PBL Media decides to wait for the auction. You could call it the property version of Nine’s recycled Surprise, Surprise, Gotcha. Get a few big property players interested in submitting bids for the key properties at Willoughby in Sydney and Richmond in Melbourne, invite and then shelve that idea and decide a public auction is required to sell them. So in the next three weeks there will be some discrete ads placed in the Friday and Saturday property sections of the Financial Review and The Australian detailing the auction. PBL Media reckons it will get around $150 million for both sites: around three hectares at Willoughby on Sydney’s lower North Shore and around a hectare at Bendigo Street in inner Melbourne. But before the developers go and get all excited, consider Willoughby and its huge transmission tower. It’s not going to move and will PBL Media make it known that there have been more than 10 cancer cases in the 60 Minutes cottages, which are next to the tower, over the past 10 years or so? Will it make available details of all studies into the microwave radiation from the tower? The tower is not PBL Media’s. It’s owned by TX Australia, which is jointly owned by Seven, Ten and Nine. Relocating it in Sydney would be very difficult and expensive. — Glenn Dyer

Nine’s blokey culture rears its ugly head? Incoming Nine Network CEO David Gyngell wasn’t consulted on the appointment of John Westacott as News and Current Affairs boss and that makes the following story tantalising… what did Westacott really tell a group of female journalists and producers at a book launch for Sydney Nine reporter, Allie Langdon, last week? Surely he didn’t infer that females had no place in the newsroom and that they were only there because of some characteristic we can’t detail here? Oh dear, that Nine blokey culture hasn’t gone away. And remember Westacott is already on record as telling the Sydney newsroom that blondes have no place on TV. I wonder if he will make the same comments to Leila McKinnon when she arrives back in Sydney with her husband (AKA David Gyngell)? Those who know Westie know he won’t dare, not to her, after all Leila is a, blonde, and the bosses wife… — Glenn Dyer

Last night’s TV ratings
The Winners: As expected the Footy Shows did it for Nine last night, especially the AFL one which rated its socks off in Melbourne and probably would have done better in Sydney than the NRL one which was tired and boring (except for Matthew Johns). Seven News was tops with 1.408 million people, followed by the Footy Shows with 1.383 million and Today Tonight with 1.343 million. Home and Away was next with 1.312 million, followed by Getaway (1.218 million), A Current Affair (1.125 million) and Seven’s Ghost Whisperer (1.118 million from 7.30pm to 9.30pm. Nine News was down to 1.076 million, and was just ahead of the 7pm ABC News with 1.047 million. Nine’s Temptation averaged 1.041 million (Gawd Ed Phillips is boring, make Ms Nixon the host!). Ten’s 2.5 hours of American hip hoping, So You Think You Can Dance averaged 1.006 million.

The Losers: Nothing really: the only losers look like being the viewers in Sydney and Brisbane watching the NRL Footy Show last night. Stealing Rugby on the ABC at 8.30pm had just 475,000 viewers. Not even the ABC’s rugger bugger types want a bar of that. Law and Order on Ten at 10pm ran into the Footy Shows (just 648,000). Ouch, was that a grapple tackle or a shirtfront? Inspector Rex, repeated yet again, had 378,000 keen fans.

News & CA: Seven News and Today Tonight won everywhere and that included a rare win in Melbourne. Nine News and A Current Affair both well under 300,000 viewers in Sydney at 284,000 and 277,000 respectively. That’s why Nine has rehired Ian Cook and Graham Thurston to try and right the listing ship in Sydney. Let’s hope the blokey culture isn’t too much. When will they try and poach Ian Ross back from Seven? Ten News averaged 805,000; the Late News/Sports Tonight, 304,000 at 11pm. The 7.30 Report, 837,000; Lateline, 246,000; Lateline Business, 146,000. SBS News, 164,000 at 6.30pm; 177,000 at 9.30pm. 7am Sunrise, 437,000; 6am early Sunrise, 252,000; 7am Today, 233,000. For the second day in a row early Sunrise starting at 6am has had more viewers than Nine’s regular Today show from 7am. A return to the bad old days or a one-off?

The Stats: Nine won with a share of 34.7% (26.6% a week ago) from Seven with 25.6% (28.6%), Ten with 21.0% (22.6%), the ABC with 13.4% (16.6%) and SBS with 5.2% (5.6%). Nine won all metro markets bar Perth where it was let down in the early evening by the News and ACA. Seven won Perth. Seven leads the week 31.3% to 26.4%. It’s normal programming tonight and tomorrow. In regional areas a win to Nine through WIN/NBN with 33.2% from Prime/7Qld with 26.3%, Southern Cross (Ten) with 21.8%, the ABC on 12.6% and SBS with 6.0%.

Glenn Dyer’s comments: The last NRL Footy Show as we know it, or will David Gyngell save the day and Fatty Vautin’s job? The AFL show rated 669,000 viewers in Melbourne; the NRL one, just 235,000 in Sydney and 122,000 in Brisbane. Last week the AFL show averaged 446,000 in Melbourne, and the NRL one 226,000 in Sydney and 119,000 in Brisbane. So the biggest game of the year was worth 223,000 (nearly 50% more) viewers in Melbourne and the NRL added just 9,000 and 3,000 in Sydney and Brisbane respectively. Of course the teams involved do play a part. No Queensland side in the NRL GF. Port’s presence in the AFL match saw 193,000 watch the AFL show in Adelaide, but even without a WA team 164,000 people watched in Perth. The NRL Footy Show needs to be blown up and rebuilt. This weekend… footy, footy and footy.

Source: OzTAM, TV Network report