Boorishness doesn’t rate — take heed Nine Boorish doesn’t pay for Belinda Neal and hubbie, John Della Bosca, but it still seems not to be a crime recognised by the Nine Network on the AFL Footy Show, even though A Current Affair is pursuing the Neal/Della Bosca yarn. But that pursuit isn’t paying off for ACA . Last night it again finished down the lists nationally:1.095 million viewers, with 301,000 in Sydney. Rival Today Tonight was on 1.225 million and 369,000 in Sydney. But ACA did beat The 7.30 Report last night (282,000 in Sydney), unlike the night before. ACA had another go at the Neal/Della Bosca story last night with an elderly ALP member claiming that Ms Neal was horrible to him (and if what he says is true, and there’s no reason to doubt him, what she claimed was grubby and worse than boorish). But Nine and ACA have been paying out heavily on this story in terms of interview fees or whatever, for no impact on the audience. In Melbourne there was a noticeable fall in the size of the audience that watched the AFL Footy Show last night. Sam Newman returned last Thursday and 454,000 people watched. Last night that fell to 418,000. That’s a fall of 7.9%. Women viewers have now deserted the AFL Footy program complete. Its audience is now overwhelmingly male, more so than before Newman made his misogynist attack on women in the AFL and especially Melbourne Age reporter, Caroline Wilson. That was back in early April. Nationally, the Footy Show audience lost ground last night but still finished with more than a million viewers (1.008 million vs. 1.059 million the week before). There were higher viewer numbers in Brisbane for the NRL program who gloried in their side’s win in the State of Origin . The Brisbane audience was 153,000, compared to figures as low as 112,000 in recent weeks. The Sydney audience fell to 192,000 from 230,000 the week before. There were small falls in viewer numbers in Adelaide and Perth for the AFL version. — Glenn Dyer

Financial Review hit by inflation. Crikey hears that The Financial Review — that tax on the rich — is about to put its price up again at the end of July. It’s for the paper only, 1 yr from $795 to $899, cover price at newsstand going to $3.

LA Times spins job losses – we did it save our readers from reading! The Los Angeles Times plans to cut 250 positions, including 150 jobs in the print and online news departments, amid a continuing industrywide slump in ad sales, the paper’s editor said Wednesday. The decline in advertising, fueled by a weak real estate market, has boosted the copy-to-ads ratio above the industry target of 50-50, giving readers more stories than they can digest, while the paper competes for attention with the Internet and TV, editor Russ Stanton said. As a result, the paper will undergo a makeover by the fall that will cut pages by 15 percent per week, eliminate some sections and trim story length, Stanton said. — Yahoo Finance

Papers die as readership increases. How ironic! Last week, almost 1,000 jobs were eliminated in the American newspaper industry, perhaps the bloodiest week yet of a year where many papers are fighting for their lives. You read about the great names — the Baltimore Sun, the Boston Globe, the San Jose Mercury News — as if reading the obituary page… And here’s the great paradox: all of this bad news is coming at a time when the audience and reach of many newspapers has never been greater. The Internet may kill the daily newspaper as we know it, but it’s allowed some papers to increase their readership by tenfold. — Timothy Egan, Outposts, NYT

The future of magazines. If you can make a PDF, you can now publish a magazine. At least that’s how Derek Powazek, co-founder of JPG magazine, is pitching MagCloud, a print-on-demand service that Powazek spent a year developing with HP Labs. The project, currently in beta, allows users to upload pages in PDF; MagCloud handles the rest: “printing, mailing, subscription management, and more.” “It’s the future of magazine publishing,” Powazek wrote in a blog post announcing the launch. — Foliomag 

First pics of the American version of Kath and Kim.

Last night’s TV ratings
The Winners: Seven news was again on top with 1.476 million, from Hell’s Kitchen on Nine at 8.30pm with 1.347 million and Getaway on Nine at 7.30pm with 1.347 million people as well. Today Tonight averaged 1.225 million for 4th and Nine News was 5th with 1.208 million. The 7pm ABC News was close behind with 1.206 million, in front of Two and a Half Men with 1.152 million and then Seven’s Home and Away with 1.113 million. Ten’s Law And Order SVU at 9.30pm averaged 1.107 million and A Current Affair at 6.30pm, 1.095 million. Bones on Seven at 8.30pm averaged 1.074 million and Law And Order Criminal Intent returned to Ten at 8.30pm and averaged 1.009 million for 12th. 13th was The Footy Shows for Nine at 9.30pm with 1.008 million.

The Losers: Well, not losers, but on the face of it a nasty little lurch under a million for Seven’s previously popular How I Met Your Mother at 7.30pm 918,000 and My Name Is Earl, 8pm, with 980,000. But there was an answer, they didn’t air in Perth. Seven ran Gladiators there (115,000) from last Sunday to catch up make sure it finishes across the network this Sunday. Seven wasn’t really interested in getting close last night with that sort of decision. Q&A on the ABC at 9.35pm, 504,000. Not a loser but it is losing me with politicians and more politicians. Apart from the obvious (economy, climate change etc), can’t we have something left of field on this program? Big Brother, 860,000 for Ten. Sad. The Amazing Race for Seven at 9.30pm, 768,000. Inspector Rex on SBS at 8.30pm, 370,000.

News & CA: Seven News again won nationally and in every market but Today Tonight lost Brisbane but won nationally. The 7pm ABC news had 353,000 viewers in Sydney to 352,000 for the 6pm Nine News. Too close. Seven was in front with 400,000. The 7.30 Report averaged 974,000, Lateline , 265,000, Lateline Business, 150,000. Ten News, 845.000, the late News/ Sports Tonight, 469,000. SBS News at 6.30pm, 207,000, the late News at 9.30pm 167,000. 7am Sunrise on Seven down to 302,000, 7am Today down to 270,000 on Nine. That 32,000 margin is the smallest for at least two, maybe three years.

The Stats: Nine won 6pm to midnight All People with a share of 30.9% (30.0% last week). Seven was next with 25.3% (26.4%), Ten with 21.2% (21.1%), the ABC with 17.8% (17.6%) and SBS with 4.8% (4.9%). In regional areas a win for Nine through WIN/NBN with 32.3% from Prime/7Qld with 26.3%, Southern Cross (Ten), with 21.3%, the ABC with 14.7% and SBS with 5.3%.

Glenn Dyer’s comments: The final Hell’s Kitchen did it for Nine (and for Nine in all the demos where it was close to the top, or on top. All except the over 55’s). Getaway was also very solid for a format now middle aged in TV terms. Now, more sport ahead this weekend. The ABC has a sort of Sea Change style of program called Valentine’s Day on Sunday , 8.30pm. Ignore that the Sea Change idea in some of the promotions and watch the telemovie with Rhys Muldoon. He’s great and was wonderful in the ABC’s Grass Roots series, of which there should be more!). Dexter (ex-Foxtel and uncut for free to air TV) starts on Ten at 9.50pm. It will be offensive, but not in a Californication way. Gladiators leaves us on Seven at 7.30pm, Sunday, Yeah! Dr Who at 7.30pm Sunday, with Ms Tate joining the Doc.

Source: OzTAM, TV Networks reports