From the Crikey grapevine, the latest tips and rumours …

Q&A to have its wings clipped? It’s budget discussion time at the ABC and we hear senior staffers at Monday night discussion show Q&A are lobbying hard to avoid a funding cut for the program next year. To deflect howls of inner-city bias, the show has been hitting the road more often this year and has experimented with “Q&A plus” to allow participants in regional areas to participate. Managing director Mark Scott is a big fan, but some at Aunty think there’s fat to trim at the Tony Jones-led gabfest.

Asked about the program’s 2013 funding, Q&A executive producer Peter McEvoy told Crikey this morning: “It’s unresolved at this point.

“I still hope and expect Q&A will have an appropriate amount of financial support since it’s such an important part of the ABC’s political coverage … Next year is an election year and as the ABC’s flagship political discussion program it’s important we can continue doing what we do.”

The Murdoch migration. Still on media matters, we’ve received plenty of additions to our list tracking departures from News Ltd in the latest cost-cutting drive. If you’ve got any more names please let us know off the record.

HR high jinks. Speaking of senior HR staff going a little off the rails, is it true that a certain HR manager at a high-profile company “got pissed at a charity auction, bid $10k for a holiday to the US, then tried to withdraw the bid?” Poor form, we say!

USA 2016. Here at Crikey we love the US election so much, we’re looking ahead to 2016 and tipping who will lead the major parties. Suggestions doing the rounds at Crikey HQ include, in the Democratic corner, Michelle Obama, Hillary Clinton, Al Gore … and maybe Joe Biden is just biden his time? For the Republicans, we humbly suggest Clint Eastwood, Chris Christie, Sarah Palin (see her super hair on Fox yesterday?), Condi, and “a female Latina (possibly gay)”. You can check out the betting odds here (for your viewing pleasure, we’ve deliberately excluded any reference to Tom Waterhouse). Turns out the early money is on Hillary Clinton and Marco Rubio.

So here’s your chance to be one of the first to get it right. Make your predictions in the comments below — and if you nail it, you’ll be a Crikey hero. Submissions naming Donald Trump will not be accepted, because that’s just too scary.

My insert’s missing! Tips is heartened at the continuing strong response from Crikey readers at their annoyance when their newspapers’ inserts are missing (in some cases, the entire paper is missing). This Tips scribe thought we were being old fogey-ish in whingeing about it, but it turns out plenty of people have got our back on this one. Take it away, enraged readers:

“It’s not just Wagga Wagga that misses out on the Fairfax newspapers. We, in Griffith, regularly miss out as well. Last Monday (October 29) there was no Age, Sydney Morning Herald, or Financial Times.”

“When Monday’s SMH had The Guide as a separate insert, it would regularly not come into the region at all, neither on Sunday with The Sun-Herald nor on Monday with The SMH. The newsagents realised that some people would just pick up The Guide and not buy a paper at all. Thankfully, all that nonsense has stopped and The Guide is part of Monday’s SMH again. But not if it doesn’t turn up at all. No point in asking the newsagent about it, they always claim they are clueless. They just sell what the truck brings them.”

“Our local newsagency closed 12 months ago — it was once a five minute stroll if there was a problem. Now our paper is delivered from a neighbouring suburb, and three out of four Sundays, the M guide has been missing. I am not going to get in the car to collect it, and phoning them will not rectify the problem. I have been a loyal Age home delivery subscriber for 37 years — I think our long relationship will be coming to an end …”

We also heard from a reader annoyed that seven-day TV guides have been pared back to two or one day guides in The Weekend Australian and Adelaide’s Advertiser; the reader says if this is aimed at selling papers more frequently, it may backfire; “If newspaper proprietors want to retain readership loyalty, the quality and content of the newspapers have to be improved, not reduced in value”.

*Do you know more? Send your tips to boss@crikey.com.au or use our guaranteed anonymous form.