John Campbell? Who's he?

John Campbell

The prime-time current affairs battle is on, after TV3 confirmed yesterday that John Campbell will go head to head with Paul Holmes' new Prime show and TVNZ's Close Up At 7 with Susan Wood next year.

The yet-to-be-named show, following the channel's news at 7pm, will go to air in April, but TV3 bosses remain tight-lipped on its format.

Carol Hirschfeld will take a key role as senior producer and specialist interviewer.

The channel's director of news and current affairs, Mark Jennings, said commercial sensitivity prevented him from giving any details on the programme, but he said it would capitalise on Campbell's strong interviewing skills.

"We believe he is the best interviewer in television."

The confirmation of Campbell's move clutters what will be a highly competitive current affairs offering.

However, media commentator Russell Brown believes the success of each show will not be determined by the profile of the frontperson.

"Prime's biggest problem is they don't have a genuine news service to lead into their show."

Prime's programming manager, Andrew Shaw, does not agree.

"I don't really think it is a crisis if there isn't news leading into Holmes or leading into any show. Programmes will succeed or fail based on their own performance."

He said the station had no plans to change the timing of its 5.30pm news, hosted by Suzy Aiken.

However, he said the channel was in the process of bolstering its news offering.

Canterbury University's head of journalism, Jim Tully, said Prime had a hard task pulling viewers from TV One and TV3.

"TV One has the advantage of having a well-established product, and that they have had time to bed the new product in before their competition. The challenge for Prime is in dragging people away from TV One and TV3."

Mr Tully believes a week-night current affairs format will be a challenge for TV3, which had just a brief attempt at the format in 1989. It has left the timeslot to re-runs of The Simpsons.

Mr Jennings said he was not sure New Zealand had the talent of reporting staff to support three channels.

"Probably that won't be answered for a few months. I think if you spoke to Prime, and they were honest, they would tell you they are struggling to recruit good people.

"We will be recruiting more, and it is a hot market out there ... TVNZ and us have a huge head start."