Today in Media Files, Australian Financial Review columnist Joe Aston and Harvey Norman boss Gerry Harvey are in a war of words, and newspaper ad spend was down by a third last month.

Good feud guide. The Australian Financial Review‘s Rear Window columnist Joe Aston has stepped up his latest feud with Harvey Norman boss Gerry Harvey. Aston picked a fight with Harvey in a column last week, reporting on the business’ financial state. And Harvey responded with a particularly nasty, unchallenged attack on Sky on Wednesday night. Norman called for Aston to be “stripped and flogged”. “He should be hung [sic] or he should be stripped and flogged, the bastard. The Fin Review is supposed to be this wonderful paper with quality journalists and instead of that they have this gossip writer telling lies. He should be sacked tomorrow. He’s an absolute disgrace.”

Aston has come in for another go in today’s column:

“In his 15-minute tirade, Gerry was unable to identify a single error in our analysis of Harvey Norman’s financial wellbeing. From all of our crap, lies and bullshit, he couldn’t name one specific example, resorting only to his proprietary brand of ill-defined, diversionary outrage … The threat of Amazon isn’t even Harvey Norman’s foremost headache (yet), but its chairman’s ostentatious disregard for the Seattle behemoth is comedy gold.”

Sky News must be embarrassed by the outburst because it is impossible to find any reference to it on the channel’s website (and Sky Business’ website as well). Imagine how the Sky chattering classes would froth at their restraints if Aston had made the same comments about Gerry Harvey? — with Glenn Dyer

Front page of the day.

The revolving door. Jon Faine’s longtime producer Dan Ziffer is stepping down from the job for a new job at the ABC, starting with a few weeks with radio current affairs program AM. Ziffer has been producing ABC Melbourne’s mornings program for six years.

Newspaper ad spend down by a third. Media agency ad spending on newspapers was down by a third in August. Ad spending was down in all markets, according to the Standard Media Index released on Friday, but the biggest drop was in newspapers, where it was down 33.5% on the previous year.

Glenn Dyer’s TV ratings. The Block’s night. 2.14 million nationally, down 270,000 from last Sunday but still a very, very solid figure. Seven’s Little Big Shots is hanging in there with 1.84 million national viewers, thanks to a very solid 686,000 in the regions. Overall it lost around 100,000 from the week before with a lot of that coming from the metros where it averaged 1.15 million — 400,000 short of The Block with 1.54 million. Seven’s Sunday Night won with 1.64 million nationally — Nine’s 60 Minutes was left behind with 1.09 million (it started half an hour later than Sunday Night at 8.30pm, but that should not have accounted for the big difference in audience figures).

Dr Blake’s Mysteries returned to the ABC at 8.30pm with 1.13 million viewers nationally for the start of the final season. On Ten, Australian Survivor bled 58,000 viewers from the previous Sunday to average just 701,000 nationally last night. It’s not very convincing and the Sunday version of The Project is flopping — a weak 461,000 nationally for the 7pm part (half the normal weekday figure) and 389,000 for the 6.30pm start, which is only equal to a good night Monday to Friday.

In mornings, the Insiders won with 488,000 national viewers — down 30,000 or so from recent figures, but well ahead of Weekend Sunrise (444,000 and Weekend Today with 383,000). It was a comfort to have Barrie Cassidy back in the chair to give Senator Mitch Fifield a tough interview. In the regions, Little Big Shots was tops with 686,000, followed by The Block with 598,000, then Sunday Night with 572,000, followed by Seven News with 494,000 and Nine/NBN News 6.30 was fifth with 437,000. — Read the rest on the Crikey website.