KEY POINTS:
Sky Television has been banned from using TV3's exclusive Rugby World Cup footage in some of its programmes and could be forced to pay tens of thousands of dollars in court costs.
In a judgment released yesterday morning, Justice Helen Winkelmann banned Sky from using the footage on
its "magazine" style shows The Cup, Reunion, and The Crowd Goes Wild.
The two broadcasters have been at loggerheads since TV3's parent company MediaWorks lodged an injunction with the High Court in Auckland last Wednesday claiming Sky was using footage outside the terms of a "news access agreement" between Sky, TV3 and Television New Zealand. The agreement allows the broadcasters to use TV3 World Cup footage for news programmes only.
TV3 is understood to have paid around $10 million for the exclusive rights to the tournament.
Sky welcomed yesterday's ruling, saying the apparent defeat was tantamount to a draw because it could continue to use footage in Sport 365 and other news programmes such as Sky News and Prime News. It has no plans to appeal the decision.
Sky's director of sport Kevin Cameron said yesterday the network would now monitor more closely how other networks used Sky's exclusive sports footage.
He said yesterday's ruling wouldn't have a huge impact. "The reality is that we are carrying on with all of our regular shows and still reporting on what's happening at the Rugby World Cup, we've got our expert team reporting from France. The TV3 broadcast was a very small section of that. Ideally we would have liked to have included that to complete the picture but we are planning to carry on transmitting everything without it."
He said Sky had philosophically turned a blind eye in the past when other networks had used its footage outside the "news access agreement".
TV3 chief operating officer Rick Friesen said it was a good win for the network. "I'm happy Sky doesn't feel aggrieved and they feel it's just a draw, but the fact is the court order will prevent them from overuse of our footage, which is really what we were after."
He didn't think TV3 had been damaged by the dispute. They would not be seeking damages but would be seeking costs, which amounted to tens of thousands of dollars.
He hopes the stoush won't escalate into a full-blown war. "It's in the back of our minds. Sky has made some overt threats and said they would have to watch us a lot closer. If we were using their footage the way they've been using ours we would really have something to worry about, but we aren't."
TV3 FOOTAGE
Banned from
Magazine-style shows The Cup, Reunion (Sky), and The Crowd Goes Wild (Prime).
Allowed on
Sport 365 (daily half-hour sports new bulletin dedicated to national and international sport), Sport 365 headlines, and other news programmes including Sky News and Prime News.
