There's little charity for MediaWorks' debt-laden owners.
Ask any TV3 journalist about their private equity owner Ironbridge Capital and you're likely to receive a mouthful of abuse.
That's off-the-record abuse, mind. There have been enough redundancies at the media company without loose-lipped employees adding to their number.
Times are tough in the media trenches and whatever haircut
the Ironbridge boys take, they're sufficiently well-remunerated to suffer a few kicks without complaint.
But what employees think of their owners does matter; it is an important factor in creating the environment upon which bottom line profitability rests.
If Ironbridge is a dirty word for journalists, then they are surprisingly forgiving of management at TV3 and parent company MediaWorks.
No such charity for Australia-based Ironbridge. The company acquired MediaWorks, which owns TV3, Four and RadioWorks, in 2007 for $727 million, including liabilities, in a deal mostly funded by more debt.
The timing of the transaction, at a 49 per cent premium to the share price, was unfortunate given the financial crisis was just round the corner. When margins were squeezed, first out of the tube were TV3 staff, prompting much bitterness.
Staff believe the media company is actually performing reasonably well in very challenging business conditions. If it weren't for the colossal debt Ironbridge loaded on to its structure, the company would be in good shape, they say.
It turns out TV3's owners, in a backhanded way, agree. MediaWorks' parent, GR Media Holdings, said its books were in good shape. Its earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (Ebitda) was a better measure of its profitability, coming to $50 million for the year ending August 31 (it actually lost $55 million in just 8 1/2 months).
I read that statement to TV3 people (who are well aware of the difference the "i" in Ebitda makes to companies with masses of debt) and they said it reminded them of a performance of the play, The Vagina Monologues; the bit where they chant a four-letter word starting with a hard consonant.
Their point is, everyone knows what sort of people their Australian owners are but why, they ask, do they have to release a public statement and remove any doubt? Feelings are running high, understandably.
Wouldn't we all love to put forward our credentials, without dwelling on the liabilities. Earnings before mortgage repayments and school fees (Emrasf) anyone? I'd be sitting pretty. Funnily enough, my bank doesn't see it that way.
If only they read the wise words of GR Media, whose balance sheet, "independent of the funding structures," is an exemplar of fiscal Presbyterianism.
Many readers would like to present earnings before rent, petrol and weekly supermarket shop (Erpwss, which, coincidentally, is the Welsh word for ne'er-do-well) add to their funding structures.
After all, it is not uncommon for middle-income earners - people like TV3 rank and file - to spend more than 80 per cent of their income on just those three things.
Then there are those nasty one-off items, such as restructuring costs at MediaWorks; for the rest of us, having to get the car fixed.
It doesn't leave a lot for other essentials. I am referring, of course, to alcohol.
Journalists do like to drink. And the more TV3 staffers drink, the more they fulminate about the iniquity of private equity ownership, until there's more foam than on a poorly-poured pint of lager.
Cheer up, I suggest, and raise a glass to the aforementioned Vagina Monologues. Because those buggers will need more than a stiff drink before this is over.
