What lies ahead: Media

If one of the biggest events in the media sector during the past 12 months was in the print media - the launch of the Herald on Sunday - next year will be television's turn for a shake-up.

A three-way fight for prime-time viewers will likely dominate the attention of programmers, advertisers and media buyers next year as Prime, CanWest and TVNZ go head to head with competing current affairs shows. With a buoyant advertising market, the fight is well timed.

But all eyes will be on whether record levels of spending on advertising will be maintained.

CanWest boss Brent Impey for one is happy with estimates of advertising growth of 5 per cent to 7 per cent, at least for the first quarter of 2005.

Paul Holmes' debut on Prime will be a major event, with Prime boss Chris Taylor likely to find out quickly whether his gamble has paid off.

The deal struck after Taylor's holiday meeting in Fiji with Holmes has sparked a flurry of activity at Prime that could pay off handsomely or drive the fledgling network into deeper losses.

Holmes will take the 7pm to 7.30pm slot with a current affairs show designed to steal viewers away from his old bastion at TVNZ.

CanWest disclosed at its annual meeting last month that its star celebrity, John Campbell, would front his own current affairs show on TV3.

New Zealand's media sector, by and large, enters 2005 in good financial shape.

APN News & Media, owner of the New Zealand Herald, posted robust profits as did rival Fairfax.

After years of bleeding red ink as it sought to get its little black decoder into as many New Zealand homes as possible, Sky TV is now profitable.

CanWest MediaWorks, owner of TV3, is well into the black.

Early in the year, Sky is scheduled to complete its merger with INL.

After the sale of its newspaper assets to Fairfax, INL has been left with its stake in Sky and about $300 million in cash.

The merger is likely to be rubber stamped by the courts, stock exchange and Commerce Commission and will see some cash returned to INL shareholders.

Online operations such as Wellington businessman Sam Morgan's TradeMe auction site may be acquisition targets.

Telecom is likely to try to make better use of its XtraMSN portal, perhaps moving into ecommerce, and advertising will continue to drift online.

Consolidation at smaller publishers such as IDG Communications is likely and CanWest may make a debut in print media - if the price is right.

The world of radio will get even more competitive as CanWest launches its Radio Live news and talkback channel.

Proposed changes to Australian cross-media ownership laws will be fleshed out next year and, in the long term, could have implications for all the local media organisations with partial Australian ownership.

That's most of them.