From 1960 until the end of 2008, 202 Gloucester Street in Christchurch was home to TVNZ's South Island studios, 3 & 4.
In the last few years of the studio's life, it played host to the iconic kids show 'What Now', which had a permanent set inside the main studio (and even converting former set-storage and workshop areas into extra studio sets). But at the end of 2008, the production moved into a new studio complex in Addington, and the Gloucester Street studios were decommissioned.
Production studio to open soon
Press, Volume Cxi, Issue 32701, 2 September 1971, Page 4
The most up-to-date television production studio in New Zealand will |be fully commissioned in Christchurch on Monday. Known as Studio Four, it is part of the corporation’s television complex in Gloucester Street.
The studio was built about three years ago and since has been used for limited productions. But six months ago corporation designers and engineers in Christchurch began a development programme that will raise Studio Four above anything else offering at the moment. Studio Four, with its multiplicity of lighting equipment capable of producing the equivalent of 100,000 watts, is about 2700 square feet in area.
Three new Image Orthicon cameras glide across meticulously polished floors; lights vary in their intensity according to a light memory control system up on the mezzanine floor, This light memory control system is just one of a number of features that place Studio Four above all others. All lighting requirements for a production are pre-selected and at the push of a button are brought into effect. It is all made possible by a “brain” made up of about 100,000 transistors. This equipment was designed and built by the N.Z.B.C.
The nerve centre is the production control room, with its eight monitors and back-lit panelling to provide standard references for the producer and his secretary, vision mixer, technical producer, camera Control operator and lighting director. The corporation expects to step up TV production in
(Christchurch, and Studio 2 Four will be the focal point for this. But its commissioning on Monday will also mean greater use being made of Studio Three, from which “The South Tonight" comes live every evening.
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