David Grieve

"There were dilemmas everywhere the novice Sky team looked. What if the government changed its mind and the frequencies were never tendered? What if they were tendered but Sky lost the bid? Or won it but had nothing to broadcast? But if they signed up pay TV rights, then lost the bid, the money they had paid for content would be wasted. Would their chances of signing up rights, and winning frequencies, be enhanced if they had a demonstrable physical base? But what if they paid for a base, then did not win the frequencies or could not obtain the rights or both? However they looked at it, there was no way of escaping significant financial risk. On top of that, apart from Jarvis’s early discussions with Kerry Packer’s Channel Nine in Australia about televised horse racing, none of them knew how to go about signing international broadcasting rights for a TV company, let alone one that was not yet on air. The one outcome they did not consider was what might happen if they set up pay TV and not enough New Zealanders were willing to pay for it to make it viable. But as David Grieve observes, Heatley has an ability to look past problems. Grieve remembers that in the post-crash environment when people were being much more cautious in their spending, Heatley paid $2 million for a property at O’Neills Avenue in Takapuna. ‘He always seemed prepared to move forward, rather than move backwards.’"

"Around the time Heatley and Jarvis were approaching Gibbs and Farmer, Heatley’s broker friend David Grieve was talking to Todd Corporation CEO John Hunn about the possibility of investing in Sky. ‘I wasn’t a broker on the deal, I was just a friend helping,’ says Grieve. ‘I didn’t take it further but Craig did, and Todds ended up taking a stake. That’s where Craig was absolutely brilliant. He could go and see them and convince them to live part of the dream and I think it’s been a very rewarding investment for them.’ Todd Corp was a good choice for Sky. The company had been closely watching the deregulation occurring in many industries at the time. It had been instrumental in establishing new Telecom rival Clear Communications and had already taken an in-depth look at the possibility of partnering with an American company to bring cable TV to New Zealand. The cost of putting in cabling made the idea uneconomic. However, the company’s research meant that when Heatley made his approach, Todd Corp was already interested in the industry, had a good understanding of it and could see that Sky’s proposed terrestrial service was the right strategy. In September, four months after the network’s launch, Todd took a 15 per cent stake."