A Seinfeld Feast to FAST On
September 1, 2025 
5 Comments
TVNZ today launched its fourth FAST channel, The Seinfeld Channel.
The new channel comes just days after TVNZ promised more Free Ad-Supported TV channels in 2026 after a slow roll-out this year.
This morning’s announcement was not only surprising in its timing but also the nature of the channel: a 24/7 showcase of a series that has aired repeatedly on TVNZ 2 since 1990 (it’s just started a second consecutive cycle of afternoon re-runs) and which is a staple on Netflix.
Said TVNZ when it launched its Bloomberg News and FIFA FAST channels:
The new FAST channels complement TVNZ+’s existing line up, and further FAST offerings will be sought based on their ability to provide TVNZ+’s 1.44 million strong audience with something unique, must-watch or binge-worthy.
A spokesperson at the time told ScreenScribe.tv: “News and sport are key content pillars for TVNZ, so when entering in to the FAST channels space, we wanted to add channels that complement our existing offering, but deliver something different and new for our viewers.”
Is devoting only its fourth FAST channel to a property like Seinfeld a departure from this strategy?
“We’ll always look for opportunities that are a point of difference, but if there are opportunities to serve audiences with popular content we’ll do that as well and Seinfeld falls into that bucket for us,” the spokesperson says.
“We’re interested in growing our offering … [but] setting up FAST channels involved a different set of content rights as well as curation and integration work at our end, so we won’t be launching a huge number of channels all at once. It does take time.”
Seinfeld streams in HD on TVNZ+ but not sequentially, with episodes seemingly running at random. For example, this afternoon S8E14 was followed by S5E1, S9E1, S3E20, S9E19, S6E7 … yadayadayada.
Wow riveting … I guess the FAST News Channel is dead in the water after that statement. Could they not team up with RNZ to launch a FAST News Channel? — Leo.
I’m curious how you would pay for this FAST news channel, Leo. Broadcasters here have cut back on news given the high cost of producing it. FAST channels exist to reversion content, not create original programming. I watched some of the Seinfeld channel tonight and thought it looks good. Early days and a positive step for TVNZ – Brian.
I was just thinking, they have all this news content that they could reuse on a FAST News channel with headlines in-between and a joint venture with RNZ with their many shows that could also help to fill content at hopefully next-to-no cost. — Leo.
TVNZ don’t really have that much news content these days to be able to recycle/reuse on a FAST News channel. In the past they had news bulletins every few hours (Breakfast, Midday, late afternoon, 6pm, late news) plus extensive and regularly updated online coverage. Now there’s nothing between the very patchy Breakfast “news” snippets and the 6pm bulletin and no late news. Plus the online news department has been decimated. Even a bare-bones operation partnering with RNZ would require a reasonable number of staff to operate a dedicated News channel, and the revenue potential (and viewing figures) for such an operation would be negligible. — Dave.
I disagree, I think there is a lot of content with Q&A, The Hui, Marae, Te Karere and Tangata Pasifika as well as many other shows to fill the 1News FAST channel. — Leo.