From Nine to Sky - and back

Media Guardian provides an insight into the links between the UK and Australian TV industries. Former BSkyB chief Sam Chisholm - actually a New Zealander - who thinks "British broadcasting is amazing."

Chisholm has just returned to Oz to run Kerry Packer's Nine Network in Australia. It is, according to Media Guardian, "a retro move - Chisholm ran Nine for 15 years before Rupert Murdoch lured him to Britain to run BSkyB in 1990." It seems he misses the UK.

Chisholm is renowned for creating a winning culture at Nine and turning BSkyB into a money-spinner for Murdoch. He pulled off numerous feats at Sky: signing the Premier League football, securing movie rights, pioneering the concept of TV channel marketing and introducing cutting-edge digital technology. "I've run television in half the countries in the world. There are a lot of things Australian television does very well. The standard of British television overall is _ " his voice trails off as he thinks better of risking offence on either side of the equator.

But it appears that Chisholm is keen to apply much of his BSkyB formula for success to Nine. Since his return to the network, insiders say he has been chanting two mantras which will sound familiar to those who worked with him at BSkyB: news and technology.

Chisholm is described as "an admirer of the 'brilliant' branding of British channels" - he had a major role to play in successfully "branding" Sky - and on that basis is "scrutinising Nine's promos and marketing."

Interestingly, Chisholm is also an archetype of the international media axis linking Britain and the Antipodes. He has close links with Australia's two best-known media magnates: Rupert Murdoch - at Britain's BSkyB and its Ausralian equivalent, Foxtel - and Kerry Packer, who owns the Nine Network in Australia. Although he doesn't have much direct experience in the United States, Chisholm does exemplify new, post-colonial, global network in English-language news and entertainment media - a network that clearly include the US, especially through the links provided by Murdoch's New Corporation.