KEY POINTS:
TV3'S free-to-air coverage of Rugby World Cup matches is welcome news for rugby followers. The All Blacks have many passionate fans who don't subscribe to pay television so they can spend their leisure hours between February and November in front of live broadcasts of the Super 14 and the NPC.
Having wrested the broadcast rights away from the state broadcaster and pay TV, the commercial underdog TV3 is now understandably keen to protect its investment. It is defying - or at least finessing - the archaic law banning television (but not radio and print) from advertising on Sunday morning, knowing that the maximum fine it can face is a fraction of the revenue it will make.
But the network goes a step too far with its legal bid to stop any non-news show on a Sky TV channel from using TV3 match footage supplied under a "news access agreement" it has with Sky and TVNZ. TV3 argues that using the footage for magazine-style shows and chat shows stretches the boundaries too far and breaches its exclusive rights. A court will decide whether, under the letter of the law, they are right. But TV3's action breaks the spirit of the law and of the game. The use and re-use of replay material on rival channels cannot be said to be damaging TV3; if anything, it promotes the official broadcaster because it is being used in programmes that will whet the appetite for the next match - which can be seen live or in full replay only on 3.
One-time TVNZ head of news Bill Ralston remarked this week that the tradition in such situations had always been "you relax a bit; they relax a bit". It is good advice. TV3 has the broadcast rights. But it's everybody's tournament.
