TV, radio team set to open studios

Television shows and news segments will soon be filmed and produced in Tauranga at the Grey St TV Studios.

The studios, run "just down the hall" from the NZ School of Radio, were the brainchild of a team of four long-serving television and radio personalities - Fred Stewart, Hamish Denton, Trevor Egerton and Matthew Minnell.

Mr Stewart has spent 28 years in television as an actor, while Mr Denton runs the radio school and has more than 20 years' experience in radio. Mr Egerton is the former chief executive of TV3 and helped re-establish Canterbury TV after the Christchurch earthquakes.

The four men banded together with their skills to create the studios, due to be finished in just under two weeks.

Mr Stewart said they had been working on the design and construction of the studio since before Christmas and the team was excited to try it out.

"A lot of the work goes back to Auckland for production, we thought it would be a good idea to have it here. We caught up with TV Central and we decided Tauranga needs a studio, so we decided to build it."

He said a lot of people had heard about the studio and were excited about it.

"Doing the work here instead of Auckland will create more jobs and TV presentation training."

Local businesses and organisations would also be able to make use of the studio for commercials and other opportunities, Mr Stewart said.

It would be a bonus having the radio school in the same building.

"It will be a benefit having the radio school just down the hall, we've got a recording studio here. It will be an integrated unit, all on one site."

They would also be producing a sports show locally, which would be broadcast on TV Central.

"We've also got a few other shows in the works, the equipment we've purchased is all state-of-the-art and we're full HD, so top quality."

Mr Stewart said they had worked with Tourism Bay of Plenty and spoken to local businesses about promoting the region. "Our focus is to give local businesses the opportunity to shoot locally instead of going to Auckland, or even Christchurch. It's going to be a whole lot of fun," he said.