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TVNZ’s Kevin Kenrick says new channel isn’t only for blokes

TVNZ is looking to offer advertisers a means by which to reach male audiences through a new free-to-air TV channel.

“It’s born out of the realisation that there’s an unmet need in the market,” says TVNZ chief executive Kevin Kenrick. “Free-to-air skews toward female viewers globally and that’s also true of New Zealand.”

Kenrick says early reports on the channel created the impression that the new channel would be overtly blokey and exclude Kiwi women, but he says this isn’t the case at all.

“The usual split with programming is 60-40 with a female skew, and this will just be the reverse of that.”

He says there will be a lot of content that appeals to both men and women on the channel.

Kenrick says that the decision to launch the new channel has been informed by research, but also by the success of some of the sports pop-up channels TVNZ has been running in recent months.

While sport will certainly play an important role in the programming lineup, he says it will not be limited to this and that the new channel will also feature drama, comedy, factual titles and movies.

Another important aspect of the channel is that it will be streamed online, allowing audiences to tune in across TV, desktop and mobile screens.

In addition to providing a more convenient viewing experience (particularly when live sports are screening during the workday), Kenrick says the cross-platform approach will simplify the ad selling process.

He says that a unified CPM approach will mean that TVNZ is able to simultaneously monetise both its TV and online audience.

This ties in to comments TVNZ commercial director Jeremy O’Brien recently made to NZ Marketing.

“For too long the industry has struggled with misaligned currency (tarps versus measurement), misaligned definitions of audiences (people versus browsers) and misaligned standards across the methodologies to capture and report who is watching what, when,” O’brien said.

“Wouldn’t it be great if we had one common base measurement unit across all media? We could then easily and transparently compare the number of unique people that our messages were reaching and the speed at which that reach was being delivered. Even better, imagine a world where as an advertiser you could accurately follow actual people across media formats. That would help you avoid unnecessary duplication of your messaging.”

In some ways, the launch of the new channel will provide a means by which TVNZ is able to test the approach before introducing it across other properties in the business.

More details about the channel will be released closer to the launch date. 

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