One company, one email at News. Dissent is percolating across News Limited today after the introduction of CEO Kim Williams’ controversial company-wide edict to change its email addresses to a common domain. An internal News memo sent this morning and obtained immediately by Crikey, states: “Overnight we transferred people’s emails over to the new @news.com.au format. When you send an email from now on it will come from the new email address.”

The decision — which means most News employees will adopt the address firstname.lastname@news.com.au — could emasculate individual brands like dailytelegraph.com.au, heraldsun.com.au and especially theaustralian.com.au, given the national broadsheet doesn’t partake in the other papers’ lowbrow copy sharing arrangement.

Australian editor-in-chief Chris Mitchell told Crikey today he believed staff could elect to keep their old addresses if they so desired. Mitchell, who according to The Australian Financial Review is involved in a territorial dispute with Williams that a visiting Rupert Murdoch might need to sort out, said he and “most senior reporters” would maintain the status quo. — Andrew Crook

Ten can’t blame downloads for woes. ABC boss Mark Scott has done good things for the national broadcaster. But judging from his latest comments, he still has some learning to go. In a speech to the Institute of a Broadband Enabled Society in Melbourne, reported yesterday by Fairfax, he said illegal downloads are responsible for some of the Ten Network’s woes:

“To showcase the new 2012 ratings year on Ten, they had had held them [programs] back until several months after they were first broadcast to considerable fanfare in the US. Television networks have always done this in Australia.

“But this year, Channel 10 found the audiences it had been expecting weren’t there — they’d been and gone, online. They were good shows, easily found and watched within hours of their initial US broadcast. And there is no doubt that with its traditional younger demographic profile, a network like Ten is more vulnerable to this than other networks, but we‘re all vulnerable.”

Which just isn’t true. Ten’s problems have been weaker-than-expected ratings for its big existing programs, The Biggest Loser and MasterChef, and the terrible figures for new programs such as Everybody Dance Now, I Will Survive (which was taken off air quietly this week) and Don’t Tell The Bride. The added cost pressures resulting from sliding ratings and revenue also caused Ten to axe The Circle while keeping the expensive Breakfast on air.

Downloading from websites offshore ahead of these programs airing didn’t play a role. Certainly some of the vaunted programs on Ten’s Sunday night line-up were hurt — Modern Family, New Girl and Homeland — but they also lost viewers as the audience went elsewhere after realising these hyped programs were nothing special. — Glenn Dyer

Spotted: a cat on a bike. While the Victorian Baillieu government appears to have conceded its big cat search has gone the way of the dodo, that hasn’t stopped one Geelong Advertiser reader from recording an impressive sighting in yesterday’s paper. Not only a big cat, but a big cat on a mountain bike!

Spotted: a big day. Interesting headline juxtaposition with Arthur Sinodinos and Jaime Briggs on the front page of yesterday’s Australian …

Front page of the day. Newspapers have caught finals fever. Even the aerial ping pong from down south gets a front-page position in Sydney’s biggest-selling paper …

Journalists join fight against SA corruption body

“The Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance has joined anti-corruption figures in hitting out at the South Australian Labor government over its controversial Independent Commissioner Against Corruption model, saying its operation lacks proper public scrutiny or oversight.” — The Australian

Today Tonight stung for Sharia law beat-up

“A segment of Seven’s Today Tonight that suggested a Melbourne city council was instituting Sharia law has been found to be in breach of commercial TV’s code of practice by the media watchdog.” — mUmBRELLA

What does TV lobbyist Bracks watch at home?

“He has been the Chairman of Pay TV body ASTRA since 2008, but what does former Victorian Premier Steve Bracks actually watch? As he explains to TV Tonight, his favourite channels are Fox Sports and HBO content on Showcase.” — TV Tonight

Democrats surge, MSNBC ratings rise

“That surreptitiously recorded tape, which showed Mr Romney discussing — and apparently dismissing — almost half the electorate as victims without any personal responsibility, seems to have fueled a surge in viewing for MSNBC, a network that wears its pro-Democratic views on its sleeve as much as Fox News does for the Republican side.” — The New York Times