Ten wins in Rebel case. The Ten Network has come out a winner from actor Rebel Wilson’s court case. Wilson’s back in Australia while the Victorian Supreme Court sits to decide on an appeal against her record damages for defamation from Bauer Media. Most of Australia’s biggest media companies tried to join the appeal, arguing against the payout of $4.5 million (which they were denied). Ten wasn’t one of them, and has benefited by getting sit-down interviews with the star last night as a guest host of The Project, as well as an interview for morning program Studio 10. During last night’s appearance on The Project, Wilson included repeated references to Ten not joining the majority of the Australian media companies in trying to join with Bauer to appeal the damages bill.

Aldi’s noice, different ad cleared. Supermarket Aldi has been cleared by the advertising watchdog for re-posting an article about its booze published by youth website Pedestrian. The piece was illustrated with an image of TV comedy characters Kath and Kim holding glasses of wine and cigarettes.

As BuzzFeed‘s Josh Taylor first pointed out on Twitter, a complaint noted that cigarettes were depicted, but the Advertising Standard Bureau panel countered that the post pointed out the “satire” of the picture. “The Panel considered that the image of Kath and Kim combined with an understanding of their associated character flaws is not a depiction that could be interpreted as promoting or glamorizing cigarette smoking,” the decision said.

No Sir, not at the FT. The Financial Times has remarkably only just dropped its style of heading letters to the editor with, “Sir” as a greeting. In a revamp of its letters pages, letters to the editor will no longer be topped with the greeting. In the UK, The Telegraph, the Spectator and Private Eye still use “Sir” as a greeting. It’s a convention not used in Australian major publications. The Guardian dropped “Sir” as a greeting for its letters in 1988.

Behind Daily Mail’s Stephen Lawrence splash. In the UK, the 25th anniversary of Stephen Lawrence’s death — a racially-motivated murder — is being commemorated, including with a BBC documentary. Two men were convicted of his 1993 murder in 2012. In the film, Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre remembers a 1997 front page headline he was behind, which used photographs of five men and the headline, “Murderers”. It continued: “The Mail accuses these men of killing. If we are wrong, let them sue us.”

The cover was controversial — the men had not been successfully prosecuted — but it has been widely credited as helping push for the successful convictions. Dacre said his mock-up of the front page, in the hour before it needed to go to press, drew some nervous laughter in the newsroom: “There was a kind of deathly silence on the back bench, some nervous titters, someone joked: ‘What about libel?’,” he said.

Glenn Dyer’s TV Ratings. What a night — boring, much like the NRL game, which was a war of attrition. The NRL Footy Show on Nine that followed was dispirited. It had an all-time record low audience, as did Eddie McGuire’s AFL counterpart, which was easily beaten in the key market (Melbourne) by Seven’s The Front Bar. 98,000 for Eddie’s effort, 161,000 for The Front Bar. Nationally the picture appeared much closer — 307,000 for The Front Bar and 297,000 for the two footy shows, but the latter includes viewers of the NRL program. 

7.30 saw a sharp jump in its audience (with 1.07 million national viewers, it finished fifth nationally; sixth in the metros and fourth in the regions) thanks to the James Comey interview conducted by Leigh Sales. That’s more than 350,000 above what it normally gets on a Thursday evening and well above audiences for recent months.

In regional areas, Seven News was tops with 519,000, then Seven News/Today Tonight with 438,000. Home and Away was third with 403,000, 7.30 was fourth with 343,000 and the 5.30pm portion of The Chase Australia was fifth with 335,000. Read the rest at the Crikey website.  ‎