‘Cheers’ to 50 years of television

For the past month, the theme song from the long-running American sitcom “Cheers” has been playing over and over in my head. If you’ve forgotten, here are the lyrics:

Sometimes you want to go
Where everybody knows your name (dah-dah-dah),
and they're always glad you came.

The song has been used in daily commercials promoting the 50th anniversary of television’s New Zealand debut June 1, 1960. TV celebrities, sports figures and politicians are seen in short clips singing (or lip-synching) the words.

Television came late to New Zealand. Britain had experimental TV broadcasts in the 1930s, and commercial stations on the East Coast of the United States presented several hours of evening programming in the 1940s. (Many western cities, including Spokane and Boise, didn’t get TV until the FCC lifted its freeze on new licenses in 1952.)

The June 1, 1960, broadcast was seen only in Auckland. It took four months before Christchurch’s station went on the air, followed by those in Wellington and Dunedin. A network linked the four major cities in 1969, which allowed the first national news broadcast. All broadcasts were in black and white until 1973.

Programmers drew heavily on American and British comedies and dramas to fill prime-time hours, and still do. Viewers now see a handful of original New Zealand series, including a soap opera called Shortland Street, a knock-off of the UK's Coronation Street. But the longest-running NZ show (on the air since 1966) is a half-hour agricultural program called Country Calendar, which airs on Saturday evening right after the national news. Here’s the synopsis for the most recent show: “Two innovative brothers boost apple growing in South Canterbury.”

The New Zealand government owns TV New Zealand, which operates two of the over-the-air commercial channels. There hasn’t been true “public television” – along the lines of the BBC or PBS – since 1988 when a deregulating government dissolved the Broadcasting Corporation of New Zealand. A requirement that TVNZ pay an annual dividend to the government submerged public-service broadcasting to commercial pressures.

TVNZ marked the 50th anniversary with a hokey two-hour quiz show last week, which drew large audiences but jeers from critics hoping for something with more substance. That function apparently will be served by a seven-part documentary on the rival Prime TV, owned by Rupert Murdoch’s Sky satellite network.

Even so, the anniversary week provided plenty of opportunities for Kiwis to look back at TV’s early years, including the Goodnight Kiwi (pictured above). Before 24-hour programming began in 1994, this animated short was shown at the end of each day’s broadcasts. The bird is depicted turning off the transmitter, putting out a milk bottle, and climbing into a satellite dish to go to sleep. Viewers were expected to do the same.