Best News Entertainment (abbreviated as BNE) is a

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

radio Radio is the technology of communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 3 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmitter connec ...

and

print media Mass media include the diverse arrays of media that reach a large audience via mass communication. Broadcast media transmit information electronically via media such as films, radio, recorded music, or television. Digital media comprises b ...

company specialising in media for Asian migrants and Asian language communities. It operates and three 24-hour radio networks through

terrestrial radio Radio broadcasting is the broadcasting of audio (sound), sometimes with related metadata, by radio waves to radio receivers belonging to a public audience. In terrestrial radio broadcasting the radio waves are broadcast by a land-based radio ...

. It previously operated TV32, a free-to-air television channel on the

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 ...

platform. The radio stations,

AM936 Chinese Voice () is a Cantonese, Mandarin and English language radio network based in Auckland, New Zealand. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of Best News Entertainment, an Asian language television, print and radio company, and consists of three ...

Chinese Radio FM 99.4 Chinese Voice () is a Cantonese, Mandarin and English language radio network based in Auckland, New Zealand. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of Best News Entertainment, an Asian language television, print and radio company, and consists of three ...

and

Chinese Radio FM 104.2 Chinese Voice () is a Cantonese, Mandarin and English language radio network based in Auckland, New Zealand. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of Best News Entertainment, an Asian language television, print and radio company, and consists of three ...

, broadcast a combination of Hong Kong and Chinese programmes, and local music, parenting and talkback shows. The company was known as World TV from its formation in 2000 until 2021, when it was acquired by new owners. In December 2005, the company claimed to have 11,500 subscribers across the country for its seven channels of Chinese, Taiwanese and Hong Kong programmes. In 2009, the company claimed 20,000 people received its World TV subscriber magazine. World TV's largest shareholder is Taiwanese resident Fun-nu Tsai with a 19 percent stake; chief executive Henry Ho owns 15 percent of the company and 11 other investors also have shares. The company's income is now evenly shared between advertising and subscription fees.

History

2000-2004

World TV launched in June 2000 to take advantage of the infrastructure and viewing quality of the Sky TV digital platform that had been launched the year before. Through its ongoing partnership with Sky, it has continued to provide entertainment, educational and cultural programming to new migrants, New Zealand-born

Chinese New Zealander Chinese New Zealanders (; ) or Sino-New Zealanders are New Zealanders of Chinese ancestry. The largest subset of Asian New Zealanders, many of the Chinese immigrants came from Mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, or other countries that have lar ...

s and other speakers and learners of

standard Mandarin Standard Chinese ( zh, s=现代标准汉语, t=現代標準漢語, p=Xiàndài biāozhǔn hànyǔ, l=modern standard Han speech) is a modern Standard language, standard form of Mandarin Chinese that was first codified during the Republic of ...

throughout the country. The company's mission has been to help new generations of Asian New Zealanders retain their language and cultural identity through quality programming, up-to-date information, imported entertainment and local community news. World TV attracted the attention of other media in 2002, for an interview by Rod Peng on the Face to Face programme with

New Zealand First New Zealand First (), commonly abbreviated to NZ First or NZF, is a political party in New Zealand, founded and led by Winston Peters, who has served three times as Deputy Prime Minister of New Zealand, deputy prime minister. The party has form ...

leader

Winston Peters Winston Raymond Peters (born 11 April 1945) is a New Zealand politician. He has led the political party New Zealand First since he founded it in 1993, and since November 2023 has served as the 25th Minister of Foreign Affairs (New Zealand), ...

. Peters claimed most migrants from the past 30 years would agree the volume of new migrants coming into the country could be a cause of "discord, violence and racism". Peters also used the appearance to accuse other media of misrepresenting him as anti-Asian, because of what he called an unprofessional focus on emotions rather than facts. He argued he was instead an advocate for new migrants being settled, employed and integrated in small numbers. Peng described Peters as a "very capable politician" with a "very big communication problem". Between November 2003 and December 2004, Touch China TV also made an attempt to target Chinese-speaking audiences with a two-hour afternoon slot on music channel C4. A

University of Otago The University of Otago () is a public university, public research university, research collegiate university based in Dunedin, Otago, New Zealand. Founded in 1869, Otago is New Zealand's oldest university and one of the oldest universities in ...

study put the station's closure down to its failure to combine local content and Chinese programming in a way that gave it a point of difference to transnational broadcasters geared at new English-as-second-language migrants.

2004–

The company expanded into radio, setting up Auckland-based radio stations Real Good Life (now

) in 2004, New Supremo (now

) in 2004, and Radio 9 (now

) in 2010. In 2004, it set up wholly owned subsidiary Chinese Voice Broadcasting to operate the stations on a day-to-day basis. In 2006, World TV added three channels to serve Korean and Japanese language communities. In August 2007, CTV8, the first 24-hour free-to-air Chinese television channel, joined the service - initially as an analogue channel and later as part of the Freeview line-up. English-language television channel TV9 began broadcasting on Freeview in February 2012, combining imported programmes with simulcasts of Chinese Radio shows. Chief executive Henry Ho said the introduction of specialist English-language broadcasting was a reflection of growing demand for information about Asia, strengthening trading and cultural ties between Asia and New Zealand, and New Zealanders becoming increasingly interested in Asia. The Chinese media market is very competitive, despite the closure of several Asian media outlets.

Asia Downunder Asia Downunder was a television magazine programme, formerly known as Asia Dynamic, reporting on activities of Asians in New Zealand and New Zealand Asians abroad which ran from 1994 to 2011. Its target audience was the Asian population in New Zea ...

, the country's only programme specifically targeted towards Asian communities, broadcast on TV One between 1994 and 2008. Limited Chinese programming aired on local Auckland channel

Triangle TV Face TV (previously Triangle Television) is a public service television station based in Auckland, New Zealand. Since August 1998. It broadcasts on the Sky Network as of December 2013 Analog switchoff, ASO. Previously, Triangle has broadcast ...

in the early 2000s through commercial operation Golden Raindrop TV. On 19 January 2016 Sky announced the World TV channels 300-309 will cease transmission from 1 March 2016.

Free-to-air television

Best News Entertainment operates a New Zealand free-to-air television channel, transmitted by

Kordia Kordia is a New Zealand state-owned enterprise. It provides a range of services, including connectivity, cloud and cyber security services, as well as managed IT, field services, broadcast and safety of life communications. Kordia owns and op ...

via DVB

64-QAM Quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) is the name of a family of digital modulation methods and a related family of analog modulation methods widely used in modern telecommunications to transmit information. It conveys two analog message signa ...

TV32

TV32, formerly known as CTV8 (CTV ;

pinyin Hanyu Pinyin, or simply pinyin, officially the Chinese Phonetic Alphabet, is the most common romanization system for Standard Chinese. ''Hanyu'' () literally means 'Han Chinese, Han language'—that is, the Chinese language—while ''pinyin' ...

''bā''), WTV28 and TV28 is a

free-to-air Free-to-air (FTA) services are television (TV) and radio services broadcast in unencrypted form, allowing any person with the appropriate receiving equipment to receive the signal and view or listen to the content without requiring a subscri ...

regional television channel in

Auckland Auckland ( ; ) is a large metropolitan city in the North Island of New Zealand. It has an urban population of about It is located in the greater Auckland Region, the area governed by Auckland Council, which includes outlying rural areas and ...

. It launched in August 2007 on UHF Channel 62 and broadcast 24 hours a day to the

urban region. TV32 has made history in New Zealand as the first Chinese national television channel to be launched. The channel was later made available nationwide via

terrestrial originally on Freeview Channel 28, with the UHF signal switched off during 2012 and 2013. The station is predominantly in Mandarin with some Cantonese and limited English content. It also simulcasts New Supremo radio programmes. The channel is targeted at the rapidly growing Chinese population in the

urban region (approx. 105,000 Chinese) and for people who are interested in

Mandarin Mandarin or The Mandarin may refer to: Language * Mandarin Chinese, branch of Chinese originally spoken in northern parts of the country ** Standard Chinese or Modern Standard Mandarin, the official language of China ** Taiwanese Mandarin, Stand ...

. The Schedule includes a variety of Infotainment news, dramas, lifestyle talkshows and much more. News is broadcast direct-live from Phoenix News. Most programs are made in The Greater China Region of

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

Hong Kong Hong Kong)., Legally Hong Kong, China in international treaties and organizations. is a special administrative region of China. With 7.5 million residents in a territory, Hong Kong is the fourth most densely populated region in the wor ...

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia. The main geography of Taiwan, island of Taiwan, also known as ''Formosa'', lies between the East China Sea, East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocea ...

and

Macau Macau or Macao is a special administrative regions of China, special administrative region of the People's Republic of China (PRC). With a population of about people and a land area of , it is the most List of countries and dependencies by p ...

. TV32 also broadcasts its daily morning programme (I Love New Zealand) at 7am and its afternoon programme (News Talk for Today) at 3pm. Its radio talk shows are free-to-watch on

TVNZ ondemand TVNZ+ (), formerly known as TVNZ OnDemand, is an over-the-top New Zealand television and video on demand streaming service offered by TVNZ. It offers a variety of free content, such as news updates and programmes seen on TVNZ channels. TVNZ+ o ...

for New Zealand residents. The channel also covers local Chinese community events, and provided delayed coverage of the Chinese New Year of the Dragon ceremony in 2012. It has also offered airtime to Korean-owned shopping channel YESSHOP. In April 2024, the channel was rebranded as TV32, coinciding with the move to Freeview Channel 32 from Channel 28.

Defunct

TV29

TV29, also known as Panda Channel 29 was a free mainstream English-language channel with a focus on Asian programming, broadcasting on Freeview 29 to take advantage of Freeview's larger capacity compared to conventional UHF broadcasting and the growing uptake of the platform. It targeted local Chinese communities and those interested in Chinese culture. The channel was available in Auckland, Tauranga, Waikato, Napier, Hastings, Palmerston North, New Plymouth, Wellington, Canterbury and Dunedin. It launched on 21 January 2012 Auckland's ASB Lunarfest and began broadcasting on 1 February that year as TV9. The station broadcast drama, news and current affairs from Hong Kong, Taiwan and mainland China, alongside a range of variety shows, world documentaries and infotainment programmes. Movies and dramas were broadcast with English subtitles, alongside international news, finance, politics and trade programmes from

CCTV Closed-circuit television (CCTV), also known as video surveillance, is the use of closed-circuit television cameras to transmit a signal to a specific place on a limited set of monitors. It differs from broadcast television in that the signa ...

including Asia Today, Biz Asia, Dialogue and China 24. The station also broadcast local programmes, including the Asia Focus talk show and TV29 News bulletins, hosted by station manager Julian Nixon. TV29 stopped broadcasting on 1 October 2021.

Radio

Chinese Voice ( zh, 華人之聲廣播電臺) is a

Cantonese Cantonese is the traditional prestige variety of Yue Chinese, a Sinitic language belonging to the Sino-Tibetan language family. It originated in the city of Guangzhou (formerly known as Canton) and its surrounding Pearl River Delta. While th ...

and

English language English is a West Germanic language that developed in early medieval England and has since become a English as a lingua franca, global lingua franca. The namesake of the language is the Angles (tribe), Angles, one of the Germanic peoples th ...

radio network There are two types of radio network currently in use around the world: the one-to-many (simplex communication) broadcast network commonly used for public information and mass media, mass-media entertainment, and the two-way radio (Duplex (teleco ...

, and wholly owned subsidiary of World TV It consists of three station set up between 2003 and 2010, which broadcast on terrestrial radio frequencies, on Sky TV and online. It produces more than 80 hours of local content for the stations each week, including live talkback on news stories, migrant issues, political developments and dealing with

New Zealand Government The New Zealand Government () is the central government through which political authority is exercised in New Zealand. As in most other parliamentary democracies, the term "Government" refers chiefly to the executive branch, and more specifica ...

agencies. The rest of the schedules are made up of imported talk and music programmes from

and

. Chinese Radio FM 99.4 ( zh, FM99.4中文電台), Auckland's only

Cantonese language Cantonese is the traditional prestige variety of Yue Chinese, a Sinitic languages, Sinitic language belonging to the Sino-Tibetan language family. It originated in the city of Guangzhou (formerly known as Canton) and its surrounding Pearl River ...

radio station, focuses on news and programmes from Hong Kong, but is also geared towards Cantonese-speaking communities from Canton, Singapore and Malaysia as well. AM936, New Zealand's only

-language radio station, aims to appeal to New Zealanders of Chinese heritage regardless of their age, class, gender, employment status occupation or interests. Chinese Radio FM 104.2, an

and

Chinese language Chinese ( or ) is a group of languages spoken natively by the ethnic Han Chinese majority and List of ethnic groups in China, many minority ethnic groups in China, as well as by various communities of the Chinese diaspora. Approximately 1.39& ...

radio station, broadcasts news with a Chinese worldview, information about modern China and documentaries about the modern world.

Other services

Festivals

World TV sponsors several major events in Auckland for the local Chinese and Asian community, which are often a focal point for political campaigning. During the 2011 election campaign, prime minister

John Key Sir John Phillip Key (born 9 August 1961) is a New Zealand retired politician who served as the 38th prime minister of New Zealand from 2008 to 2016 and as leader of the National Party from 2006 to 2016. Following his father's death when ...

Melissa Lee Melissa Ji-Yun Lee (; born 1966) is a New Zealand politician. She was elected to the House of Representatives as a list MP for the National Party in the 2008 election. She serves as the 11th Minister for Economic Development and 2nd Minister ...

and other

National Party National Party or Nationalist Party may refer to: Active parties * National Party of Australia, commonly known as ''The Nationals'' * Bangladesh: ** Bangladesh Nationalist Party ** Jatiya Party (Ershad) a.k.a. ''National Party (Ershad)'' * Californ ...

MPs campaigned at the World Spring Festival, alongside Labour Party candidates

David Cunliffe David Richard Cunliffe (born 30 April 1963) is a New Zealand management consultant and former politician who was Leader of the New Zealand Labour Party and Leader of the Opposition (New Zealand), Leader of the Opposition from September 2013 to ...

Phil Goff Philip Bruce Goff (born 22 June 1953) is a New Zealand retired politician and former diplomat. He was a member of the New Zealand Parliament from 1981 to 1990 and again from 1993 to 2016. He served as Leader of the New Zealand Labour Party, le ...

, Raymond Huo and Susan Zhu. Key used the opportunity to praise the Chinese community for its contribution to the economy, while Cunliffe reminded the audience that the New Zealand–China Free Trade Agreement had been signed under Labour's watch. The Year of the Dragon ASB Lunarfest in 2012 also had World TV sponsorship. The flower market festival of culture, magic, pop music and fireworks was televised on World TV networks, and was the official launch event of TV9.

Website and social media

World TV's

iStars portal was set up in 2011. It includes news, classified advertising, games, health and games in both traditional and simplified Chinese. It also features games, on-demand video and live streams from the company's TV and radio stations, and an online forum for New Zealand's Chinese community. The site pays particular attention to news from Auckland, and has featured exclusive interviews with mayor

Len Brown Leonard Charles Brown (born 1 October 1956)) is a former mayor of Auckland, New Zealand, and former head of the Auckland Council. He won the 2010 Auckland mayoral election on 9 October 2010 and was sworn in as Mayor of Auckland on 1 November 2 ...

. The official multilingual World TV website was set up in 2001, and was redesigned the site in 2005, 2007, 2009, 2014 and 2015. World TV has also produced a

mobile app A mobile application or app is a computer program or software application designed to run on a mobile device such as a smartphone, phone, tablet computer, tablet, or smartwatch, watch. Mobile applications often stand in contrast to desktop appli ...

, and is active on

Weibo Weibo (), or Sina Weibo (), is a Chinese microblogging ( weibo) website. Launched by Sina Corporation on 14 August 2009, it is one of the biggest social media platforms in China, with over 582 million monthly active users (252 million daily ac ...

WeChat WeChat or Weixin in Chinese ( zh, c=微信, p=Wēixìn , l=micro-message) is an instant messaging, social media, and mobile payment mobile app, app developed by Tencent. First released in 2011, it became the world's largest standalone mobile a ...

and

Facebook Facebook is a social media and social networking service owned by the American technology conglomerate Meta Platforms, Meta. Created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with four other Harvard College students and roommates, Eduardo Saverin, Andre ...

Discontinued pay television channels

World TV previously operated ten channels through a subscription-only service on Sky TV. These channels were discontinued in March 2016

Korean

Two Korean channels had broadcast from August 2007 to March 2016. KTV1 (Sky 300) relayed popular

KBS World KBS World () is the international broadcasting division of the South Korean broadcast television network Korean Broadcasting System. The division operates KBS World TV, KBS World Radio, and . History The foreign-language radio broadcast from ...

Korean language entertainment, news, sport, culture, music, documentary, drama and children's programmes and finance reports.

3 News ''Newshub'' (stylised as Newshub.) was a New Zealand news service that operated from 1989 to 2024 and served as the local news division of Warner Bros. Discovery New Zealand until its closure. The division, known as ''3 News'' until 2016, had ...

also broadcast with Korean subtitles on weekday evenings. KTV2 (Sky 301) broadcast a mix of popular MBC and SBS Korean language television channels. MBC supplied news, sport, culture, music, documentary, drama, children's programming and finance reports, while SBS supplied well-known dramas. With a steady increase in Korean migrants since 1998, Korean is the third most widely spoken Asian language in New Zealand. World TV's Korean channels connected the close-knit Korean language community, alongside radio stations, schools and churches.Kim, J., & Starks, D. (2005). Language diaries: A case study of language use in the New Zealand Korean community. Languages of New Zealand, 343-369.

Japanese

World TV had offered one Japanese channel from August 2007 to March 2016. JTV (Sky 302) featured news, sport, culture, documentary, drama, music, finance report and children's programmes from

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

ese state-owned television network

NHK World Premium NHK World Premium is a TV news and entertainment broadcasting service offered by NHK World-Japan, the international arm of Japan's public broadcaster NHK. The service is aimed towards Japanese Diaspora and the overseas market, similar to worldwi ...

. It also provided a NHK world radio 24-hour service through the sub-audio system.

Chinese and Taiwanese

Seven Chinese and Taiwanese channels had been included on World TV's Sky TV line-up from 2000 to March 2016. CTV1 (Sky 303) included Cantonese entertainment and information, finance and business reports from TVBJ,

ATV ATV may refer to: Broadcasting * Amateur television *Analog television Television broadcaster * Andorra Televisió * Anguilla Television * Ayna TV, Afghanistan * ATV (Armenia) * ATV (Aruba), NBC affiliate * ATV (Australian TV station), Melbourn ...

RTHK Radio Television Hong Kong (RTHK) is the public broadcasting service of Hong Kong. GOW, the predecessor to RTHK, was established in 1928 as the first broadcasting service in Hong Kong. As a government department under the Commerce and Econom ...

and I-Cable TV. There were also movies from

Celestial Movies Celestial Movies (天映频道) is an Asian 24-hour Chinese movie channel, which screens films from and shows interviews with movie stars and directors, entertainment news and film award ceremonies. The channel is available in 11 territories ac ...

and broadcasts of

with Chinese subtitles every evening. CTV2 (Sky 304) was a variety show channel in

with programmes from ETTV,

Chung T'ien Television Chung T'ien Television (CTi TV; ), is a nationwide cable TV network based in Taiwan. It belongs to Want Want China Times group, which also owns China Television (CTV). History Founded in 1994, CTi TV was originally called the Chinese Television ...

, Jet TV, TVBSN,

TVBS TVBS Media Inc. (), formerly Liann Yee Production Co., Ltd. () is a Taiwanese commercial television broadcasting company. It was originally established as a joint venture between Hong Kong television network TVB and Taiwanese network Era Televisio ...

Azio TV Azio TV ( zh, 1=年代東風), also known as Asia Plus or Xingya, is a satellite cable channel operated by Era Television in Taiwan. The station has a Taiwan-specific channel and an "Asian market" channel. which provides broadcasting through pa ...

, Unique Business TV,

CTV Television Network The CTV Television Network, commonly known as CTV, is a Television in Canada, Canadian English-language terrestrial television network. Launched in 1961 and acquired by BCE Inc. in 2000, CTV is Canada's largest privately owned List of Canadian ...

, STV of

and local productions such as local news programme. CTV3 (Sky 305) was a Taiwan-based channel in

. This channel brought together prime-time dramas and variety shows from FTV, SETI, ETTV, CTI, Da-Ai TV, TVB 8, and STV. CTV4 (Sky 306) was a

channel of daily news, business and finance reports, sport, culture, documentary, variety shows and dramas sourced from the Phoenix TV Chinese Channel of Hong Kong. CTV5 (307) was a Chinese drama channel in

. This channel screened the latest dramas from Monday to Friday with classical movies and dramas for Saturday and Sunday. Dramas come from the TVB Xing He channel in

, and individual producers from

Shanghai Shanghai, Shanghainese: , Standard Chinese pronunciation: is a direct-administered municipality and the most populous urban area in China. The city is located on the Chinese shoreline on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the ...

and

Beijing Beijing, Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Peking, is the capital city of China. With more than 22 million residents, it is the world's List of national capitals by population, most populous national capital city as well as ...

. CTV6 (Sky 308) was a

channel mainly broadcasting the state-owned

CCTV-4 CCTV-4 is a Chinese free-to-air television channel. It is one of six China Central Television channels that broadcasts outside of China. It airs a variety of programmes, including documentaries, music, news, drama series, sports and children's ...

of China. CTV7 (Sky 309) was a

channel formed by

Hunan Broadcasting System Hunan Broadcasting System (HBS) () formerly known as Golden Eagle Broadcasting System (GBS), is China's second biggest State media, state-owned television network after China Central Television (CCTV). The television network is owned by the Huna ...

and Phoenix TV Info News Channel.

References

{{TVB Television channels and stations established in 2000