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Country | New Zealand |
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Headquarters | Invercargill |
Programming | |
Language(s) | English |
History | |
Launched | October 1996 |
Closed | 10 April 2015 |
Cue TV was a TV channel and production company based in Invercargill, New Zealand.
Cue TV, a local television channel based in Invercargill [1] that aimed at serving the Southland Region, was started in October 1996 as Mercury TV. It rebranded to Southland TV in 2003. [2] In retrospect, owner Tom Conroy considered the rebrand to be a mistake, saying that the company was trying to attract an audience and advertisers from across the country, and naming it "Southland" would not help with that. [3] On 1 March 2007 the channel was rebranded again to Cue TV. [2] Starting in 2003, [4] a lot of the channel's programmes were produced by the Southern Institute of Technology, for the distance learning SIT2LRN programme. [2]
After working for Mobil, Tom Conroy became the manager of Mercury TV [5] and then in 2002 he bought the company from the owners in Britain. [3] In 2003 the channel was converted from analogue to digital [6] and joined Sky TV. [7] In 2009 Cue TV became the 10th channel to join the free digital television platform Freeview. [8] In 2012 Invercargill mayor Tim Shadbolt and Conroy on Cue TV broke the Guinness World Record for the longest TV interview—26 hours. [9]
In 2014 Cue TV revived the New Zealand version of television programme University Challenge after it had not been produced for 25 years. [10] The TV channel stopped broadcasting on 10 April 2015, moving the company to just a production company and a company that manages venues and event bookings. [11]