CEO of Pipfruit NZ). The trio remained friends for the rest of Holmes' life. In 1968, Holmes left his family home and began studying law at Victoria University of Wellington. He shared a room at the university accommodation Weir House with Williams. Shortly into his course, he swapped his degree to the arts and was awarded a BA. Holmes was inspired by the actor Dustin Hoffman and wished to emulate his success. He got his first professional acting job on a radio production of Antony and Cleopatra and acted alongside Sam Neill in the drama society club. Whilst studying, Holmes worked at a Hawke's Bay freezing-works. Career Holmes began his career on radio in Christchurch in the 1970s. He then worked in Australia, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands before returning to New Zealand to take up a morning slot on Wellington station 2ZB. In March 1987, Holmes took over from 1ZB host Merv Smith, who had been breakfast host for many years. This coincided with a change in format from community radio (middle of the road music, news, community notices, etc.) to Newstalk. The change was controversial, as many long-standing Smith listeners did not like Holmes or the news, interview and talkback format with no music. 1ZB fell to seventh position in the ratings and it took over a year before Holmes' show eventually rose to number one in the ratings for the programme's time slot. In 1989, Holmes became part of the younger, new-look revamp of Television New Zealand's prime-time news. His 7pm network programme (simply titled Holmes, initially starting at 6:30 and later moving to 7:00 when the news was extended to one hour), analysing news items in greater depth, ran until 2004. Holmes' first TV segment featured guest Dennis Conner, the America's Cup skipper. After being provoked, Conner walked off the set, providing Holmes with headlines the next day. Holmes published an autobiography in 1999. A year later he released an album on CD, simply titled Paul Holmes. In the 2003 Queen's Birthday Honours, Holmes was appointed a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to broadcasting and the community. After 15 years anchoring Holmes, he was reportedly disgusted to have been offered a six-month contract instead of an annual alternative and subsequently on 2 November 2004 he resigned from the show. Shortly after this he moved to rival TV company Prime Television,