Māori Television hit the airwaves on 28 March 2004. This collection demonstrates how the network has staked its place as Aotearoa's indigenous broadcaster. The kete is overflowing with tasty morsels — from comedy, waiata, hunting and language learning, to award-winning coverage of Anzac Day. Māori Television HOD of Content Development Nevak Rogers backgrounds some MTS highlights here, while Tainui Stephens unravels the history of Māori on television here: choose from te reo and English versions of each backgrounder. 

This episode of the kids' TV institution celebrates te reo — one of Aotearoa's three official languages — for Māori Language Week. The July 2011 show opens at its Christchurch studio with a haka from Spreydon's kura kaupapa; from there the kōrero — and gunge — flows freely. Bursting with edifying energy it includes the show's trademark games, and The Wobblies, LOL and Family Health Diarrhoea. Australian Idol Stan Walker is the star guest and sings 'Loud' with Camilla the chimp, and NowTube visits an 80s What Now? (Steve Parr, Frank Flash et al). Tu meke tamariki!

Alien Weaponry are a thrash metal band which often sings in te reo Māori. This Vice documentary meets them as they prepare to tour Europe, and take the metal world by storm. The quiet lives of the members — Lewis de Jong and Ethan Trembath attend different high schools, while Henry de Jong is an apprentice mechanic — are contrasted with a high intensity performance (at the Auckland release show for the band's debut album Tū). The de Jong parents share stories about their two sons, and the band travel to Lake Rotoiti, to reconnect with their whakapapa. 

Paul Wolffram's film melds sounds from noted musicians Richard Nunns and Horomona Horo, recorded in spectacular locations around New Zealand, to demonstrate that the sounds of the natural world are a form of music too. Nunns is a renowned expert in taonga pūoro - traditional Māori instruments like wood and bone flutes. Debuting at the 2014 Wellington Film Festival, Voices of the Land pays tribute to Nunn's role in their revival, while Wolffram's powerhouse creative team use image and sound to show ways "landscape and the voices of the land can be heard".

Jock Phillips begins his journey through our Waitangi collection by recalling an awkward encounter with a security guard at the treaty grounds. Wandering 50 years between the first film in this collection and the last, Phillips explores changing attitudes to the Treaty. Discover everything from Mike King on the treaty trail, to trench warfare, waka-building and epic drama.

This collection rounds up almost every music video for a number one hit by a Kiwi artist; everything from ballads to hip hop to glam rock. Press on the images below to find the hits for each decade  — plus try this backgrounder by Michael Higgins, whose high speed history of local hits touches on the sometimes questionable ways past charts were created.  

This collection celebrates more of the legendary TV moments that Kiwis gawked at, chortled with, and choked on our tea over. In the collection primer Paul (Eating Media Lunch) Casserly chews on rapper Redhead Kingpin’s equine advice to 3:45 LIVE! and mo’ memorable moments: from a NSFW Angela D'Audney to screen folk heroes Colin McKenzie and the Ingham twins.

This 1997 Inside New Zealand documentary looks at the evolution of modern Māori political activism, from young 70s rebels Ngā Tamatoa, to Te Kawariki's protest at Waitangi Day in 1995. Directed by Paora Maxwell, it is framed around interviews with key figures (Syd Jackson, Hone Harawira, Ken Mair, Mike Smith, Annette Sykes, Eva Rickard, Joe Hawke). The interviewees explore events, and the kaupapa behind their activism, from thoughts on sovereignty, and the Treaty of Waitangi, through to symbolism (tree felling, land marches) and being kaitiaki of the environment. 

Young choreographer Parris Goebel features in the first episode from season four of Māori youth show I AM TV.  The series promoted te reo through interviews and music. Vince Harder performs "Say This With Me", Hawaiian reggae band Kolohe Kai hit Aotearoa, and a teen Parris Goebel heads to the United States to audition for TV's America's Best Dance Crew, with her award-winning hip hop group ReQuest Dance Crew. Plus new presenters Taupunakohe Tocker and Chey Milne are introduced by friends and family. I AM TV is the successor of Mai Time, which ran for 12 years. 

This documentary tells the 25-year history of Kohanga Reo via the influential figure of Iritana Tāwhiwhirangi (2014 New Zealander of the Year finalist). Kohanga Reo is a world-leading educational movement that revitalised Māori language, “by giving it back to the children”. Not eschewing controversy, director Tainui Stephens’ film journeys from a time when students were punished for speaking Māori to a present where they can have ‘total immersion’ schooling in te reo. The Qantas Award-nominated doco screened on Māori Television, and at indigenous festival ImagineNATIVE.