God I hope not.
I have a book about Sky and although I haven't read it for a while from what I can remember about it The Farm goes like this...
The Farm is .. a farm.
It is basically a place set in the middle of Essex, I think it is Essex.
It has a phone and that is it.
The Farm was and I am not whether it still is, but it was the place where all of the BSkyB directors would go to talk about business deals in privacy and where they could spend days (if required) planning and plotting over how to win a deal.
The plan that brough Premiership Footie to Sky was masterminded at The Farm.... i'm going to get my book, i'm sure it will have more....
Ok, here it is...
'There are four other places Sam Chisholm liked to work. (Sam was the Chairman of BSkyB until 1997).
In the Enterprise Club in Walton Street, Chelsea (often in the company of his lawyer, who worked for News Corporation and BSkyB).
In his luxury flat in Hyde Park Square, London and finally at what everyone at BSkyB called 'The Farm'.
A palatial estate near Basingstoke, Hampshire, boasting an elegant facade and a car park big enough to recieve the whole senior team at BSkyB. A good thing too, as executives (ranging from marketing cheif Jim Hytner to sales executive Peter Shea to David Chance and legal affairs chief Deanna Bates) were routinely asked to make the drive down to The Farm for brainstorming sessions.
Chisholm was always at the end of a telephone, wherever he happened to be. Supported by two full time personal assistants, he was always working, even while vacationing in the South of France or fishing off the coast of his native New Zealand. He was often in the company of his close friend Sue Ward, a publicity consultant at Sky, who had joined him from Channel Nine, the network he ran for mogul Kerry Packer in Australia, and his second in command, David Chance, usually accompanied by Deanna Bates, BSkyB's head of legal affairs'.
There is some more but I can't find it
(Edited by cheshirec at 11:54 pm on June 21, 2001)
