Worm turns up on TV3

The election worm is likely to raise its head again, this time on TV3.

The worm is not likely to be welcomed, least of all by National, whose leader, Don Brash, lacks experience in live television debates.

The instant measure of a studio audience's response to what party leaders are saying is often credited - or blamed - for the success of United Future leader Peter Dunne in the last election campaign.

Despite howls of protest by party leaders, TV One used the worm for the 1996 and 2002 elections. It decided last year to ditch it.

TV3 was testing its own worm over the next few weeks before its two leaders' debates, the channel's director of news and current affairs, Mark Jennings, said last night.

The "audience measurement system", as he called it, would not appear on the live version of the debate but on a Nightline special later in the evening.

Mr Jennings said he had told Labour and National and Labour was neither negative nor positive. "From National I got what perhaps could be described as a cool response. As National put it to me, 'it means we will have to go and focus-group what words the public like'."