Harman

"It was a fair point. If TVNZ had bid US$350,000—and Sky knew that figure—and TV3 did not bid at all, then Sky was the only potential bidder left so had not needed to pay so much. However, doing so signalled that the market had changed and that Sky was prepared to pay a significant premium for exclusive rights. It wanted to dominate live sports coverage on New Zealand television. TVNZ was furious. ‘If the time for co-operation is at an end and Sky is to “go it alone” then, clearly, we must be formally instructed so that we can end the feather-bedding arrangements put in place to assist Sky,’ remonstrated Harman.[3](private://read/01jectdbce729daxqkxt7cbe8r/#mn26) It was not up to Sky’s executive to terminate agreements laid down in the original and subsequent shareholders’ agreements, he wrote. The board and shareholders needed to do that and Harman was requesting an urgent board meeting to be preceded by a shareholding meeting."

"It was at that point, Smith said, that it became clear to Sky that TVNZ ‘was going to continue to act in an uncompromising manner when it came to joint purchasing of compelling product’. That was when Sky decided to bid alone for the South African tour and sent a fax to TVNZ to say so. On learning of Sky’s determination to bid, Harman rang Fellet. Fellet afterwards made a file note of the call. In it, he recorded that Harman had said that TVNZ had been told its bid for the South African tour was not the highest, so TVNZ presumed that Sky’s was higher.[8](private://read/01jectdbce729daxqkxt7cbe8r/#mn31) ‘I told him that was probably a good assumption,’ Fellet wrote. ‘He said, “It is crazy that we should be bidding against each other for programming.” I told him I couldn’t agree with him more but Sky could not survive being a replay service of the highlights of TVNZ. He said, “We [TVNZ] put in a good bid and I can sleep at night knowing it was a fair bid. I hope you [Sky] are prepared to take the political implications that this move will generate. Your bid will cause Members of Parliament to discuss for the first time legislation to prevent siphoning of programming from broadcast [free-to-air] to pay TV…” I thanked him for his insight and told him that he and Nate both agreed on what type of programming was important for Sky, yet somehow it never seems to translate to any positive action by TVNZ.’"