Port Hills remains a vital piece of broadcast and communications infrastructure. From its commanding position above the city, it continues to deliver television, FM radio, digital communications and critical connectivity for emergency services and aviation.  

Few of Kordia’s towers have witnessed as many nationally significant events as Sugarloaf. For much of that history, one man had a front-row seat. 

Andy Glue, who retired in 2024 after 50 years with Kordia, began his career at just 17 years old as an apprentice technician at Sugarloaf. He went on to see the site evolve from a single black-and-white TV channel to a digital connectivity hub. 

“There were about 10 staff to cover the rostered shifts, 7 days a week. On a normal dayshift, we would meet at 8.00am at the base in Mowbray Street and travel to Sugarloaf in a Bedford van. We were on site for the full day with nowhere to go for lunch, so we had to bring everything needed for the day,” says Glue. 

“The duty technician was responsible for turning on the transmitters manually and doing all the pre-program checks. This included doing a full set of meter readings to identify any faults and monitor any long-term trends which may indicated something is degrading. 

“Goodnight Kiwi was our cue to turn off the transmitters and lock up the building before driving back down the hill to our base at Mowbray Street.” 

From an engineering perspective, Sugarloaf remains one of New Zealand’s most impressive telecommunications structures. Its lattice steel tower rests on a five-metre-deep concrete pad anchored into volcanic rock, designed to withstand earthquakes and extreme weather.

Kordia’s Rigging Team Lead Stuart Stacey says maintaining the site’s structural integrity and technology over the years has been a constant task. 

“A lot of work happens on the tower – maintaining equipment on the tower, assessing faults, installing ice shields, managing rust – I think over my career I’ve probably seen almost every bolt in the tower replaced!” 

A major strengthening project in 2005 saw almost every piece of steel and every bolt on the tower replaced, one of the most complex engineering feats ever undertaken by Kordia. 

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Netflix is "windowing" some Kiwi TV papai

Independent distributor All3Media International has secured a new local window for a slate of original productions from Australia and New Zealand, as 130+ hours of drama and comedy drama content arrives on Netflix in both territories.

Five titles from New Zealand’s South Pacific Pictures, an All3Media Company, are now available to Netflix members in ANZ, including the first six series of long-running detective drama favourite The Brokenwood Mysteries (24 x 2-hour) and two series of Head High (14 x 1-hour), a family drama about the hopes, dreams and expectations of high-school rugby in New Zealand.

Netflix is also now home to a trio of Kiwi comedy dramas from South Pacific Pictures. These are Educators(18 x ½-hour), the award-winning improvised comedy set behind the scenes of a secondary school; Mean Mums (S1-3, 24 x ½-hour), which follows the misadventures of an unlikely gang of misfit mums; and Step Dave (S1-2, 26 x 1-hour), the "sharply funny" drama about an ordinary guy whose life is turned upside down when he meets the love of his life – and her children.

Julie Dowding, SVP Australia & New Zealand at All3Media International, commented, We’re delighted to secure a new window in the region for these much-loved premium dramas and comedy dramas as they take their place in Netflix’s ANZ library. Maximising windowing opportunities has always been a key strategy for us, ensuring our diverse portfolio of content continues to reach new viewers and bringing ongoing value for our production partners. And in this case in particular, it means Netflix ANZ can showcase proven, locally produced hits, while viewers in the region have a new opportunity to dive into incredible content featuring relatable stories and familiar faces.

Mystery show about geographical structure of NZ?

A visitor asks

I am looking for a film or documentary from 1989 or 1990 – 91 about the geographical structure of the New Zealand land as related to building and use.  I remember a lot of conversation regarding the underlying land structure. I believe it was shown on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon, on one of the then NZ TV stations. 

Sounds a bit like Landmarks (1981) but that might be a bit too old to have been screening in the early 90s unless there was a special repeat?

Perhaps having a look through the tv listings for the years you think it screened might turn something up...

New Zealand's "Lost" TV Shows?

A visitor to the site asked how rare the material in his collection of old beta tapes might be; sadly the answer is that any home recordings of local tv shows from back when domestic beta recorders were available - 1975 to around 2002 -  might be very rare indeed.

NZ shows were not distributed to other countries in other formats and we didn't have home VCRs until into the 1980s, so no one is sure how much local TV from back then still exists on a tape somewhere. This post from the Mutcat forum gives a good idea of the conditions that applied for TV recordings in local TV stations back in the day:

Subject: RE: BBC Treasure Hunt
From: Little Robyn
Date: 12 Nov 10 - 03:11 PM

Chris, at Channel One, NZBC, in the 60s and 70s, videotape was expensive (2inch wide) and at 15ips, a half hour programme on a metal spool was heavy and took up lots of space.
So unless a producer said "Keep that one" (in which case someone had to find storage space) after a certain period of time the videotape room was instructed to ERASE the tape and put it back in the shelves to use again. Some of the news or sports stuff that they wanted for the archives, was fed through the Telerecorder and a black and white film was made - usually very grainy and of lousy quality.
The methods of recording used today were only a dream then.
I'm sure BBC had the same problems. If a programme was done on film, there was a solid copy, but if it was a studio programme on VT, the tapes were usually wiped. (Except for Wn3366 which I kept hidden behind #1)
Robyn ex WNTV1 VT and Telecine operator, 1968 - 1973

The issue of just what happened to tapes was the subject of an interesting article in 2023: Why is there no recorded footage of NZ Hall of Fame inductees Larry's Rebels?

Most episodes of early shows like Pukemanu, Alpha Plan, Section 7, Happen Inn, seem to be missing, and even later shows like On The Mat, Close to Home etc are for the most part lost as well.

Sadly even with the exposure of some archival material during the celebration of fifty years of TV in New Zealand in 2010 and on the HeartlandTV (2010-2015) channel there hasn't been any great public interest in getting access to the older shows or any strong commercial interest in exploiting the material that does still exist, but if you do happen to have any old New Zealand TV shows on film, beta, VHS, audio cassette, script form, or any other related documents or ephemera please do get in touch so those of us who have an interest can enjoy them.

I know that here in the UK there has been a joint effort between interested  parties to try and track TV material down via the Missing Presumed Wiped initiative in a similar way to the NZ film archive's film search campaign from several years ago.

I've sent e-mails out to folk I've dealt with in the past asking if there is any coordinated approach between TVNZ, The Film Archive and other interested parties to document which New Zealand shows are missing thought lost (no copies held in archives), and how they might encourage folk to do something with their old off air recording.

Sadly TVNZ never replied.The folks from the film archive and NZ on screen did, saying there's no coordinated approach to the issue, but there was interest in pursuing the idea.

Read more: New Zealand's "Lost" TV Shows?