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Paul Holmes CNZM (born April 29 1950) is a radio and television broadcaster in New Zealand. He is the breakfast host on radio talkback station Newstalk ZB, hosting New Zealand's number one rating breakfast show. He also hosts a weekly show on Prime Television. He is widely reputed to be New Zealand's highest-paid broadcasting personality (reportedly earning over NZ$700,000 while at Television New Zealand and rumoured to be NZ$1,000,000 after moving to competitor Prime Television).
Career
Holmes began his career on radio in Christchurch in the 1970s before working in Australia, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. Afterwards, he returned to New Zealand to take up a morning slot on Wellington station 2ZB.
In March 1987, Holmes took over from long-running 1ZB host Merv Smith. At the time, 1ZB had fallen to seventh position, but with Holmes's show, the station rose to number one for the programme's time slot.
In 1989, Holmes was part of the younger, new-look revamp of Television New Zealand's prime-time news. His 7pm network programme (simply titled Holmes), analysing news items in greater depth, ran until 2004.
Holmes's first TV segment featured guest Dennis Conner, the America’s Cup skipper. After being provoked, Conner walked off the show, providing Holmes headlines the next day.
Paul Holmes has also published his autobiography in 1999 and a year later in 2000, Holmes released a CD titled Paul Holmes(CD).
On 2 November, 2004, he resigned from his TV show after failed contract negotiations. It was reported by TV3 that TVNZ would not renew his contract for more than a year. He has moved to a rival TV company, Prime Television, which had offered a three-year contract. His salary is rumoured to be NZ$1,000,000, making him the country's most highly paid TV presenter.
The new show, Paul Holmes, on Prime was launched on 7 February, 2005.
In February 2005, Holmes' new show was rating 7.1 % for its timeslot. His former programme on TV One was pulling in a 31 % share. The following month, with the launch of a rival show on TV3 Campbell Live, Nielsen Media Ratings put Holmes's show at 4 %. Poor ratings forced a timeslot change after only four months, to 6 pm. By this time, the show had been retitled Holmes, and his closing phrase from TV One repeated.
However, these small changes were not enough to save the show. The timeslot change proved fatal: on August 8, 2005, almost six months to the day the show launched, it was axed by Prime Television, with Prime chief executive Chris Taylor citing poor ratings and inability to attract viewers from the traditional news strongholds, TV One and TV3. The show continued in a one hour weekly format in late 2005 and returned in 2006 as an hour long chat show similar to the popular UK show hosted by Michael Parkinson.
In 2005, Holmes was dropped from the New Zealand Listener’s 50 most powerful people list largely because of his TV show's poor ratings and influence.
Paul Holmes has survived multiple aircraft crashes, including a helicopter crash which killed a cameraman. Holmes's latest crash was on 31 December, 2004, when he botched a landing of his vintage Boeing Stearman biplane. He has reputedly given up flying.
Controversy
Holmes has on several occasions gained media prominence for a range of scurrilous remarks on individuals, politicians and diplomats who have media attention, including a remark made in 2003 about wahi tapu (Māori sacred areas).
In September 2003, Holmes infamously described United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan as a "cheeky darkie" during a rant on his radio show.
There was an international outcry following the comments, but Holmes kept his job after making several emotional apologies, claiming he had been "tired". However the major sponsor of his TV show, Mitsubishi Motors Corporation, withdrew its support.
In March the following year, he described the Israeli Prime Minister as the "butcher Sharon." A couple of weeks after Easter that year, he called Tariana Turia a "confused bag of lard", a bully who folded under pressure and who did not have the “guts to vote”, and as being “all mouth and no trousers, all talk and no walk”. As well, he described her as a “complete fool”.