Triangle grabbing bigger slice of TV market

Triangle Television is attracting a rapidly growing number of viewers in the Auckland market, the latest Neilsen Media cumulative audience figures reveal.

The survey returned cumulative audience of more than 403,000 viewers for the month of October for Triangle.

Jim Blackman, founder and chief executive of Triangle and its digital platform sister channel Stratos, says considering Triangle is broadcast only on UHF frequency, requiring viewers to have a UHF aerial to receive it clearly, the numbers compare extremely well to other popular channels that are on satellite platforms.

“For the audience reach to have grown to this level in Auckland means that our programming has growing appeal to a wide range of people,” Jim Blackman says.

Triangle, which is celebrating its 10th year on air in Auckland, is well known for being the channel that broadcasts material for and with ethnic, cultural and sporting communities throughout the country. It has a strong Pacific Island following, as well as niche audiences such as the small Ghanaian community.

But its reputation is also growing throughout New Zealand, together with Stratos, for being the channel that offers alternative views on world news. The channels screen news and current affairs services in English from Al Jazeerah, Euro News, Deutsche Welle (DW), Voice of America, PBS, McLaughlin Group (US politics), Frost over the World (David Frost) and Tongan, Fijian, Italian, Dutch, Spanish, French, Swiss, Flemish, Greek, Russian, Chinese, Thai and Japanese language news.

Blackman says with the access to such a variety of award-winning news services Triangle and Stratos have instant access to breaking news around the world.

“We are able to instantly switch to Al Jazeerah, Voice of America or DW should something of worldwide significance happen, which allows us to provide local and meaningful perspectives,” he says. “It is always fascinating to see how fast these channels can respond to world events compared to the usual coverage from the US or UK that New Zealanders have had served up for years. It has certainly attracted admiration from some of New Zealand’s serious media.”

The Neilsen Media cumulative audience research measures the non-duplicated audience for one or a series of TV programmes or time periods