Prime is a New Zealand free-to-air television network. It airs a varied mix of programming, largely imported from Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States. It was originally owned by Prime Television Limited in Australia. Prime later entered into a joint-venture agreement with Nine Entertainment Co. (Nine Network Australia), causing the network's graphics to look like Nine Network. On 8 February 2006, the Commerce Commission gave Sky clearance to purchase the station for NZ$31 million. Prime's analogue terrestrial signals had covered 91% of the population via the state-owned Kordia transmission network. It is currently available free-to-air on Sky on satellite and Kordia on terrestrial. Vodafone also carry the channel for their cable subscribers. History During early 1998, the United Christian Broadcasters purchased 34 TV licences of UHF spectrum from TVNZ that had been used for the defunct Horizon Pacific and MTV channels. Then during June 1998, Prime Television Limited in Australia purchased the unused 34 TV licences from United Christian Broadcasters for approximately A$3.6 million. The licences covered all major cities and towns, mainly on UHF, except for the Gisborne area, which is served via a VHF signal. On 30 August 1998, Prime Television New Zealand began broadcasting at 6.30 pm with Two Fat Ladies. Originally the station broadcast classic British programming, documentaries, sports and dramas aimed at the 30 years and above age bracket. In Waikato and Christchurch, Prime produced a half-hour nightly news programme. Although these programmes rated well, they were unprofitable. In February 2002, Prime New Zealand entered into an agreement with Australian media mogul Kerry Packer's PBL (parent of the Nine Network). Under this five-year agreement, Nine agreed to provide the station with content it owned the rights to, expertise and an amount of cash. In return, Nine was given the right to acquire 54% of Prime New Zealand at the end of the contract. If Prime New Zealand continued to lose money, Nine could choose not to take this up. After this deal, Prime took on a broader and more expensive programming mix and axed the local content to cut costs. This increased ratings and profits significantly. This new format was modelled closely on the Global Television Network in Canada, whose parent company Canwest happened to own TV3 at the time. Almost immediately, some Australian programmes produced by Nine Network and shown on Prime NZ took on a slightly New Zealand flavour. For example,