TVNZ To Invest In Lower Hutt

TVNZ is to construct a new, purpose-designed, home for its New Zealand Television Archive at Avalon Studios in Lower Hutt.

The half million films and tapes of the Television Archive collection comprise New Zealand Television shows from the 1960s to yesterday and currently occupy 8.6 kilometers of shelf space at temporary quarters in Lower Hutt.

The Television Archive is a production library. Its role is to license the reuse of images and sound in new productions. It serves markets throughout the world and its footage is seen in international shows like Star Trek, as well as local productions.

Films and videotapes disintegrate if they are not kept in a stable, dry environment. The Television Archive's new home will be a secure cool vault, entered through air locks, with designated space for film and tape. It will be large enough to house at least another twenty years of local production.

The facility exists to serve the film and television industry and has been designed in consultation with Archives New Zealand, with whom the Television Archive have developed a close relationship.

Whilst up to a million people a night see images from the Television Archive collection on the country's television channels, the Archive has had limited facilities to host the groups and individuals who visit. The new building is designed to alleviate this problem.

The New Zealand Television Archive's new building will be complete by Christmas and the collection and staff expect to move in by the end of March 2002.

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For further information contact: Alan Ferris General Manager New Zealand Television Archive Phone: 64 (04) 914 5303 Fax: 64 (04) 914 5319 E Mail: ferrisa@tvnz.co.nz

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