Here’s the TV news, and it’s not all bad. The real story from the past three years for Australian media is how television ad revenues — FTA and pay — have remained pretty resilient while newspapers and radio have plummeted .

Free-to-air commercial TV only lost 11% of its revenues from advertising from 2007 to 2009, according to a new comparison of published industry revenue figures. Pay-TV figures are harder to work out, but it would seem revenues rose by about 4-5% a year from 2007 to last year, at about $380 million. That’s roughly 10% of the total annual commercial FTA revenue in each of the past three years.

A comparison of figures from Free TV Australia over the past three years show that TV ad revenues were $3.788 billion in 2007, but fell by $370 million by last year to $3.418 million. In 2008 the total was $3.7 billion (but that was boosted by Seven’s Olympic Games revenues).

Metro TV took the biggest hit with a fall from $2.93 billion in 2007 to $2.6 billion last year. Regional TV, though, held up better, only falling from $858 million in 2007 to $814 million last year.

Compare that with Fairfax Media’s 25% drop in second half earnings last year and News Ltd’s 17% fall in local currency ad revenues in Australia in the September quarter of 2009.

Free To Air TV’s biggest problems in this country was the absurd amount of debt loaded on to Seven and Nine, and to a lesser extent, Ten, to meet the corporate objectives of the then owners (in the case of Nine and Ten) and the current owner of Seven, Kerry Stokes, who is using the money to expand his hold on the Australian media.

Not good news from the Russian front. Russia’s economy contracted by 7.9% in 2009, according to preliminary data from the Federal Statistics Service in Moscow. Most Moscow economists had expected a contraction of 8.5%. Russia’s GDP grew 5.6% in 2008, so the slump from peak to trough was more than 12%. Ouch! The figures confirm 2009’s slump was Russia’s biggest since 1994, surpassing even the 5.1% fall seen during the 1998 financial crisis (when Russia defaulted on its debts).

Snouts in the trough. Governments in the 17-member  Eurozone have borrowed a record €110 billion so far this year (that’s in January), and are on track to add another €27 billion to that figure this week, according to figures in the Financial Times. If this continues, borrowings will top €one trillion, an impossibly large amount. This excludes the UK, which is on a borrowing binge all of its own.

Ouch and more ouch. This news makes a mockery of European criticisms of America’s Budget deficits and spending. Unfortunately, the unlucky President Obama overnight added to his already blotted copybook in these areas (thanks George W. Bush for those tax cuts and two wars, and a starring role on the subprime crisis and recession).

Obama released his 2010 Budget overnight: the headline grabber, as usual was the deficit, estimated at $US1.56 trillion, or 10.6% of US GDP. That’s up from 9.9% in 2009, projected to ease to about 8.3% in 2011, and then lower in 2012, before rising in the latter years of the current decade (Someone else’s problem).

In cash terms, the deficit will peak at $US1.556 billion this year — up from $US1.413 billion deficit in 2009 — then gradually decline to $US706 billion in 2014 before starting to drift up again. The 10-year cumulative deficit from the fiscal year 2011 to 2020 would come in at $US8,532 billion (all hard to believe figures).

Of course, this is before Congress gets hold of it and adds its perks, stops Obama cutting benefits and tax breaks for businesses (especially big business), tax rises for high income earners and other attempts to grab more revenue. It is a mid-term election year and no one wants to be seen supporting tax increases, even though the people in Oregon state have just voted in favour of tax increases (Yeah, I Know, they are West Coasters) on companies and wealthy families.

The economic underpinnings for the Budget are: growth of 2.7% this year (the IMF says 2.5%) and then 3.8% in 2011 (the IMF says 2.7%) and then more than 4% for the next three years. The real figure seems to be the unemployment estimate: 10% this year, only easing to 8.2% in 2012. Somehow growth of about 4% doesn’t sit all that well with jobless numbers of 8% and more for the next few years.

There’s still gold in them thar rice paddies.  As unlikely as it still seems, China is still the world’s biggest gold miner. Chinese gold output rose 11.3% to a record 313.98 tonnes last year.  According to statistics from China Gold Association, China became the world’s biggest miner when it moved past South Africa in 2007 for the first time and has remained in front ever since. Australia is running second.

How Westpac keeps house prices up. With house prices soaring, its gratifying to know that Westpac CEO Gail Kelly has done her bit to prop up property prices in Sydney (up 12.8% last year according to the ABS yesterday). The Sydney Morning Herald reports today that Kelly paid about $9 million (less than a year’s salary) for a mansion at Terrey Hills, at the back of Sydney’s northern beaches.

“It’s a record price for a northern beaches equestrian property. The two-hectare resort-style property comes with a five-bedroom, five-bathroom house. There is also a guesthouse on the bushland estate with views towards the city skyline,” reports the SMH.  “It was sold by former Vivendi Water chairman Kevin Doyle, who bought it for $3.65 million in 2005.”

The new acquisition comes with heated indoor pool, spa, floodlit tennis court and equestrian facilities with Olympic arena, and all on a banker’s mortgage.

RBA governor Glenn Stevens lives more modestly, in the Sutherland area of Sydney’s south.

The Next Big Thing is soft and cold. An Italian university dedicated to ice cream has seen a 90% jump in enrolment as retrenched business executives look for a new career, according to the London Telegraph. More than 6000 people attended the £600-a-week courses offered by the Gelato University in Bologna in 2008 but enrolments nearly doubled last year.  La Dolce Vita con gelati?