Eden (New Zealand TV channel)

Eden (stylized as eden and formerly known as Choice TV) is a privately owned, national free-to-air television channel in New Zealand and has been on air since 2012. The channel features programs on topics such as: lifestyle, news, travel, reality, movies, entertainment, comedy, game shows and drama.

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Eden

Country	New Zealand
Headquarters	Auckland, New Zealand
Programming
Language(s)	English
Picture format	1080i HDTV (downscaled to 16:9 576i for the SDTV feed)
Timeshift service	Eden+1
Ownership
Owner	Warner Bros. Discovery International
Parent	Warner Bros. Discovery New Zealand
Sister channels	Animal Planet Bravo Cartoon Network Discovery Discovery Turbo HGTV ID Living Rush Three TLC
History
Launched	As Choice TV 28 April 2012 (2012-04-28) Relaunch as eden 21 March 2022 (2022-03-21)
Former names	Choice TV
Links
Website	Official site
Availability
Terrestrial
DVB 64-QAM on band V

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The channel and its sister network HGTV New Zealand were acquired by Discovery, Inc. (now Warner Bros. Discovery) in 2019. On 21 March 2022, Choice TV was rebranded as Eden. Also, on 21 March 2022 Eden+1 was launched.^[1]

Choice TV was launched on 28 April 2012, at 5 p.m. It was created and co-founded by Alex Breingan, Julia Baylis, Laurie Clarke and Vincent Burke.^[2] It is broadcast nationally on the Freeview digital TV network Channel 12 and on Sky Channel 13.

Vodafone also carries the channel for their IPTV subscribers. According to the Nielsen ratings, the channel's four-week cumulative audience is about 1.8 million people since January 2014 - New Zealand's population being 4.8 million.^{[3][4][5][6][7][8][9]}

The January 2013 season began with exclusive content including ITV Granada's Jonathan Ross Show and Sony Pictures Television's made-for-TV movie series Jesse Stone, starring Tom Selleck. During March 2013, Sony Pictures Television aired the short-lived ABC sitcom Mr. Sunshine and the daytime drama Days of Our Lives, which had been discontinued by TVNZ two years earlier when its contract with Sony Pictures expired. Days of Our Lives picks up from the 2011 season (season 47), 1+1⁄2 seasons behind the then-current United States' NBC season. TVNZ had previously been more than five years behind the United States's programming. From April to August 2013, reruns of the Sony Pictures Television 1996 drama Early Edition aired weekdays and was then replaced by the ITV Granada show Wild at Heart. The show Being Erica, distributed by BBC Worldwide and produced by CBC, began airing on Saturday, 10 August 2013. From September 2013, Choice TV started playing the second season of the Australian TV comedy Twenty Something.

Days of Our Lives went on a summer hiatus until 10 February 2014, just before the end of season 47. The last few episodes aired on Friday, 20 December 2013 and Sunday, 22 December 2013. On 25 April 2014, Choice TV announced that they would suspend their decision to order more seasons of Days of Our Lives. Being Erica's second season premiered on 23 January 2014 in the daytime weekday slot while Days of Our Lives was off-air. Vexed's second season premiered in late March 2014 for New Zealand viewers. Choice TV also began playing Better Man in late May 2014.

In November 2014, Canada's Blue Ant Media bought a majority stake in Choice TV, marking the group's first international expansion.^{[10][11][12][13]}

In late 2019, the channel was acquired by Discovery, Inc., along with sister network HGTV New Zealand.^[14]

Choice TV On Demand closed in May 2021, and Choice TV programming was moved to ThreeNow.

On 10 November 2021, it was announced that Choice TV would be rebranded as Gusto in March 2022.^[15] However, shortly before launch the name Gusto was scrapped and changed to "eden"^[16] in order to avoid confusion with the former TVNZ OnDemand food channel of the same name. The rebranded channel would retain most of Choice's programming, with the major additions of Newshub Live at 8pm, an extension of Discovery New Zealand's news brand Newshub, and more drama programming.^[17][18][19] The channel would host British dramas, game shows, and "intelligent" movies including Changing Rooms, Big Family Farm, Finding Alice, and a new local show called Great Southern Truckers.

The Choice TV line-up included programs from the UK's BBC Worldwide, ITV Granada, Verve Productions, Zodiak Media, the Australian SBS, ABC, Fremantle Australia, as well as productions from Sony Pictures Television.

Together with Top Shelf Productions, Choice TV developed a local series which aired in the spring of 2014 on the channel's Thursday Food Night.^[20]

From 17 October 2014, Choice TV aired their own New Zealand gardening show, Get Growing, as well as a programme called Cook the Books, which first aired on 30 October 2014.^{[21][22][23][24]}

Eden+1 (stylized as eden+1) is a 1-hour timeshift channel. It was launched on 21 March 2022, replacing The Edge TV. eden+1 is available on Freeview Channel 18 and Sky Channel 505.