ALT TV was a New Zealand broadcast, privately owned and operated 24-hour live-to-air music TV, which aired from 2006 to 2009 and was seen on SKY Digital channel 065. In March 2009, the company was placed into liquidation and the channel is now completely off-air.
ALT TV's most recent slogan was 'Know Good Television.' Their previous slogan was 'Actual Music Television.'
Created by Thane Kirby (founder of George FM) and Ricky Newby (creator of Deep Hard 'n Funky), it was launched in Auckland on UHF channel 62 on 14 November 2005. The television station also debuted on SKY Digital Channel 36 on Friday, 1 December 2006, moving to SKY Digital Channel 65 on 1 March 2007. As of early 2009 it was under new management. On 4 March 2009 Sky TV stopped transmitting the channel over its digital satellite (DVB-S) service replacing it with an image stating that ALT TV is no longer available in Sky Digital. The last song played to air was 'The End' by The Doors. While the Sky feed ceased, the web streams were still operational at this time. On 18 March 2009, a liquidator was appointed and ALT TV placed into liquidation. Then on 27 March 2009, the liquidators first report stated: "Reason for failure: substantial and consistent trading losses sustained". Finally on 28 March 2009, ALT's website went offline along with the FLV streaming indexers.
ALT TV catered for the alternative demographic which some consider a response to the growing commercialism in other New Zealand Music channels such as C4 and MTV. ALT TV supported niche musical genres as well as alternative rock, indie, old school Rap & hip-hop, heavy metal, blues, Soul, funk, jazz, alt country, punk, hard rock, glam rock, 1980s, house, drum n bass and classic rock.