Time change no help yet for Holmes

Paul Holmes

The change to 6pm has so far done little to improve Paul Holmes' ratings, but he is more popular than the game show he replaced.

Holmes' audience was slightly less in his first week at 6pm compared with when he was in the 7pm slot, according to Nielsen Media Research ratings.

In his first week in the 6pm slot, his average audience was 38,200 viewers. In the week before he averaged 41,200 at 7pm and the week before that, 60,300.

Until Friday night, Paul Holmes was attracting an average audience of 42,800 - 50 per cent more viewers than game show The Price is Right had the week before that.

However, Paul Holmes fell victim to the Friday night audience slump that affects all early evening shows, getting 19,800 viewers, lowering the total increase to 23 per cent and the week's average audience to 38,200 viewers.

Rival programmes - TV One's Close Up and TV3's Campbell Live - also had lower than normal audience numbers last week and rugby is being blamed.

The Lions mid-week rugby game against Taranaki and the All Blacks Fiji test on Friday night are being blamed for stripping Close Up's average weekly audience of 100,000 viewers from the week before, and Campbell Live's of 30,000.

Close Up's average audience for the past four weeks varied between 543,200 and 601,000 viewers. Campbell Live ranged from 216,300 to 258,200 viewers.

Prime CEO Chris Taylor said he was satisfied with Holmes' start, given the need to let viewers know of the changed timeslot and the disruption caused by Queen's Birthday on Monday and the rugby games.

When Prime moved Paul Holmes to the 6pm slot, the network said the main aim was to boost the audience size at that time and supply an unbroken hour of news and current affairs, rather than have them split up by a game show.

Mr Taylor hoped some of the 5.30 News audience, about 120,000 viewers, would stay on Prime to watch Paul Holmes.

Holmes' month

* Last week (6pm): 38,200

* Week starting May 29 (7pm): 41,200

* Week starting May 22: 60,300

* Week starting May 15: 41,400