Rival networks want Sky to sell Prime, which features Top Gear among its lineup.

Rival networks want Sky to sell Prime, which features Top Gear among its lineup.

Rival broadcasters Television New Zealand and MediaWorks, including TV3 and C4, will join forces next year to convince the new National government to force Sky Television to divest free-to-air channel Prime.

The question is how the National Government will balance its traditional support for the private sector and Rupert Murdoch's Sky against the free-to-air broadcasters' concerns that the company's dominance will overwhelm the free industry if it is not regulated.

Will National regulate Sky or take the same hands-off approach it took to Telecom in the 1990s?

Prime is a key part of Sky's strategy to dominate sports coverage, which TVNZ and Mediaworks say is uncompetitive because by bidding for free-to-air alongside its pay TV rights it has the power to force them out of top programming.

For viewers it is also useful. While viewed by many as essentially unviable as a standalone venture and run as part of Sky's strategic plans, it provides an attractive programming mix, including niche public service programming absent from state-owned TVNZ.

Government departments are preparing the first ever review of broadcasting regulations.

TV3 has called for rules that would ensure that some sports events would be set aside for free-to-air coverage only.

TVNZ and MediaWorks sources suggest the anti-siphoning rules are unlikely to be enacted.

But they will proceed with a regulatory push.

Sky has expanded too far unregulated and puts the advertising-led free-to-air industry under threat.

Anti-siphoning rules, while common in other countries, are unlikely here.

If nothing else Sky will be pushing sporting codes to lobby against the change and many believe that Sky is too entrenched in controlling sports right now to turn back the clock.

But they say that anti-siphoning suggestions made by MediaWorks at the early stages of the broadcasting regulatory review would be a bargaining chip.

They argue that with New Zealand's hands-off broadcasting regime, Sky and pay television have developed an astonishing dominance. Sky has bided its time and has not pushed too hard.

But left untouched, Sky would dominate television in the way that Telecom did within telecommunications.