During the course of the Bill through the House of Representatives in the session of 1961, provision was made for the establishment of privately owned stations and, although strongly opposed by the Labour Opposition, this became part of the Act.
The tremendous appeal of television was demonstrated by the fact that in the first three-year period of development the number of licence holders reached a total of 275,000 (November 1964).
However, for urgent news video, it was possible to link the two stations in each island using Post Office Telephone Department (now Chorus) coaxial toll lines at the expense of a number of voice channels.
[citation needed] The most notable example of the unlinked facilities was when the inter-island ferry TEV Wahine sank in Wellington Harbour on 10 April 1968 – newscasts of the disaster had to be transmitted over Post Office lines by WNTV1 to AKTV2 in Auckland.
However, due to the storm disrupting both shipping and flights for a further 24 hours, the first video of the sinking crossed Cook Strait via regular transmissions from WNTV1 and was received on a privately owned television set in Blenheim, at the top of the South Island some 80 km line-of-sight distance from Wellington.
This Blenheim film appears to be the only surviving footage of the first day, and it shows part of the television set that the camera was pointed at.
Footage of the Moon landing was recorded on video tape at the Australian Broadcasting Commission's ABN-2 in Sydney, then rushed by an RNZAF English Electric Canberra to Wellington and WNTV1.
Due to a shortage of microwave links, the network was completed by "off air" hops, where a 100 kW regional transmitter was received and re-transmitted by another.
For instance, the Te Aroha regional transmitter for Hamilton could be switched away from Auckland programming to relay off-air, the Wellington signal coming up the country.
Colour television, using the phase alternating line (PAL) system, was introduced on 31 October 1973,[7] in preparation for the 1974 British Commonwealth Games, held in Christchurch the following February.