Prime set to trade on NZ exchange

The head of Prime Television's New Zealand operations hopes to see the network listed on the sharemarket within the next six months.

Prime is already listed in Australia but its New Zealand chief executive, Chris Taylor, said New Zealand was the company's growth story and would drive its share price over the next five years.

"I've been talking to the board for a long time about having Prime Australia listed on the stock exchange over here and we're looking into that at the moment," he said.

"It should be listed on this stock exchange and I hope within six months it will be."

A dual listing for Prime would be the second taste of a free-to-air television network for investors, after the flotation of CanWest MediaWorks last year.

Prime Television New Zealand has made substantial losses since it was established in 1998 - but Taylor said they had been narrowing since a deal in 2001 with Australia's Nine Network which gave Nine the option to buy 50 per cent of Prime New Zealand in return for programming, marketing and managerial support. Nine is owned by media magnate Kerry Packer's Publishing & Broadcasting.

Analysts said Prime was likely to draw interest from retail investors because it was such a prominent and visible business. "At the moment, all the growth is in New Zealand ... it makes sense," said one analyst.

But with the advertising market near the top of its cycle, investors were also wary of investing in the media, the analyst said.

Taylor said the New Zealand operations made a $6.8 million loss last year and was looking at a loss of about $3.5 million for the year to June 2005. The business had been profitable on a monthly basis, in October and November last year, and Taylor thought the same two months would be in the black this year.

He was aiming at recording an operating profit in the 2006 year.

Whether Prime hit that target would depend on the strength of the advertising market and how well Prime's schedule built audience share in the latter part of this year.

Taylor said he was factoring in 4.5 per cent growth in the market, slower than last year. But because Prime was growing so quickly it was hard to gauge the wider market. "My gut feeling is it is coming off a little, but it is not crashing."

How Prime would fare through a slowdown was "the great unknown". "Prime under the Nine joint venture has never really had to deal with a soft market ... I can't give anyone any degree of guidance on how we will perform in a soft market-it's ... a wait and see."

On the programming front, he was more forthcoming. "We're confident we'll do well with some of the shows we've got, like Dr Who, we're happy with where we've got Paul [Holmes] at the moment and we're going to try and build that 6 o'clock time, which we've never really had a go at before."

Media analyst John Norling said recent statistics showed Prime had only a 5 per cent share of primetime viewers and there was a common belief it needed at least 10 per cent to be a real force in New Zealand.

Taylor said he hoped when the programme schedule gained traction that share would edge towards 7 per cent. He hoped to achieve the double-digit goal within two to three years.

Prime's top-rating shows in New Zealand were Deadwood, Top Gear, Who Wants To Be a Millionaire and Getaway, but it had several new shows in the pipeline.