Igloo was a

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island coun ...

prepaid

pay TV Pay television, also known as subscription television, premium television or, when referring to an individual service, a premium channel, refers to subscription-based television services, usually provided by multichannel television providers, b ...

service launched on 3 December 2012. The Pace-supplied receiver provides customers access to free-to-air channels through Freeview, and previously a small selection of pay TV channels could be purchased for 30 days. On 1 March 2017, Igloo closed and the receiver was updated to allow viewers to use New Zealand's Freeview television service.

History

Igloo was founded by

Sky Network Television Sky Network Television Limited, more commonly known as Sky, is a New Zealand broadcasting company that provides pay television services via satellite, media streaming services and broadband internet services. It is also a wholesale channel prov ...

and

TVNZ , type = Crown entity , industry = Broadcast television , num_locations = New Zealand , location = Auckland, New Zealand , area_served = Nationally (New Zealand) and some Pacific Island nations such as the Cook Islands, Fiji, and the ...

in December 2011. Details were announced on December 8 via a press release. Sky held a 51% share in the venture while TVNZ, the minority shareholder has 49%. TVNZ later sold their shares back to Sky in 2013 before completely exiting the venture in 2014. Igloo was originally scheduled to start during the first half of 2012, however, they encountered delays and had to push the launch date back to December 2012. The service offered free-to-air HD (via terrestrial), along with pay TV channels provided by Sky, to a set top box being developed by Sky. It used digital terrestrial frequencies owned by Sky previously used for their analogue terrestrial offering (which is no longer offered). Sky was required to make use of the spectrum or it would be taken by the Government. In July 2016 Sky announced that Igloo will end its transmissions from March 2017. Customers will no longer be able to purchase Igloo Channel Packs, watch Front Row events or Igloo On Demand. Igloo boxes will still be able to receive Freeview channels but without any technical support or the EPG.

Service

The service was targeted at individuals who may not be able to commit to a contract or do not need all of the channels available from the regular Sky pay TV offering. Viewers could order live sport events via

pay-per-view Pay-per-view (PPV) is a type of pay television or webcast service that enables a viewer to pay to watch individual events via private telecast. Events can be purchased through a multichannel television platform using their electronic program g ...

on the Front Row channel, as well as stream TV shows and movies using a broadband connection. The device provided by Igloo has the ability to "live pause" when a USB flash drive is inserted (as there is no

hard disk drive A hard disk drive (HDD), hard disk, hard drive, or fixed disk is an electro-mechanical data storage device that stores and retrieves digital data using magnetic storage with one or more rigid rapidly rotating platters coated with mag ...

built into the device). An 8GB flash drive will allow for around 60 minutes of live pause. Pay-channel broadcasting was

DVB-T2 DVB-T2 is an abbreviation for "Digital Video Broadcasting – Second Generation Terrestrial"; it is the extension of the television standard DVB-T, issued by the consortium DVB, devised for the broadcast transmission of digital terrestrial tele ...

256-QAM transport via UHF channel 30 (546 MHz) or 31 (554 MHz). This was separate from the

DVB-T DVB-T, short for Digital Video Broadcasting – Terrestrial, is the DVB European-based consortium standard for the broadcast transmission of digital terrestrial television that was first published in 1997 and first broadcast in Singapore in Feb ...

64-QAM transports used by

Freeview Freeview may refer to: *Freeview (Australia), the marketing name for the digital terrestrial television platform in Australia *Freeview (New Zealand), a digital satellite and digital terrestrial television platform in New Zealand *Freeview (UK), a ...

Channels

Sky and TVNZ defined a

virtual channel In most telecommunications organizations, a virtual channel is a method of remapping the ''program number'' as used in H.222 Program Association Tables and Program Mapping Tables to a channel number that can be entered via digits on a receiver's ...

ordered that groups channels by importance to the service operator as follows. General entertainment channels were below 20 which included

's free-to-air TV One (selected HD), free-to-air TV2 (selected HD), TVNZ Heartland and

TVNZ Kidzone24 TVNZ Kidzone was a 24-hour New Zealand children's channel service run by state broadcaster Television New Zealand. The channel ran on Digital 106, channel 46 on Sky and channel 14 on Igloo. History Kidzone was originally a 12-hour service runnin ...

, MediaWorks' free-to-air

TV3 Channel 3 or TV 3 may refer to: Television * Canal 3 (Burkina Faso), a commercial television channel in Burkina Faso * Canal 3 (Guatemala), a commercial television channel in Guatemala * Channel 3 (Algeria), a public Algerian TV channel owned by E ...

(selected HD) and free-to-air

Four 4 (four) is a number, numeral and digit. It is the natural number following 3 and preceding 5. It is the smallest semiprime and composite number, and is considered unlucky in many East Asian cultures. In mathematics Four is the smallest ...

, free-to-air

Prime A prime number (or a prime) is a natural number greater than 1 that is not a product of two smaller natural numbers. A natural number greater than 1 that is not prime is called a composite number. For example, 5 is prime because the only ways ...

, Front Row (pay-per-view sports),

News Corporation News Corporation (abbreviated News Corp.), also variously known as News Corporation Limited, was an American multinational mass media corporation controlled by media mogul Rupert Murdoch and headquartered at 1211 Avenue of the Americas in New ...

National Geographic ''National Geographic'' (formerly the ''National Geographic Magazine'', sometimes branded as NAT GEO) is a popular American monthly magazine published by National Geographic Partners. Known for its photojournalism, it is one of the most widel ...

Viacom Media Networks Paramount Media Networks (formerly known as Warner Cable Communications, Warner-Amex Satellite Entertainment, MTV Networks, Viacom Media Networks, and ViacomCBS Domestic Media Networks) is an American mass media division of Paramount Global tha ...

channels

MTV Hits MTV Hits is a music video-only spin-off cable/satellite television channel of MTV in several international markets, originally based on the pop music format of a defunct programming block on the American MTV itself. It may refer to the following ch ...

and Comedy Central,

Vibe ''Vibe'' is an American music and entertainment magazine founded by producers David Salzman and Quincy Jones. The publication predominantly features R&B and hip hop music artists, actors and other entertainers. After shutting down producti ...

BBC Worldwide BBC Worldwide Ltd. was the wholly owned commercial subsidiary of the BBC, formed out of a restructuring of its predecessor BBC Enterprises in January 1995. The company monetises BBC brands, selling BBC and other British programming for broadca ...

's BBC UKTV, BBC Knowledge and

BBC World News BBC World News is an international English-language pay television network, operated under the ''BBC Global News Limited'' division of the BBC, which is a public corporation of the UK government's Department for Digital, Culture, Media an ...

, Food Television and

Discovery Communications Discovery, Inc. was an American multinational mass media factual television conglomerate based in New York City. Established in 1985, the company operated a group of factual and lifestyle television brands, such as the namesake Discovery Chan ...

Animal Planet Animal Planet (stylized in all lowercase since 2018) is an American multinational pay television channel owned by the Warner Bros. Discovery Networks unit of Warner Bros. Discovery. First established on June 1, 1996, the network is primarily ...

. All other national Freeview channels spilled over from 20 to 29 and 35 and from 50 to 59 which included timeshifted hour delay channels for TV One, TV2,

and

, government funded Maori TV and Parliament TV, Trackside,

ChoiceTV Eden (stylized as eden and formerly known as Choice TV) is a privately owned, national free-to-air television channel in New Zealand and has been on air since 2012. The channel features programs on topics such as: lifestyle, news, travel, reali ...

The Shopping Channel TSC (formerly The Shopping Channel) is a Canadian discretionary service channel owned by the Rogers Sports & Media subsidiary of Rogers Communications. The channel showcases various products which viewers can purchase either by telephone or inter ...

World TV Best News Entertainment (abbreviated as BNE) is a New Zealand television, radio and print media company specialising in media for Asian migrants and Asian language communities. It operates TV28, a free-to-air television channel on the Freeview ( ...

's Chinese channels CTV8 and TV9 and the Christian channels Firstlight and Hope Channel. Kordia locally inserted channels were from 30 to 34 which for the Waikato and Bay of Plenty is tvCentral, for Rotorua are TV Rotorua and Info-Rotorua, for Auckland is TV33 and for Whangarei is Channel North. Freeview audio only radio channels were from 36 to 39 which includes BaseFM.

Former digital H.222 transport (now closed)

References

External links