On Wednesday afternoon in the lobby of Sydney's Sofitel Wentworth, we were intrigued to clock Foxtel chief executive Peter Tonagh deep in conversation with his predecessor and former boss, Kim Williams.
Williams, of course, hired Tonagh out of Boston Consulting Group – a firm News Limited's old guard mocked Williams for relying on heavily during his stint as CEO – to be his deputy at Foxtel before Kimbo was promoted to succeed John Hartigan at the helm of Holt Street in December 2011.
In 2012, Williams bought out James Packer's and Kerry Stokes' 25 per cent stake in Foxtel and 50 per cent stake in Fox Sports for $1.97 billion. And after Rupert Murdoch kicked Williams to the kerb in August 2013, Tonagh shifted to Holt Street as chief operating officer to unchange agent Julian Clarke.
Now Williams is an AFL commissioner (the code extracted $1.3 billion from Foxtel for pay TV rights to the six seasons from 2017). Tonagh is also a director of Network Ten, in the hands of administrators KordaMentha.
So we doubt he's overly happy with The Australian's media editor Darren "Lurch" Davidson, who on Monday wrote that "Ten's board may not have undertaken scenario analysis on cash-flow modelling" before the struggling company hit the fence.The Oz has since apologised.
Which would put PT in the right company – Kimbo sure didn't enjoy Lurch's post facto mission (under The Oz's previous editor Chris Mitchell) to discredit his stint at the helm. But hey, that also puts Lurch in fine company: Williams, understandably, doesn't like us, either.
