New look Sunday: It now
looks like the new look Sunday, incorporating Business Sunday, will be two hours
long. The
decision isn’t final but Nine management is struggling
to come up with a program to run from 10.30 am to 11am when the Sunday Footy
Shows start. It would be easier and simpler to run the new look program half an
hour longer. That
still doesn’t remove the comparison with Weekend Sunrise: it went from an hour
to two hours when Sportsworld wasn’t running, and then
back to 90 minutes when Sportsworld returned this
year. Meanwhile, freelance producer, Cliff Neville, will see
Business Sunday out to the death on 27 August as managing editor. Former
Sunday supervising producer, Tom Krause, was hired to replace another producer
who left in the redundancies a fortnight ago rather than hang around to the
end. Neville
hired former reporter, Helen McCombie, as a stand in
till the end after host Ali Moore left last Sunday rather than stay to the
bitter end. Ross
Greenwood, the man hired by John Alexander to replace Michael Pascoe as Nine
Finance Editor in 2003, will host Business Sunday from this Sunday until the
end. – Glenn Dyer

Coonan’s report vanishes: Senator Helen has got her answer from
ACMA, the TV regulator: the “turkey slapping” streamed on the internet
last Saturday from the Big Brother house
didn’t breach broadcasting standards. So why haven’t we seen the actual
report? Could the findings be an embarrassing setback for the Minister
as she tries to ride a tide of public outrage to toughen internet
regulation? A grand total of 130 people were watching the
website when the incident went to air last Saturday morning Big Brother. More
people saw it on ACA and TT (combined audience probably well over 2.9 million
people at 6.30 pm to 7pm on Monday night) than saw it on the net. – Glenn Dyer


Job cuts at ACP? Rumours are growing of job cuts at the
PBL-owned ACP Magazines next week as a third senior executive is about
to leave the group in the six weeks since Ian Law started as CEO.
The executive is Michael Mangan, the head of IT and technology for ACP,
who had been overseeing the vital Network Services business for the
past seven months or since Phillip Parsons left in a day late last
year. ACP has moved from Stockland House down to new digs opposite
the World Square building in the southern part of Sydney’s CBD. Staff
have been called to a “social club meeting” next
week at the Diamond Hotel in Pitt Street, near the new offices. The
rumours of the job cuts were especially strong yesterday and this
morning at ACP. They follow the 100 jobs cut at the Nine Network.
Job losses and restructuring moves have been tipped since Law came
aboard. He was recruited personally by PBL CEO John Alexander to
replace Alexander at ACP. The job cuts and other changes will have
Alexander’s fingerprints all over them (as Nine’s recent ones have had)
but no responsibility. They really should have been done while
Alexander was CEO at ACP, but he has been too absorbed in running all
of
PBL, and has left things drift at the magazines business in the past 18
months. Mr Mangan is the third senior person to have left ACP since the
Law reign started. David Gardiner, the deputy CEO to John Alexander,
didn’t survive the change of boss. His position disappeared in the
first restructure of the Law reign. Gary Linnell was moved from the
editor-in-chief role of The
Bulletin magazine to be head of News and Current Affairs at Nine, a controversial appointment. And now
Michael Mangan is leaving in just under seven weeks, towards the end of August. He was
more of an IT specialist rather than a transport and logistics person, which is
what Network needs. Network, along with Gordon and Gotch, are still struggling with the First Fleet magazine
distribution contract. There
are understood to be further changes in the wind between the publishers and
their distribution arms and First Fleet. – Glenn Dyer

Kiwi newspaperman dies but isn’t exactly mourned. Subscriber Richard Harmon has drawn our attention to this obit. It’s quite a read. Former Rotorua Daily Post
editor Ray Smith has died at the age of 85. According to the obit,
among other things Smith “was merciless on anyone who slipped up
recording the weekend golf scores”, had a high-pitched voice “which
raised an octave or two when irate”, and his frugality extended to
making his staff work in winter without heaters and in summer without
air conditioners, and making them use pencils at both ends. Perhaps the
most priceless line is: “He once said if he could produce a newspaper
without journalists he would do so.” As Richard notes, “even in
death there’s room for a knife”.

Last night’s TV ratings

The Winners: The last and deciding Origin game did well, averaging 2.074 million, with big audiences in Sydney
(925,000), Brisbane, 685,000 and so audiences in Melbourne (374,000. AFL
is far more popular in Sydney than
League is in Melbourne) and Adelaide,
89,000. It didn’t go to air in Perth
until around 2am Perth
time. Seven News was second with 1.533 million, then Today Tonight with 1.482
million, Nine News with 1.371 million and ACA with 1.329 million. Nine’s Temptation
was next with 1.329 million, Home and Away was next with 1.250 million and
Seven’s Beyond Tomorrow did well from 7.30 pm to 8.30 pm averaging 1.188
million up against the first hour of Nine’s football coverage. The ABC’s
Spicks and Specks averaged 1.035 million from 8.30
pm, another solid effort against the League. And Ten’s Big Brother
at 7pm averaged 1.017 million.
Nine’s gamble of the live Origin broadcast into Melbourne didn’t cost it much
but did emphasise how much work remains to be done to make the code interesting
to Melbourne viewers. The AFL definitely has
a stronger hold in Sydney (the Swans help) and that is probably due to the
premiership (but the Melbourne Storm are the 1999 NRL Premiers and leading the
2006 competition) and Ten’s broadcasting of Swans games live against the gate
into Sydney on Saturday nights.

The Losers: Bert’s Family
Feud 680,000: Deal or No Deal 958,000. The Origin game on Nine skewed the night
so no real losers. Nine News and ACA a bit more competitive though. Sunrise
beat Today again.

News & CA:Seven News and Today
Tonight both won nationally. Big margins in Perth
helped, but Seven News and TT would have won if it had been lineball out west.
Nine News won Sydney and Brisbane, Seven News won Melbourne,
Adelaide and Perth. TT won Melbourne
and Perth, ACA won Sydney, Brisbane
and Adelaide.The 7pm ABC News averaged 931,000, The 7.30 Report, 821,000,
Ten News At Five, 876,000.

The Stats: With Origin doing so
well, Nine won with a share of 38.9% to 24.8% for Seven, 18.4% for Ten, the ABC
with 13.4% and SBS with 4.5%. Nine won
Sydney and Brisbane strongly but Seven won Melbourne,
Adelaide and Perth.
Without the football, Nine would have struggled last night. Nine leads the week
29.7% to 28.0%. It could be tight by Saturday night.

Glenn Dyer’s comments: The third and final
State of Origin Rugby league game was as thrilling a game of any football code
as you can get and the audience lived up to the decider nature of the game and
the closeness of the play. How did Queensland
win, or how did the NSW bunnies let it slip? Just like Germany
against Italy
in the World Cup. But now there are no more stunts for some time: Nine has a big
week next week with the Dancing on Ice thing starting, and a new series of
Suspicious Minds. Tonight Nine premieres an interesting new program called
The New Adventures of Old Christine. It features Julia Louis-Dreyfus (Elaine from Seinfeld) in a
role said to be the best by the alumni of Jerry’s program. That’s at 9pm but its lead-in is that tired piece of US
programming called Two and A Half Men. Nine hasn’t given Elaine a stand up
chance with that failure as a lead-in. Tonight My Name Is Earl is back on Seven
along with How I Met Your Mother (do tell!). Ten chases the kids market
and Nine will use the Footy Shows at 9.30 to try and sneak home in what will be
a tight night’s battle with Seven.