Back Benches

Back Benches is a New Zealand political interview show, presented by Wallace Chapman and Damian Christie. It was primarily filmed at the 'Backbencher' pub, across the street from Parliament Buildings in Wellington, at 9:10 pm Wednesday nights, and reshown on Thursday mornings, Friday nights, and Saturday mornings. The show was aired on the Television New Zealand channel TVNZ 7. On 1 July 2009, the two Freeview-only channels were made available for viewing on SKY TV. On this date the Back Benches episodes became 44–50 minutes long. The show was cancelled on TVNZ 7 in July 2012 when the station was shut down, being replaced with TV ONE +1, a timeshift of TV ONE. The final three episodes were filmed at the Shepherd's Arms Hotel after an after-hours kitchen fire at the Backbencher pub rendered it unusable. In August 2012 Prime TV expressed interest in reviving the series with a similar format. On 13 September 2012, it was confirmed that Prime would be bringing the show back in February 2013 by one of the show's hosts, Wallace Chapman. On 27 March 2013, the start date for the new series was confirmed as 10 April 2013 by Wallace Chapman and Damian Christie. The show will be aired on the same night as recording, with the broadcast four and a half hours later.