25 Years was a three-and-a-half-hour television special that began at 7:30pm, June 1, 1985, on Television New Zealand's TV ONE channel.[1]

The special was held to celebrate the 25th anniversary of television in New Zealand and was hosted by a variety of well known New Zealand celebrities, both past and present, particularly Dougal Stevenson.[1] The special was memorable for the return to TV of three New Zealand television icons - Ginette McDonald (as her alter ego Lyn Of Tawa) and the return of the cast of South Pacific Television's highly successful comedy series A Week Of It starring lead comedians David McPhail and Jon Gadsby.

At the time 25 Years was the first programme to be given a 3hr time slot, although eventually it ran overtime to three and a half hours.

DVD and Video

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To date, Television New Zealand has not released the special on either video or DVD. Bootleg copies were sold through newspaper classifieds in the 80's, but are nowadays harder to find.

Book

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Later in the year a highly successful book, New Zealand Television: The First 25 Years (Reed Methuen, 1985, ISBN 978-0474000102) was released written by Robert Boyd-Bell and detailed the full history of television in the country. The book also contained many photos and featured the various network I.D.'s.[2]

The book can be found nowadays in second hand bookstores.

References

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  1. ^ a b "25 Years of Television, 1985 (Documentary)". NZ On Screen. Retrieved 25 September 2014.
  2. ^ Robert Boyd-Bell. "New Zealand television, the first 25 years". Amazon.com. Retrieved 25 September 2014.