One leak about a new job offer for a high profile person in TV is considered almost standard operating procedure in contract negotiations.

We saw one of those at the weekend in the contract talks between glamour stick, Jennifer Hawkins and the Seven Network. To put pressure on Seven, the media is told of interest from Nine and Hawkins’ manager, Sean Anderson, trails the coat in careful comment.

Ten days ago we saw another with stories about how Seven’s high profile producer, Adam Boland (Sunrise etc etc) was walking from the network. And yes we had confirmation that Boland was indeed in talks with Seven about a new contract to replace the existing one which expires next February.

Then Thursday in The Australian reported that Nine had offered Boland the news and current affairs job at the network currently held by Garry Linnell (a touch of irony because that’s how Linnell filled the post that was occupied by Mark Llewellyn, now at Seven). The offer was from Nine boss, Jeff Browne. That was denied and Browne and his mate Eddie McGuire turned around and sledged Seven, accusing them of setting up the story and orchestrating it. Given the background of both McGuire and Browne, that was a bit rich.

But on Saturday seeming confirmation of the charges:

Nine executive director Jeff Browne left a trail of voice and text messages as he tried to lure talented Seven producer Adam Boland to the ailing network. Browne denies he offered Boland the top news job but his messages leave no doubt.

Boland’s friends say they have been shown the messages and the offer was unequivocal: the job was director of news and current affairs.

If they were private communications, how come Boland’s friends knew enough about them to brief The Australian, in fairly detailed fashion, about what had passed between Browne and Boland?

With this indiscretion, Boland has made himself unemployable by any other network in Australia. They now know that whatever they say to him in private might be leaked in a one sided fashion that may not tell the whole story.

Seven knew early on about the approach from Nine and what it was. Nine and Jeff Browne were played off a break and deserved what they got in some ways, but Adam Boland is the loser in the eyes of the rest of the TV industry.