Panoramic views of Tauranga should become a daily feature on TV3 early next year, thanks to Tauranga eclipsing Dunedin as New Zealand's fifth-largest city.
The announcement today by Tourism Bay of Plenty general manager Tim Burgess followed last night's live broadcast from Mount Maunganui by TV3's weatherman Mike Hall.
Perched above Mauao's
historic stone steps, viewers were treated to an evening backdrop of the Main Beach, Moturiki and Mount Drury. It was part of TV3's tour of the big summer hotspots and included a forecast of fine weather in the Bay on Christmas Day.
Tourism Bay of Plenty has been "chipping away" at the weather departments of TV3 and Television New Zealand since Tauranga's population sneaked ahead of Dunedin, reaching 116,000.
Mr Burgess was confident that a webcam would be installed on a building in Devonport Rd showing the downtown business area and waterfront across to Mauao.
It would join other webcams in New Zealand's five other major centres featuring on TV3's Sunrise show and bulletins during the day.
But TV3 has given no assurance that Tauranga would join Auckland, Hamilton, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin in the evening weather bulletin.
Mr Hall said TV3 could not alienate Dunedin by no longer featuring the city in its weather forecast. "We would love to give Tauranga the attention it deserves, but we can't do it at the expense of Dunedin."
Tauranga had boring weather because it was mostly sunny, whereas Dunedin went from horizontal hail to sun, he said.
Mr Burgess is negotiating the details of Tauranga's webcam with TV3. If possible, Tourism BOP would like to have a feed from the camera to its website.
Tourism Bay of Plenty hoped that if TV3 made Tauranga a regular feature, TVNZ would follow.
