Shortland Street | |
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Genre | Medical drama Soap opera |
Created by | Jason Daniel |
Directed by | Lauren Porteous Mana Epiha Emmett Skilton Curtis Vowell Mia Blake Jacqueline Nairn Ian Hughes Ghazaleh Golbakhsh Geoffrey Cawthorn[1] |
Starring | (Ensemble) |
Theme music composer | Graham Bollard |
Composers | Graham Bollard (1992–2019) Sam Watson (2019–2023) William Philipson (2023 – current) |
Country of origin | New Zealand |
Original language | English |
No. of seasons | 33 |
No. of episodes | 7,998 |
Production | |
Executive producers |
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Producers |
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Production locations | 8 Tolich Pl, Lincoln North, Auckland 0610 New Zealand |
Editors | Anna Benedikter Matthew Allison |
Camera setup | Multi-camera |
Running time | 30 minutes (inc. adverts) |
Production companies | South Pacific Pictures Grundy Television (1992–2006) Fremantle Australia (2006–present) |
Original release | |
Network | TVNZ 2 |
Release | 25 May 1992 present | –
Infobox instructions (only shown in preview) |
Shortland Street is a New Zealand prime-time soap opera centring on the fictitious Shortland Street Hospital. The show was first broadcast on TVNZ 2 on 25 May 1992 and is New Zealand's longest-running drama and soap opera, being broadcast continuously for over 7,900 episodes and 32 years (as of May 2024). It is one of the most watched television programmes in New Zealand.
The show was originally screened as five half-hour episodes each week, and received mixed reviews on its premiere.[2] After its launch, the show suffered a drop in ratings and would have been cancelled if TVNZ had not ordered a year's worth of episodes in advance. TVNZ renewed the production in early 1993 after the show's ratings picked up, and the show has since garnered "long-term public enthusiasm".[3] Today, it is one of New Zealand's highest-rated shows, frequently making AGB Nielsen Media Research's top 5 programmes of the week[citation needed], achieving an average linear daily reach of 345,000 viewers (in the year to June 2021) and is TVNZ's "most streamed show".[4]