Confidence is a big part of TV current affairs. It means trusting your staff to do the job and viewers to follow what you are broadcasting – a concept the Nine Network’s Business Sunday has struggled with over the past year or so as it’s become more of a cross-promotional tool for the struggling Bulletin magazine.

So it was a welcome return yesterday when Business Sunday aired an “exclusive” story on the National Australia Bank’s ambitions for the ANZ back in 1999, and the utterly appalling conflict of interest both banks’ auditors, KPMG, created by taking on the planning work for the NAB. It also had David Murray talking about dancing with Westpac in 1999.

Funny that, because a year or so earlier, Westpac had been talking about dancing with the NAB. Westpac chairman, John Uhrig had to slap down Wespac’s then CEO, Bob Joss, who wanted to present the deal as a fait accompli. What a bunch of old dance hall tarts our leading bankers are – all that money of ours and not a decent way of thinking about how to spend it and add value.

It was a good yarn by Tim Lester, but after having the confidence to air the scoop, why did Business Sunday producers and EP, John Lyons, decide not to show it all?

We were told by host Ali Moore that next week we’d be getting a response from the NAB, ANZ and KPMG. Either this is already in the can or it isn’t. If it is, then why not give viewers all the goods in one go? Because, whatever Business Sunday does have saved up for next week, it’s bound to seem pretty old hat by then.

It’s a cheap and curious trick that Business Sunday and Sunday have adopted under Lyons: the splitting of a good story into two parts to drag viewers to the second part a week later. But there’s no evidence it works.

Business Sunday also missed the opportunity to head to WA’s Kalgoorlie to discover once again the charms of the legendary Diggers and Dealers conference for small to medium mining companies and explorers. Inside Business did that, and talked to the head of Woodside Petroleum, Don Voelte, about the surprise decision to develop the Pluto LNG project off the WA Coast.