Sophie Moloney: Sky New Zealand CEO on the acquisition of TV3, their plan to try acquire rugby streaming rights

Sky TV's purchase of TV3 could lead to a change in sports viewing, but not for a while.  

Sky New Zealand Chief Executive Sophie Moloney says for the next 12 months programming on TV3 will stay largely the same.   

She says she expects TVNZ to put up a good fight for free-to-air rights for different sports, including rugby.  

Moloney told Mike Hosking they'd also like to try to acquire them.  

She says it will ultimately be up to New Zealand Rugby. 

LISTEN ABOVE 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
So what difference will Sky to you be owning TV
three make to our viewing pleasure? Warner Brothers Discovery wanted out.
Sky had a dollar, so the deal was done. Sophie
Maloney is the CEO of Sky Television, wh happened to
be in the building, So we dragged out of the
cafeteria or wherever you were. Nice to meet you and
we appreciate, appreciate your time very much. A couple of

(00:20):
really quick things I didn't think were addressed properly yesterday.
Where's the com commonness.

Speaker 2 (00:24):
The conversations with a ComCom we had by the legal
teams in advance of proceeding with the deal, and they've
said they don't need to investigate any further.

Speaker 1 (00:32):
And was that predicated on the idea that Discovery said
we're going to close the shop down anyway?

Speaker 2 (00:38):
The discussions there are totally confidential to counsel, but I
think you can see from Michael Brooks statement yesterday that
it wasn't commercially viable and the Warner Brothers Discovery ecosystem
in New Zealand, so that did potentially put a bit
of a lens on it. But I wasn't in those
discussions which are kept pretty tight between the legal teams.

Speaker 1 (00:55):
They would have to have believed that argument, because there's
no question there are fewer players in the market now
owning the Zealand media.

Speaker 2 (01:03):
I think part of it is, obviously these are complementary assets. Yes,
we have sky Open, but we're predominantly, as you know,
a pay provider, whereas Discovery New Zealand is totally free
and we don't have a Bevod platform. So this is
really about complementary assets coming together, which is part of
the contest that I think the ComCom would have been
looking at.

Speaker 1 (01:21):
How long have you been involved in the very real
prospect of owning it.

Speaker 2 (01:27):
The conversation sort of started late last year and then
as we started to look at the opportunity, confluence of
time and events, so certainly the last month has been
incredibly intense. We only got to finalize the deal and
we announced the next morning, so yeah, it's been a
very busy time.

Speaker 1 (01:46):
Who called who?

Speaker 2 (01:47):
It's definitely just we're in discussions with Warner Brothers all
the time about content, and I have my counterpart is
based up in Singapore. He and I have talked about
is there something more we could do in this market
for a number of years actually, But this is the
timing is.

Speaker 1 (02:01):
Right your comments you say about Television New zeal And,
I understand your position, But Television New Zealand sports wise
now are stuffed, aren't they.

Speaker 2 (02:09):
No, I don't think so.

Speaker 1 (02:10):
How is it possible that you go to the Rugby Union,
for example, and go, well, we'll take some of the
all blacks and we'll pop it on to TV three.
Oh hold on, no, we won't. We might sell it
to TV and Z. No, you're not.

Speaker 2 (02:21):
I think that the Rugby Union is the owner of
those rights. So ultimately they've got a decision to make
about where they want to place some of the free
to wear rights. It'll be in good discussion with us.
But I still think there's.

Speaker 1 (02:32):
A really I'm I'm just I don't want to bag
on TV and said, but it just means, and this
goes back to the ComCom thing. You own a tremendous
amount of very valuable real estate now and you have
a control over that and for some that's hard work now,
isn't it. I mean, TV and Z.

Speaker 2 (02:49):
Are TV and Z are still the juggernaut though in
this market sixty five percent advertising revenue share. They have
an immense audience. You know they are TV one is
a category of one on that front, so I don't
think you can discount that, and I think where there
are codes who have got big freeware obligations, my expectation
is that TVNZ will be building a very good foot forward,

(03:09):
particularly if they can fold in an ability to enable
a pay platform so they could do things as events,
and I think that's positive. I think it's positive for
the local media market equally. From my perspective, what I'm
thrilled about is the opportunity to make some awesome Kiwi
stories good in partnership.

Speaker 1 (03:29):
Was it worth only a dollar? Would you have paid
real money for it or not?

Speaker 2 (03:34):
So, as you know, Mike, something's worth a dollar, it
doesn't mean it's profitable. So you know there are going
to be Warner Brothers, Discovery will be filing their accounts.
Evere knows. It's been a challenging time. The opportunity we
have with the where the deal is structured is to
turn it into a profitable business alongside the Sky asss.

Speaker 1 (03:53):
So you believe they can be profitable or does it
need Sky to make it profitable.

Speaker 2 (03:58):
It is a combination of our ability around procuring content
and particularly on the broadcast infrastructure that actually makes means
that we're uniquely placed to actually turn the center a.

Speaker 1 (04:08):
Profitable The bost advice I can offer you is if
you stick some snooker on TV.

Speaker 2 (04:12):
Three, Well, there's an idea, Mike, here is an idea.

Speaker 1 (04:18):
Appreciate your time very much.

Speaker 2 (04:20):
For more from the Mic Asking Breakfast, listen live to
news talks.

Speaker 1 (04:23):
It'd be from six am weekdays, or follow the podcast
on iHeartRadio.