Much as we've lapped up the dramatisations of Frank Packer and Rupert Murdoch battling for control of Australia's newspaper industry, it won't be too many decades until our descendants are feasting on a miniseries about the fall of Network Ten. It's the romance of television!

Ten was in pretty good shape – relatively speaking – when Lachlan Murdoch (who took the lead from initial aggressor James Packer) ultimately began his hostile takeover in October 2010.

In one of his most grotesque displays of dishonesty in the name of corporate obeisance, The Australian's Darren "Lurch" Davidson wrote on June 14 that "Ten's ratings and revenue began spiralling down in the noughties" and that "in 2010, Ten ran so far off course that [Lurch's master] saw an opportunity to take control and prevent it from crashing".

Lachlan Murdoch at the 2013 Ten annual meeting when he was chairman. Those were the days! Rob Homer

But in October 2010, Ten chief executive Gert Clackley reported fiscal year television earnings of $194.2 million on revenue of $833 million. In Brackley's first full year as CEO (2006), TV earnings were $229.1 million on revenue of $764.6 million and in Nick Falloon's first year as chairman (2002), TV earnings were $171 million on revenue of $589 million. So Ten's revenue was not spiralling, though clearly its margins were contracting. Audience share in its stated 16-39 target age group was 27.5 per cent in 2010, down 3.2 per cent on calendar 2009.

By FY12 (the first four months of which Murdoch was Ten's CEO), TV revenue had fallen to $728 million and earnings to $82.4 million, and audience share was 24.9 per cent. By FY14 (eight months through which Murdoch resigned as chairman), revenue had collapsed to $601 million and earnings were negative $79.3 million. Share of people aged 25-54 (new chairman Hamish McLennan's new target) was 21.6 per cent. After a catalogue of unforced programming errors, now Ten was spiralling.