Never in the field of government inquiries have we heard such self-serving, hypocritical crap reverberate through Parliament. And, for once, it is not coming from politicians.

Over recent weeks, the Ministry of Culture and Heritage's digital broadcasting review has provoked a vicious internecine war between the country's main broadcasters and produced a weird reversal of the usual PR spin the big networks like to put out to the media.

Normally, all of the networks boast that they have the most viewers, the best programmes, make the most money and, generally, they are far stronger and smarter than their opponents.

Not in the submissions they have put to the digital broadcasting review. Each cries that it is being cruelly and unfairly bullied by the other and that it is doing very poorly indeed as a result.

First, you have to work out who is who in this crazy, three-sided battle. Basically, TVNZ, TVWorks (TV3 and C4), Freeview (TVNZ and TVWorks) are ganging up on Sky (Sky TV and Prime), although TVWorks is not averse to privately putting the dagger into rival TVNZ's back whenever it possibly can.

TVNZ wants the Government to "do a Telecom" on Sky, split it up and effectively "unbundle" Sky's lucrative TV rights to big sporting events, thus allowing it and TVWorks to compete more cheaply to show sport.

TVWorks wants the Government to regulate to make Sky sell Prime because it creates an "uneven playing field". Sky is desperately trying to cover its backside and hang on to what it has.

All sides are crying foul, which has led to a number of ludicrous claims and counterclaims by the spatting networks.

For example, TVNZ claims Sky is unfairly dominant in the New Zealand broadcasting scene. This whinge neatly ignores the fact that TVNZ in its own published strategy document, Inspiring on Every Screen, trumpets that "TVNZ continues to be New Zealand's leading broadcaster". Hello?

Sky counters by claiming TVNZ is truly the dominant player, with 46.4 per cent share of viewers in February this year and 18 out of the top-20 rating TV shows.

Sky claims, in fact, TVNZ has the highest percentage share of viewers anywhere in the world and it can find no other broadcaster on the planet that comes near. Normally, this would be TVNZ chest-beating but it sounds truly bizarre coming from a rival.

It also begs the question, if TVNZ has such a large chunk of the market why does it need so many millions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies?