Can you remember this? Getting your first colour television? Wednesday 31 October 1973 saw the introduction of colour television using the Phase Alternating Line (PAL) system, in readiness for the 1974 British Commonwealth Games, which were to be held in Christchurch in January and February 1974. The final switchover for colour television was in December 1975. Early History of Television in New Zealand: Full-time television broadcasting was first introduced in New Zealand in 1960 and transmitted from the NZBC's existing 1YA radio broadcasting facility at 74 Shortland Street in Auckland, now home to the University of Auckland's Gus Fisher Gallery. The annual television licence fee was NZ£4. Prime Minister Walter Nash had made a surprise announcement (a surprise both to the NZBS and to other members of the Labour government) in London in November 1959 that New Zealand would have television within twelve months; the system was to be state-owned but to carry commercials, and would be introduced in stages in the four main centres. The first non-experimental programme was transmitted on Wednesday 1 June 1960. Initially, programming was done on a regional basis, with different services broadcasting from the main cities, AKTV2 in Auckland, being the first on 1 June 1960, followed in 1961 by CHTV3 in Christchurch on 1 June and WNTV1 in Wellington on 1 July, and then DNTV2 in Dunedin on 31 July 1962. Today, however, programming and scheduling is done in Auckland where all the major networks are now headquartered. National won the 1960 election, and the new Minister of Broadcasting, Arthur Kinsella in the new National government rewrote the Broadcasting Act of 1936, and set up the state-owned New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation (NZBC) in 1962 to control public radio and television (although the party had been polarised between having a state-owned, private enterprise or mixed system). The first broadcast relay stations were commissioned in 1963, extending television coverage to Hamilton, Tauranga and Palmerston North. Coverage was further expanded to Napier-Hastings and Invercargill in 1964, Timaru in 1965, and Whangarei and New Plymouth in 1966. Advertising was introduced to Aucklanders on 4 April 1961, and facilitated increasing transmission hours to twenty-eight per week. By 1962 there were 65,000 licences, by 1963 there were 80,000 licences and an estimated audience of 300,000 or one-eighth of the population, and by 1966 there were half a million licences. By the 1970s, almost every household had a set. Initially, the hours of transmission were from 5pm until close at about 10pm, later extending, in 1966, to 2pm opening. A test pattern was transmitted from 9am to allow for adjustment of TV sets in homes by technicians. It was not until 1969 that the four stations were networked; the NZBC's first live network news bulletin was read by Dougal Stevenson on Wednesday 5 November. The NZBC had asked the Government for the approval of a second TV channel as early as 1964, but this was rejected as the Government considered increasing coverage of the existing TV service to be of greater priority. By 1971, however, two proposals for a second channel were under consideration: that of the NZBC for a non-commercial service; and a separate commercial channel to be operated by an Independent Television Corporation, headed by Gordon Dryden. Although the Broadcasting Authority had favoured the Independent Television Corporation bid, the incoming Labour government favoured the NZBC's application and awarded it the licence without any formal hearings beforehand. (Eventually, Independent Television was awarded NZ$50,000 in compensation.) (Source - Wikipedia)