1975: TV2

June 30, 2021

By AHNZ

Today in history, 30 June, 1975, TV2 first aired. This state-run television station branded and re-branded itself with new logos and new names in order best to find and keep its audience. TV2 has also called itself South Pacific Televion, Television 2, Network Two, and Channel 2. Digital TV (2007) met a 32 year old brand that had the hearts and minds of Generation X and Millennials…and killed it.

‘Channel 2’ once promoted itself with literally bus-loads of celebrities and paid royalties to adjust songs into their own theme. Dusty Springfield’s I Only Want To Be With You became “I Only Wanna Be With Two and Sonny and Cher’s I Got You Babe became “I got Two babe.” For the nightly Closedown TV2 created the iconic and endearing Goodnight Kiwi theme with music that resembles the bridge from Deep Purple’s My Woman from Tokyo.  TV3 (1989) provided the first ever competition which led TV2 to focus on entertainment and youth, leaving current affairs and Coronation Street for the older generations on TV1. As the branding made clear, Two were here to be be a loving forever friend. They would always be there like the big brother you never had and one who brought you access to all the best Coming Thing from overseas; Style, technology, culture, fashion.

“We’re bringing you the world of happy-ever-after…bringing the world to you on two.”

“Let’s get together..we’ll always treat you like a long-lost friend…we’re Channel Two and we’ll always be right here…we’re here with you…be our guest.”

“I got you and I wont let go, I’ve got you to love me so,..I got Two, babe.”

“..I only know I never want to let you go…It happens to be true…no matter what you do you only wanna be with Two.” – Various lyrics from TV2 promos; Ref. TVNZ 2 ident history 1985 – 2008, 22echomike (2009); Youtube

When digital TV started replacing analogue big things were promised. The union of free-to-air providers called it Freeview (2007) and pulled the plug entirely in 2013, handing over the old bandwidth to the growing mobile phone network. A selling point was that many new channels would be created with exciting content. TVNZ 6 and TVNZ 6 were supposed to be early proof of this but not only were both soon deleted no such plethora of exciting new shows eventuated to replace what had been taken. Indeed, TVNZ created new channels in the most lazy way possible by simply filling some with content on one hour delay from its other channels!

Channel Two quit the family at this point. About 32 years of promising to be there and love us hit the rocks as, I think, the nation sensed it would despite the Freeview fibs. The thunder was stolen from terrestrial TV and given instead to the smartphones that now dominate the entertainment market. Netflix swallowed up the entertainment market the same way it had earlier gobbled up the video store. Digital mediums, Youtube and Netflix, are atomised and do not present as a package the same way analogue TV did.

Today the logo for TV2 (image right) is generic and identical to TV1 except mathematically. Gone are the songs and celebrities, the branding, the invitation to be part of a family. The brand was allowed to die off like a dinosaur that couldn’t evolve to find a niche in our new digital world. As we turned to our digital screens is it we who left Two or they who abandoned us?

TV1 and newspapers have gone the same way too. What used to be Current Affairs are now thinly disguised rehashings from the internet, surrounded in clickbait. Infomercials, which used to be confined to early mornings, have expanded to take over TV in the guise of news shows. Breakfast (1997) with Mike Hosking, Susan Wood, Kate Hawkesby or Telstra Business (1997) with Michael Wilson were current affairs shows. Likewise, in the evening, there was Holmes (1989) and Campbell Live (2005) with John Campbell and Carol Hirschfeld.

Advertisers have fled and now there is no money to fund the research or grammar-checking or presenter and producer talent New Zealanders once knew. Those time slots are only good for selling ‘As Seen on TV’ products now and have also been invaded by style and content previously the stuff of local radio stations. Indeed, cash-strapped TV3 has simply televised radio presenters at a desk and put that out now as Newshub Nation.

Just as the government duopoly of TV1 and TV2 ate up all the local TV stations New Zealand had, these two are being consumed as well. The trend of New Zealand history is always to destroy what is distinctive and local to replace it with more homogenised and centralised control from afar. We do this to our cities, our provinces, our sports, our newspapers, our libraries, our schools, our governance. If this trend if ever arrested it will be revolutionary. If not, we’ll end up being run as an administrative province from New York if lucky or Beijing if not.

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Ref. TV2 logos on Fandom

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