Jonathan Holmes returns tonight for his third year of hosting Media Watch for the ABC.

This year the show will have extra targets in sight, including the ABC’s continuous News channel and the prospect that free newspaper websites might disappear. It is assured of more ‘beat-ups and stuff-ups’ along the way.

Says Holmes, “I don’t particularly enjoy lambasting my colleagues – well sometimes I do – but not when it involves criticising serious journalists for their work on complex issues,” he says. “I’m all too aware myself of how hard it can be to get a story right.”

He is also critical of ‘toothless tiger’ entities that he says are too slow to respond.

“The ‘watchdogs’ – the Australian Press Council and the Australian Communications and Media Authority – are slow, legalistic, and relatively toothless. By contrast, Media Watch is swift, and when necessary, brutal.”

Last year Media Watch was seen by 805,000 viewers each week in 2009, peaking on Monday, October 12th with 936,000 viewers .

The show was also the fifth highest in vodcast downloads among all ABC TV programs while ABC iView recorded 164,000 views and the Media Watch website had 617,000 visits and 1.8 million page views in 2009.

The show returns at 9:20pm tonight.