Today in Media Files, Mamamia has asked to republish a blog in return for a link back, and the ABC’s latest app update hasn’t been well-received.

Mamamia‘s lucrative offer. Women’s website and notorious under-payer Mamamia has offered one of its former writers a tempting offer to republish her blog: a link back. Carly Findlay, who regularly writes and does media appearances, and is a disability and appearance advocate, tweeted the offer from a Mamamia journalist this morning.

“A link back to my blog, and a link to a charity site does not pay my bills. Orgs have to stop seeing writers as not for profit,” she also tweeted. Findlay has written for Mamamia in the past.

Aunty’s app users swipe left on update. An update to the ABC’s iPhone app has irked users, who’ve driven the app’s rating down to 1.5 stars in the Apple app store. The app was updated on July 26 with a “fresh new look”, Chinese news and the ability to choose topics for the content on the home page. Reviewers are upset about the swipe feature (which goes from right to left, rather than left to right), too much white space, as well as stability problems.

An ABC spokesman said the updated was tested with existing users and other who were not existing users, and received a positive response. He said the app was “updated to improve the underlying technical architecture to allow new more personalised features”. He said that as well as the app store reviews, the ABC had received feedback via email, which had a mix of positive responses, questions and technical issues. “The product team are currently reviewing audience feedback and will consider bringing back features identified as important to our users,” he said.

Murdoch editor tells staff to stick to facts on Trump. The Wall Street Journal‘s editor has criticised his staff for being too harsh on US President Donald Trump, prompting unease in the newsroom, The New York Times reports. In one of a series of emails to staff, Gerard Baker said: “Can we please just stick to reporting what he said rather than packaging it in exegesis and selective criticism”. Baker was criticised earlier this year for being too soft on Trump. The Journal is owned by News Corp, and its proprietor Rupert Murdoch is known to be close to Trump.

Front page of the day.

 

Prime’s profit. Prime Media Group, the Seven network’s regional affiliate network did better than its much larger peer (whose biggest shareholder also happens to be Prime’s biggest shareholder) in the year to June. First up it earned a profit (not an underlying profit after a series of one-offs, and write-downs like Seven West Media did), and second, the eventual earnings figure of $36.24 million was better than forecast and turbo-charged by the licence fee cut “gift” from the Turnbull Government.

Seven Group Holdings, controlled by Kerry Stokes, has its foot on around 11% of Prime’s shares. Seven Group owns 41% of Seven West Media which reported a loss of more than $700 million for the year to June after $988 million of write-downs, impairments and restructuring losses. Prime took its bad medicine in the 2015-16 financial year with $123 million in write-downs and a loss of $93 million, so the 2016-17 performance had clear air.

Revenue rose a modest 1.7% to $240 million and profit was up sharply to $36.24 million which is $1.2 million above its late June forecast. Final dividend was left steady at 1.7 cents a share (after a 1.7c a share interim), making a total of 3.4 cents a share, which will see $12.45 million paid out to shareholders (Seven Group will be happy). That compares to the 4 cents a share to be paid by Seven West Media. 

Only its regional rival, Southern Cross did better in terms of profit and dividends (up 14.8%). Southern Cross’s Underlying profit was up 21.5% to $93.8 million. Southern Cross saw regional TV revenue jump 15.8% to $213.2 million with a full year of being Nine’s regional affiliate under its belt. Absent any update from WIN which is the regional affiliate of the smaller (and less watched) Ten Network, Prime looks like being the biggest regional TV business in the country. — Glenn Dyer

Glenn Dyer’s TV Ratings. Nine’s night, but the real story was another bad night for the heavily promoted, high cost Eddie McGuire hosted Footy Show. The third night of its new look and the Melbourne audience (237,000) was down a massive 37% from the opening audience on August 10 of 381,000. Nine has a raft of new programs like True Stories, This Time Last Year, the Ninja Warriors and the return of Doctor Doctor, but its biggest gamble (with a lot cost and ego) is the revamp of The Footy Show.

Seven’s Front Bar meanwhile, has withstood the initial shock of Eddie’s return and its Melbourne audience edged back up to 175,000 last night from 164,000 a week ago. The Bar‘s low cost means it is a rare winner at the moment for Seven.  Its national audience last night was 319,000 — within sight of the AFL show’s 418,000. Elsewhere, Ten returned Wrong Girl to its line up — it was the wrong move the metro audience alone of 391,000 at 8.30pm tells us that (and just 539,000 nationally) — too much like Offspring, which is fading on its own.

In the regions, Seven News was again tops with 568,000 people, followed by Seven News/Today Today with 477,000, then Home and Away on 438,000, A Current Affair was fourth with 376,000 and The Chase at 5.30pm was fifth with 374,000. — Read the rest on the Crikey website