which had offered him a three-year contract. His new show, Paul Holmes, launched on Prime on 7 February 2005. The new show was up against two new competitors, John Campbell's Campbell Live on TV3 and Susan Wood's Close Up on TV One, in a three-way competition that had previously never been seen on New Zealand television. In February 2005, the show rated 7.1 percent for its timeslot, compared with his former programme on TV One (renamed Close Up) at 31 percent share. In March 2005, following the launch of a rival show on TV3, Campbell Live, Nielsen Media Ratings listed Holmes' show at 4 percent. Poor ratings forced a timeslot change to 6 pm after only four months. By this time, the show had been retitled Holmes. However, these small changes were not enough to save the show, the timeslot change proving fatal. On 8 August 2005, almost six months to the day after 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 primetime news strongholds of TV One and TV3. The show returned in a weekly format in late 2005 and in 2006 was revamped into 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 Power List|New Zealand Listeners 50 most powerful people list]] largely because of his TV show's poor ratings and influence. Paul Holmes also appeared on Shortland Street as Leslie Grant. He appeared on Māori Television's Waitangi Day coverage on 6 February 2007. In March, TV One, Holmes's former network, announced that he would be among the "stars" on the third season of the New Zealand version of Dancing with the Stars. At the end of 2008 Holmes left his weekday breakfast show on Newstalk ZB after hosting the show for almost 22 years. Holmes then presented the Saturday morning show on Newstalk ZB. From 2009 to 2012 Holmes returned to TVNZ to present the political talk show Q+A on TV One. In early 2011, Holmes published Daughters of Erebus, a book on the 1979 Erebus Air New Zealand DC-10 airliner crash. Retirement and death In January 2012 Holmes received treatment in hospital after a "health scare". He had previously battled prostate cancer in 1999, but had been released shortly after. The scare