Paul McIntyre: Grubby stuff at Nine Network

Things just keep getting worse for the Packer-controlled TV broadcaster Nine Network.

The station's new boss, Eddie McGuire, has been in crisis control this week since an affidavit filed in the Supreme Court last week by his former director of news and current affairs, Mark Llewellyn, blew the lid on the grubby TV business.

Llewellyn's detailed notes while at Nine paint an ugly culture of backstabbing, bitchiness and brutality, with editorial interference by executives at Nine's parent company, PBL.

Ironically the stink started because McGuire demoted Llewellyn from his A$750,000 ($914,000) a year job - he was anointed by Kerry Packer just a month before he died last December - slashing his salary to A$400,000 and installing the former editor of the Bulletin, Gary Linnell, with no TV experience, as his boss.

Llewellyn decided to decamp to archrival Network Seven and Nine subsequently rolled out its big legal guns last week to stop the move. But the broadcaster quickly reversed that strategy and dropped its case against Llewellyn after McGuire and his legal eagles realised the huge fallout coming their way once Llewellyn's affidavit was leaked to the media.

It contained explosive material compiled from Llewellyn's notes about the inner workings of Nine and PBL and was released in part on Monday by news website crikey.com.au.

Nine, however, won an injunction in the NSW Supreme Court later that day preventing other media organisations from publishing the material but of course Crikey's report, which was sent to thousands of subscribers before the injunction, has ensured part of the affidavit has a robust online circulation.

This week's mess comes as McGuire finalises a major round of staff cuts at the broadcaster - most of the 100 redundancies are coming from the once-untouchable news and current affairs team - although some of the network's biggest names are also feeling shaky.

One, Jana Wendt, who anchors Nine's flagship current affairs programme, Sunday, was poring over her contract with lawyers this week as some of her bosses were dumped, production teams slashed and her show merged with the now-axed Business Sunday.

One of the more fascinating sideline stories to arise out of this TV war zone comes not from Nine but rather the Australian newspaper and its media writer, John Lehmann. Lehmann was leaked a copy of the Llewellyn affidavit last weekend but failed to publish any material before the injunction.

Lehmann's dilemma was that he had just been appointed editor of the Packer-owned news magazine the Bulletin, replacing Garry Linnell, who was replacing Llewellyn at Nine. Lehmann would have been forced to carpet his new bosses and new Packer-run company and chose not to.

Newspaper companies John Fairfax and News Ltd this week asked the Supreme Court to overturn the injunction won by Nine on Monday halting the publishing of Llewellyn's affidavit and a hearing was to have taken place next Friday.

But late last night, Nine reversed its position and obtained orders from the court allowing publication.

McGuire and even PBL's chief executive, John Alexander, are now facing serious damage to their reputations. For Alexander, a former newspaper journalist and editor, it is particularly intriguing. Known in media circles as the Black Prince for his Machiavellian management style, his reputation is looking less snappy by the minute as the chaos at Nine gets increasingly slated back to his office.

Indeed, in May last year, when Nine's former chief executive and close Packer family friend David Gyngell resigned suddenly, he said his position was "rendered untenable by what I regard as increasingly unhelpful and multi-layered management systems developing between Nine and PBL".

Most saw it as a coded lunge at Alexander and it is Alexander who is being fingered by Llewellyn over editorial interference by management.

Now that the court is allowing open slather on Llewellyn's affidavit, some of the biggest media wigs in Australia are going to feel the sort of heat their organisations usually apply to others.

And they're dreading it.

Paul McIntyre is a Sydney journalist