Ten loses bid to stop programmer John Stephens returning to Seven
Network Ten has lost a legal bid to prevent programmer John Stephens from working for two years for rival Seven Network after it alleged he breached a contract with Ten.
Seven accused Ten of trying to buy an “uncompetitive result” by attempting to stop the veteran programmer from working for either them or Nine for two years, after he signed a contract with Ten in April, before changing his mind and deciding to remain with Seven.
Today in The NSW Supreme Court Justice James Stephenson handed down his judgement in the case, ruling the Ten agreement remains “on foot”, however dismissed its claim for relief including preventing Stephens from working for Ten’s rivals for the next two years.
He also found that Seven actively set out to get Stephens to change his mind about the Ten contract and offered him a matching offer at Seven and that this behaviour was a “contributing cause” and a significant factor” in Stephen’s decision to back out of the agreement with Ten.
“Through its senior executives, Seven set out to persuade Mr Stephens to change his mind and stay with Seven,” he concluded in his judgement.
“Those senior executives made an extraordinarily generous offer to Mr Stephens… which they knew would cause Mr Stephens to rethink his position.”
Whilst the ruling leaves the door open for Ten to try and enforce its contract with Stephens through legal routes it is unclear whether that will happen.
In the ruling it was revealed that Seven offered Stephens a deal worth “four times the money he was earning” under his previous agreement with Seven.
He also stated that: “…they (Seven) urged him to stay at Seven, knowing that would involve breaching his agreement with Ten”.
“In my opinion, Mr Stephens would not have acted as he did absent Seven’s conduct”.
A spokesman for Seven claimed the decision exonerated the network’s conduct in the affair.
“We are pleased that this annoying attempt at distraction by Ten is concluded. We are pleased that Mr Stephens is able to continue to work for Seven and not take up the generous offer from Ten to be paid for two years to do nothing. This offer undoubtedly would have set a new precedent for our industry.”
However, Ten also claimed a victory after the decision, with CEO Hamish McLennan saying the Network was vindicated by the ruling.
“The ruling that Mr Stephens’ contract with Ten remains on foot vindicates our position. The court has found that our contract is valid and binding,” he said.
“We stated from the outset that our aim was to get to the truth of what happened after Mr Stephens signed a contract with our company.”
The judge asked both parties to decide on costs between themselves.
In a statement from Seven, Stephens said: “The past few weeks have been a chapter in my life I could have certainly lived without and perhaps both Ten and Seven feel the same way. It is disappointing the situation had to progress all the way to the Supreme Court, but I guess that is part of the competitive nature of our business.
“Regardless, I am relieved the legal stoush is now done and dusted and I can now concentrate more fully on my consultancy role with Seven. I have been a part of a great team and its success over the past decade and I am looking forward to continuing to be a part of this team.”
Justice Stephenson said the question of whether Stephens contract with ten could be enforced “best considered if and when Ten seeks to take further action.”
He indicated the parties should confer on costs but indicated he was willing to hear the parties on the matter if the need arose.
Ten CEO and chairman Hamish McLennan had negotiated a contract with Stephens to join the network for two years as director of programming and acquisitions, working three days a week, with one from home, with the support of Beverley McGarvey, chief programming officer at Ten, and her team of programmers and producers.
However after Stephens agreed to the deal, said to have included a large remuneration package, he backed out, and Counsel for Ten previously argued this was a result of his communication with executives at Seven about his resignation from the network and decision to move to Network Ten.
A spokesman for Ten said it was too early to say if the company was considering going back to court.
In a two-day hearing earlier this month it was revealed McLennan had been prepared to pay Stephens his full salary for two years not to work for anyone, alongside a series of embarrassing revelations which included McLennan not being able to name all of the programming directors for free-to-air TV networks in Australia.
At the time McLennan said Stephens was the only person who could turn Ten’s fortunes around, with the third free-to-air network losing audience share and revenues from advertisers.
Robert Burton-Bradley
Unbelieveable waste of time and money by Ten.
As Meakin says “revenue is down the toilet” and we see Management adopt a view to vindicate themselves and spend serious time and money ruining their reputation and spend money they don’t have.
Stephen’s was always staying at Seven – take it on the chin Ten – you lost.
The aftermath is an unsettled team at Ten, no new programmer and a little poorer for the experience.
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was it all worth it?
– embarrassed the Ten CEO as he showed his lack of knowledge around programming when quizzed
– demonstrated amazing lack of self awareness as Ten fired 150 ppl but then offered a guy $400k+ to not even turn up to prevent him working elsewhere
– wouldn’t have done anything to boost confidence of McGarvey
– showed the market Ten exec team are out of answers and Stephens was the only one to “save” them
– Stephens comes out now and basically says the job is “too hard” and that is really why he declined
– large legal fees
– no winner
– large waste of what are limited resources at a pivotal point for the future of the network
Ego led not rational behaviour.
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McLennan is just shuffling deck chairs on the titanic !
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So they didn’t stop Mr Stephens from returning to seven. You can’t win them all. Just look how many they stopped returning to ten.
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Peter Cross – Your dead right , next thing we will be reading that Hamish is turning the now empty wake up studio at Queencliff into his Permanent water view office .
It just keeps getting better over at ten
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I thought he was with Noiseworks?
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…..or fiddling while Rome burns.
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Couldn’t some headhunting firm find some young gun, promising, think outside the box type programmer from overseas who’d be willing to move to Australia for a few years and really shake up Aussie TV with some great new ideas at Ten. Why does Hamish think the only answer was with some old guy from 7?
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Another classic mess at 10. Surely when you add up the stuff ups after 15 months McLennan is like the program 24 – the clock is ticking. John is 67 Peter M 65 and he joined as head of news, and 3 months in they shed 150 jobs. How long do you reckon he will want to work there?
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McLennan starting to make Blackley and Warburton look like TV geniuses…..
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Will the Captain go down with the ship ! . I suspect not
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