Freeview Digital TV and some thoughts on NZ TV (Part 1)

New Zealand has taken another step towards high tech. This month, Freeview Digital TV was launched and it looks to be the dawn of a new era in NZ TV. Right, let's not get overly dramatic. It's a step in the right direction at least. When I first arrived in 2002, all i could get on my dinky little digitor were TV2, TV3, and Prime. I couldn't get TVOne and the channel-that-is-now-known-as C4. Which was a shame because there was, and still is, a lot of good content on TV1. Reception was so bad at our first place that every time I had to change channel, I had to get up from the couch to adjust my tv-top aerial. It was a far cry from what I, and I'm sure most Metro Manila based Pinoys were used to, and that was the sheer number of tv channels available to Metro Manila residents. And thats not even counting cable.

At first, this situation would want to make any TV-obsessed Pinoy run screaming for the next flight home to the islands. Especially when you hear from the folks back home about the latest NBA games they'd watched live, or that latest episode of [insert hit US show] that they'd seen a week in ahead of you. Mildly depressing indeed. But the more NZ TV you watch, the more compelling it becomes. You'll realise it's not really the number of channels you can choose from that's important, it's the quality of the content. You'll start rediscovering old serieses, you might find yourself following the soaps, and you'll even learn to love watching the rugby. Why is this? Because NZ TV has got such a good mix of show types to keep things interesting. It's not like Philippine TV where the top channels always stick to the infuriatingly mind-numbing staples (noon time shows, telenovelas, afternoon showbiz chismis shows, and tabloid tv news).


I'm too lazy to continue, more on this topic on the next post.