The battle for 7

John Campbell. Photo / Herald on Sunday

At 7pm, two men battle for half an hour of our attention. In Auckland studios on Flower St and Victoria St, surrounded by robotic cameras, dozens of television screens, pots of reflection-dampening make-up, hundreds of crew, manchild John Campbell and the walrus-like Mark Sainsbury square off. Pick me, they plead, to those who hold the nation's TV remotes.

Live from Wellsford: Dead dogs. Pre-recorded in Los Angeles: Francois Pienaar. With side-trips covering blue ducks in the Central North Island and topless sunbathers in Auckland, viewers were spoilt for choice this week.

It's a breakneck business. On Monday, after Auckland was struck with rolling blackouts from 4:38pm, the Campbell Live team struggled frantically against deadlines to get an interview with the farmer at the centre of the stand-off to air. As Campbell introduced the story, executive producer Pip Keane frantically yelled through his earpiece to change his script as the footage had just arrived.

And on Thursday Close Up dispatched a team, just after dawn, to sew up access to the derelict junkyard that was the scene of the 33-dog massacre. (Later that night Campbell Live, reduced to shooting footage outside the property, settled for live crosses to interview three protagonists in this bizarre saga.)

The two hosts are not only scrapping for a share of advertising dollars - they may well be fighting for the future of televised current affairs at seven.

Both TVNZ and TV3 have weathered a rough couple of years in coping with a recession-led advertising decline.

TV3's private equity owner Ironbridge is struggling with large sums of debt; TVNZ had its last guaranteed Government support cut when the incoming National Government made $15 million of funding for local content contestable.

Meanwhile on TV2 the overall war for viewers is being waged - and mostly won - by Shortland Street. The long-running soap opera consistently wins gold in the 7pm slot, leaving Sainsbury and Campbell to scrap for silver and bronze. Despite the recent gloom, TVNZ news and current affairs boss Anthony Flannery sees blue skies from his spacious corner office in central Auckland.

"Close Up will still be on at the end of the year," he says with confidence.

Over at Flower St, the forecast is not nearly as clear. Ian Audsley, the new executive director of MediaWorks TV, refuses to give a cast-iron assurance that Campbell Live will still be competing with Close Up in 12 months' time.

He instead prefers to say: "On the wins they've created this week, the team will be enjoying a beer or three at our Christmas party."

Campbell Live is on notice. Former Close Up producer Damian Christie, citing a source at the programme, says Audsley gave the show an Easter deadline to improve its performance - or be taken off air.

"Bollocks," says TV3 news chief Mark Jennings, asked about the ultimatum.

But another source at the network says the sound of the axe sharpening and a possible near-term chop for Campbell Live was only dampened when the trialled replacement - the comedy current-affairs commentary show @ Seven - struggled to compete when Close Up returned from the summer break.

Campbell says doubts about the viability of his show have been voiced ever since he launched the programme in 2005. "Every year this happens. It starts to get to the quality of, 'When did you stop beating your wife?'"

Campbell and Jennings point to new graphics, and show sponsor Mazda signing up for another year. "We would hardly be signing a very serious contract for serious money, if there was any doubt over the show," says Jennings.

Jennings says his new boss is demanding improvements - but they haven't been at the level of threats. "People also sometimes mistake motivation. We want higher ratings for the show. And we preach that message internally."

When talk across town at the TVNZ newsroom turns to the future of Campbell Live, most seem sombre. Flannery says it would be bad for business if the opposition vanished. "I'd hate to think that a current affairs show would go off the air. I like the competition. I think it keeps our guys on their toes."

Close Up executive produced Mike Valintine says certain rules always apply: If you don't rate, you don't survive.

But he isn't gloating about the opposing show's problems either. "I'd be sad to lose Campbell Live. It'd be sad for New Zealand."

Crocodile tears? Perhaps, but it often works to end the first section on a serious note.

So, we'll be back after the break.

On Thursday, 10 minutes after Sainsbury wrapped his broadcast, the host has changed out of his television suit and tie and into a green T-shirt and blue jeans. Despite his profile, he isn't a fan of the attention that comes with it. "The thing I hate most is being described as a celebrity. I'm well-known. I'm a journalist who's well known. As opposed to the c-word."

The show has gone relatively smoothly, says Valintine - despite some footage arriving only a couple of hours before broadcast. Earlier he'd previewed the graphic footage of dead dogs 15 minutes before it went to air and signed it off, saying to the editor: "A couple of those pictures are a little dodgy, but we're putting a warning so we should be all right."

In the production room, where seven staff work their stations during the half-hour broadcast, a pool is running on how long it will take before the complaints start arriving by email.

Line producer Sofia Wenborn reckons the first should arrive shortly after 7.10pm. "It usually takes until the ad break," she says.

On cue, a couple of complaints drop into the email. One says the images are abhorrent and suggests the dog-shooters should be locked in a cage and fired on "to see how they like it".

This week - when Campbell Live returned from holiday - both networks claim victory. TV3 spokesman Roger Beaumont pushes forward numbers claiming its show won its key target demographic of 18 to 49-year-olds most nights this week, while TVNZ spokeswoman Andi Brotherston produces figures showing Close Up attracted nearly double the overall 5+ audience to its rival.

On Thursday, AGB Nielsen Media Research ratings surveys showed Close Up drew 360,480 viewers aged 5+, and Campbell Live 197,770 - while Shortland Street cleaned up with 441,131.

Both current affairs hosts are keenly aware of the drawing power of their rival on TV2. "It's huge, it's a massive thing," says Sainsbury.

"It's a juggernaut, it's a bloody juggernaut," adds Campbell.

In the brains trust at TV3, the viewership for Shortland Street has not gone unnoticed. Jennings says if Campbell Live is to grow, it needs to target the soap rather than Sainsbury. "To be honest, we don't focus at all on Close Up. We've got to get viewers off Shortland Street," he says.

Keane agrees, adding to laughter: "That's where breasts and Hummers come in."

The first show of 2010 show of Campbell Live featured a brazenly attention-grabbing story about topless sunbathing, as well as a piece on the plus-sized 4WD cars manufactured in the United States.

The placement of the bare, though pixellated, breasts (which also led the politics section on TV3's website) has drawn criticism. Valintine says it was a "nonsense story", while Christie headlined a blog about the segment, "Bare Breast Key for Important 18-49 Auckland Demographic".

Campbell, a few grey hairs betraying his 12 years fronting 3 News and the self-titled show, compares the 7pm timeslot to a high-rent shop on Queen St. "And whilst we all might be wanting to sell Noam Chomskys - the first editions that I collect - actually we're in a business. This is mass audience stuff, and we have to get people to watch us."

Campbell says he's well aware of the line, and says he's not going to cross it: "Whilst it's middle-brow fare, it's not cynically populist."

Audsley, whose stint at MediaWorks is expected to be only short, is backing the new Get Shortie approach of his team: "They're welcome to take audience from wherever they can find it."

The skirmishing between networks, with tailored ratings data and public chest-beating, can at times resemble the sledging that is part-and parcel of professional sports. And in this game, Jennings seems keenest to indulge in trash-talk.

He tells of sending Mike McRoberts to cover the earthquake in Haiti, only for the reporter to give him a call en route to inform him that two TVNZ journalists were on the same plane bound for the United States.

The funny thing was, says Jennings, is that while McRoberts took a transfer to Haiti the competition didn't. "They never got off the plane, they flew on to London," he says. "If you're not going to cover that, you'll never do anything."

He goes further, and says this is symptomatic of his rivals losing the plot: "I just think they're not a news and current affairs organisation that's serious any more."

TV3 lost out at the recent Qantas Media Awards, but Jennings sees this not as remonstration for the quality of his team's work, but rather as something ridiculous. "The Qantas Awards are a joke," he says, and argues that Campbell's coverage of Barack Obama's inauguration should have picked up the gong.

Across town at TVNZ, Jennings' fighting words are greeted quizzically. Valintine is proud of his team's record at the annual industry awards, and dismisses Jennings' comment as sour grapes.

Flannery, meanwhile, seems almost perturbed at the sharp broadside from his counterpart at TV3. He leans forward in his seat and suggests, in a flat voice, that the pressure on his rival must be building.

"When you have your back to the wall, you say things you regret."

Seven deadly sins

1 The Medals Thief

"It was a great get, but we could have handled it better," Campbell admits. Some understatement. As the nation fretted over where Victoria Crosses stolen from the Waiouru Army Museum had ended up, Campbell Live secured an off-camera interview with one of the alleged thieves - but dramatised the interview using an actor. A complaint to the Broadcasting Standard Authority was upheld, criticism poured in, and Campbell issued a mea culpa. The theft saga still drags through the courts, where the police may yet call Campbell to the witness stand.

2 The Pretender to the Throne

TVNZ's 7pm slot is big enough for only one host, so when a rival starts talking about their ambitions the power struggle can get ugly. Breakfast host Paul Henry made no secret of his desire for Sainsbury's chair in interviews from 2008 onwards - and the squabbling was only silenced by intervention by TVNZ news boss Anthony Flannery. While Sainsbury reigns supreme at 7pm, there are now unsubstantiated rumours of Henry launching his own fiefdom on the other side of the news, at 5:30pm.

3 Seeing Pink

Celebrity chats are usually tame affairs, but Close Up's Australian correspondent Hannah Hodson turned a 2008 interview with singer Pink into a wild cat fight. Hodson, whose sister once worked for Pink, took an aggressive line of questioning that ended with a struggle between TVNZ crew and the singer's entourage over the possession of the tape. Hodson quit her job soon after, while Pink described her interviewer as "insane".

4 Xzibit

While Hodson's interview with Pink ended in screaming and shouting, Campbell Live's 2007 interview with Xzibit ended in stony silence. None of Jaquie Brown's question lines excited anything more than monosyllabic answers from the American rapper. The saga didn't end too badly for Brown: She used the interview as self-deflating fodder in her subsequent television comedy show.

5 Booze and Guns

Close Up thought they were on to a winner inside story last year about some duck-shooters' weekend away on the booze. The mixture of alcohol and shotguns was potent television - but too positive a message for many complainants. Five parties complained to the Broadcasting Standards Authority, which awarded $5000 in costs against TVNZ, finding the story functioned as little more than a Tui beer promotion.

6 Not Quite a Wife-Beater

A gentleman complained in 2007 to the Broadcasting Standard Authority that a Close Up item was unfair and breached his privacy by allowing his ex-wife and her father to allege he was a wife-beater and a racist. The Authority ruled against TVNZ, awarding $5000 in costs and finding that "it was unfair to allow an interviewee to make such serious and damning allegations without independent confirmation".

7 Discharge of the Live Brigade

Campbell Live looked into dairy effluent flowing into the Pahaoa River last year - but didn't get the farmer's side of the story until it ambushed him with cameras rolling. The Broadcasting Standards Authority found the show should have tried harder to get comment from the farmer before door-stopping him and awarded $1670 costs to the complainant.