Dunedin regional television is about to grow up.
From today, Channel 9 becomes Channel 39.
The station will rebrand to Channel 39 when it moves to the Freeview HD platform from tomorrow. The date is 39 days before the analogue signal is switched off, on April 28, ''We are rebranding the channel as Dunedin Television on Freeview channel 39,'' station chief executive Daryl Clarkson said.
The company had chosen the channel 39 position on the platform because it included the number nine and would ''hold the heritage'' of Channel 9.
The digital signal would be through the Mt Cargill transmission system and give the station a greater reach than ever before, reaching 111,240 viewers, Mr Clarkson said. The test loop signal started on Channel 39 on Freeview HD at 10am yesterday. Although the channel was on the HD platform, it would not be broadcast in high definition.
Viewers would only need a UHF antenna to receive the channel, Freeview-ready TV or set-top box.
The strength of regional television is its ability to react to news of the day, production manager Luke Chapman said.
''We cover as much as we can, at a grassroots level. If you want to know what's happened in Dunedin during the day and all the major issues, you see them first on Dunedin Television.
''The new platform will be great for us and our viewers. When people check our schedule and get our signal they'll be happy.''
The station has seven full-time staff, who have to be versatile.
''Everyone here has to be multitalented. The reporters are editing, voicing and helping in the studio with the camera,'' Mr Chapman said.
''Dee [Carran] started here as a volunteer. Then she was our transmission operator and full-time news camera and then she decided she wanted a crack at reporting. Now she's a full-time reporter. A lot of our staff get snapped up by the nationals.''
Former Channel 9 staff now plying their trade in the television networks include TV3 reporters Shaun Summerfield and Dave Goosselink and Prime TV's Clarke Gayford and Andrew Mulligan.
Television in Dunedin
The golden world of television was launched in Dunedin by the New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation with DNTV2 at 6.30pm on July 31, 1962. However, television was not immediately accessible to everyone, as a licence fee cost 4 per year (about $160 today) and a Bell 21'' TV Consolette sold for 149.10 (about $5935 today).
It was two years after the first official television transmission in New Zealand that Dunedin's first television presenter, Beverley Pollock, spoke into the washing machine-sized Marconi Mk4 television camera in the Garrison Hall studio in Dowling St.
The building is now home to Animation Research, Taylormade Media and The Video Factory.
That first day's broadcast in Dunedin concluded just four hours later, at 10.30pm, with a rousing version of God Save the Queen.
In April 1975, DNTV2 merged with Wellington based WNTV1 to form Television One, which was combined with Television Two to create Television New Zealand in 1980.
However, TVNZ began moving out of Dunedin in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
Channel 9 was originally established by Allied Press Ltd in 1997 as a tourist information channel, after the demise of the regional television network.
As Channel 39, it is still flying the flag for regional television in Dunedin.
