As most readers will know, after being on the market for some time, TV3 was finally bought by U.S. media company Discovery for the now disclosed amount of $20 million recently and the above question is the subject of this article on the Newsroom website.

Many see TV3 as just an alternate Legacy Media broadcaster to TVNZ and associate it with the annoyingly partisan (pro-Labour, anti-National) Newshub newshour and current affairs shows where political dominatrix Tova O’Brien and the equally irritating Jenna Lynch and Patrick Gower are regular features. Even the politically similar Newsroom says in the article: “Newshub’s underperformance, particularly at 6pm, is a problem Discovery will need to solve if it is to extract full value from increases in local programming after 7.30 pm.”

But Newshub a.k.a. TelePravda is only one aspect of what is a full fledged Free to Air channel which includes local programs — according to new boss Glen Kyne these are slated to be increased, and although entertainment like drama can be expensive to make, it also attracts bigger audiences. Having the backing of a big U.S. media company with plenty of cash should enable that.

“The first big change viewers will notice is the disappearance of Three Now (the old MediaWorks’ video on demand platform) and the arrival of Discovery’s new flagship streaming service Discovery +. No real surprise here, as acquiring a local launch pad for its digital ambitions was always likely to be the reason behind Discovery’s purchase of MediaWorks’ TV assets.

“Discovery+ is the US company’s response (albeit a slightly slow one) to the streaming revolution which has seen Netflix, Amazon Prime and Disney+ grab a huge share of the entertainment market. Discovery added some serious firepower to its own arsenal recently by merging with Warner Bros. The deal adds CNN and a host of top dramas, including Game of Thrones, to Discovery’s stable of reality TV, nature and crime shows.”

We’ll wait and see.