The rights have been picked up by TV One, which will start screening the show on November 5th.
Television NZ will be hoping it does as well here as it has in Australia, where it regularly tops the ratings in the 8.40pm Tuesday slot. South Pacific Pictures chief executive Kelly Martin says, "Seven were very nervous about it because they thought Australians wouldn't like the Kiwi accents." The company was careful to cast a mix of Australian and New Zealand actors.
An application has been lodged for a New Zealand Screen Production Grant, which is set to get formal approval next month.
Such grants repay up to 40 per cent of qualifying expenditure in this country. The series has received no money from New Zealand on Air.
South Pacific Pictures, the dominant producer of New Zealand TV drama, is now ultimately owned by the US company Discovery Communications.
Sky fall
I believe investors can rightly ask whether Sky TV has been too slow in preparing for the fading of its monopoly on the New Zealand pay TV market. Competition's impact is now apparent, with news on Wednesday that Sky expects an 11 per cent fall in profit for the 2016 financial year.
I predict that imminent improvements linking MySky personal video recorders to on-demand archived material on the internet will keep the churn rate under control -- albeit with a fall in subscribers after the Rugby World Cup.
But in my opinion, Sky would have been better to have improved its on-demand package 12 months ago, so it was better prepared to resist the likes of Netflix and other new competitors.
Chief executive John Fellet always acknowledged critics who complained Sky had been too slow to address disruptive technology changes. But as he said, it's no use making the biggest newest, loss-making pay TV venture.
Sky's video on demand service, Neon, has been hamstrung, in my view. After all, it can't be too good, or it will cannibalise high paying subscribers from the main linear channel network. So from a business sense, it made sense for Sky to pocket the income from its last days of untrammelled dominance.
Careful spending to develop on-demand services maintained profitability and, until recently, subscriber growth.
But the game changed last year with the arrival of Lightbox, backed by Spark, then Coliseum Sports, and especially with the arrival of Netflix at the start of this year.
Big improvements to broadband speeds and the popularity of "all you can eat" broadband packages mean Sky's dominance, beyond sport, seems likely to be severely damaged. Next, global players like Google and Apple will be developing pay TV offers, bringing even more competition.
Sports the key
The challenge facing Sky has gone from its use of old technology to its value proposition.
In purely technical terms, the frequencies used by Sky linear channels are (rainfade aside) more reliable than internet services -- for the meantime. But it comes down to cost. Subscription video on demand services like Lightbox, Netflix and Sky's own Neon are available for $13 to $20 a month, while Sky packages are typically $90 or more.
But Sky still dominates sports and the Lightbox-Coliseum joint venture is unlikely to break into the big four -- rugby, league cricket and netball.
The real value of the Sky sports package is that it gives subscribers a good foundation, so they don't feel the need to try new players. But Sky is already being shut out, or is opting out, of some minor sports events.
Global players like Netflix will be bidding for global sports rights and the big danger for Sky is falling into a downward spiral. Like all media companies, it has to reinvent itself.
Auckland rules
Maori TV is to stay based in Auckland. But it is still not clear whether it will be in Henderson, South Auckland or its current location in deepest Newmarket.
Maori TV says it opted to stay because of concerns that a move would make it hard to retain staff, though a source said chief executive Paora Maxwell was disappointed with the board's decision.
The Henderson proposal would be adjacent to the Waipareira Trust and is promoted by trust chairman John Tamihere and by the Manukau Urban Maori Authority's Willie Jackson.
The third option is to stay put in Newmarket after the current contract runs out in 2017. The building is large and handy for broadcasting, but the lease on the property is believed to cost $1 million a year.
