Soap likely victor in ratings war

Television stations are starting huge ad blitzes as Hogan's Heroes prepares to make way for Paul Holmes on Prime's 7pm slot in three weeks.

Prime has billboard, bus and radio advertising promoting Paul Holmes, which starts on February 7.

Its stars - Holmes, Alison Mau, Charlotte Dawson and Suzy Aiken - will have a public outing at the launch party this Thursday.

The entire Prime board is flying in from Australia for the occasion, and Footy Show character Reg Reagan will co-host with Holmes.

Tomorrow the station officially reveals a new look - the old Prime logo will be replaced by one used on everything from letterheads to the corner of the screen.

Simultaneously, TVNZ's print advertising campaign for Close Up begins, and will run alongside television promotions and billboards featuring its reporters and presenter Susan Wood.

Prime has employed about 30 extra staff since the Paul Holmes show became a reality. It has built new offices and a new set.

It has also spent up large on programming, including the Golden Globe-winning Deadwood, popular British show You Are What You Eat, motoring show Top Gear, The Fire Within (a new series on Cirque du Soleil), and reality programme Who Rules the Roost.

It also has a new line-up of movies for its Sunday night drama slot, which programming manager Andrew Shaw said were top-shelf.

Close Up has a stronger team of journalists than Prime, with nine reporters, plus fill-in host Mark Sainsbury and presenter Wood, compared with Prime's four reporters, political commentator Lindsay Perigo and Paul Holmes.

Total Media chief executive Martin Gillman, whose company buys advertising space, predicted that the winner of the 7pm slot will be none of the current affairs shows, but rather Shortland Street.

He said older viewers tended to watch current affairs shows, which were often not the most lucrative target for advertisers.

After TV3 launches its John Campbell-fronted show, the younger audience might go to Shortland Street because there was no option other than current affairs on the three other channels, said Mr Gillman.

Prime's best chance of success could come from sport.

The channel has the free-to-air rights to cricket, rugby league and PGA golf, which could encourage more people to get a UHF aerial and tune in if they do not have Sky.

"We think TVNZ will continue to win the 7pm slot, the main reason being the sizeable chunk of the population who don't receive Prime," Mr Gillman said.

"At the moment, they only have about 60 per cent of the population who have tuned in. So that's 40 per cent who do not tune in at all because they don't have a UHF aerial."

But he said advertisers were interested in Paul Holmes, especially in the starting days when people would watch because it was new.

"I daresay Prime would like to think it will rate about 5 or 6 per cent, and it might pick up more than that.

"We have bought a lot of advertising in Prime and have been big supporters for a number of years now," Mr Gillman said.

"We've seen Prime's audience share gradually move upwards over the past year and it is now regularly hitting a 6 per cent audience share because it is picking up programmes which are decent."

He said Holmes could boost that by two or three points, which would bring in another $10 million in advertising revenue.