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Here’s what they are saying today. First a release was issued announcing that the Telemedia Board of Directors held an emergency meeting today to transfer the ownership of Channel 5 from under BTL’s corporate umbrella to individual BTL shareholders – the principal shareholder being Ashcroft-controlled entities which administer 94% of BTL’s shares. A release says this is because, “the Telemedia Board felt it was important that the television broadcasting company not form part of the nationalized assets.... (so that shareholders) continue to have an unbiased voice in the media to stand up against the hostile and illegal acts of the government.”

The official BTL position on those acts was elaborated upon in quite heated evening release which described government’s acquisitioning as, quote “an outrageous abuse of executive power, which is both unconstitutional and unlawful.” The release characterizes government’s decision as a, "heavy handed and draconian attempt to tackle the commercial dispute....which has already been resolved in Telemedia’s favour.”

The release notes that the Prime Minister also did not mention that the Accommodation Agreement had aldready been terminated by Telemedia. That’s an interesting statement as the notice of that termination came from the law firm of Allen and Overy in the UK only this morning. According to the Prime Minister It simply accepts government’s repudiation the accommodation agreement – to make the point that with the repudiation government can’t justifiably acquire BTL because of the accommodation agreement, since it has been repudiated. Clever, but it would have been a more convincing gesture if it had been repudiated months ago.

And while those are tactical manoeuvres, in terms of money, according to Telemedia, in 2008 it had been offered US$300 million from a company that wanted to buy them out – suggesting that’s what government will have to pay for it.