TVNZ goes for edgy Brit telly

By LOUISA CLEAVE

Television New Zealand has signed a deal which will give it first rights to programmes traditionally favoured by its competitors, TV3 and TV4.

TVNZ's multi-year contract with Britain's Channel 4 will see the state broadcaster add edgy, mainly youth-oriented, English programmes to TV One and TV2's schedules.

Channel 4, a commercial public service channel, is known for its innovative programmes and was the network which launched Big Brother in Britain and made the controversial Queer As Folk.

The gay drama screened here on TV4, the New Zealand home in the past to many Channel Four shows, including Michael Moore's The Awful Truth and the Young Person's Guide to Becoming a Rock Star.

The TVNZ deal is a blow to TV4, although it still has a stock of Channel 4 programmes, including Psychos, a drama set in a Glasgow psychiatric hospital; Love In The 21st Century, a series taking a cynical and twisted look at relationships; and the television spin-off from the movie Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.

TV3 has also made use of Channel 4 in the past for one-off documentaries.

In Britain, Channel 4 is screening another legal drama series, about a group of barristers working in Leeds.

It also has a flagship science series called Equinox.

TVNZ's head of content, Andrew Shaw, said Channel 4 did not produce a high volume of programmes, but the shows it would offer were "interesting."

It was not a case of TVNZ "buying up the world," he said.

The first shows from the deal would start coming in the next two months.

"It's a good addition of younger-skewing English programming that we can use strategically on either of our two channels."