TV3 pushes rival to make changes

The rising threat TV3 poses in the lucrative nightly news hour made change imperative at TVNZ, media analysts say.

The media head of the broadcasting school at Christchurch Polytechnic, Paul Norris, said the start of Campbell Live on TV3 had drawn new viewers to the channel or taken viewers from One News.

Mr Norris said the dispute over Judy Bailey's $800,000 salary was also a factor in her departure.

"I think it did alienate part of her viewing audience and has been partly responsible for a downturn in TVNZ news ratings," he said.

Jim Tully, head of political science and communication at Canterbury University, was not surprised.

"I think TV One has been very mindful of the growth of TV3 and no doubt are looking at the whole format of their news offerings and are trying to somehow deal with the threat of TV3," he said.

"The real issue is Judy Bailey has been doing it 18 years and sooner or later - despite her loyal fans - if TV One really wants to respond to TV3 it's got to try to maintain its old loyal viewers.

But it also must cultivate new ones, and maybe someone who has been around that long just doesn't quite have the appeal."

Mr Tully said Bailey was associated with TV One as it has been.

"For a lot of younger viewers it's not so much that she's old, it's simply the fact that she's been there such a long time that makes it seem as if the news service is bound in the past."

Mr Tully said the true test would be after her departure seeing whether she had as much pulling power as some people believed.

"There's an interesting parallel with TV3: (John) Campbell and (Carol) Hirschfeld moved on (to Campbell Live) and you would have thought that maybe that was a hard act to follow," he said.

"But the two successors don't seem to have had a negative impact on the viewing of TV3 news, so a big question for me is have we overestimated the value of the anchor?"

Mr Tully said revelations about Bailey's high salary may have had some impact on viewers.

"If you listen to talkback and the like you hear people expressing quite serious concern about the level of the salary," he said.

- NZPA