Channel Ten’s Howard dig. Cheeky Channel Ten have rolled out a tricky promotional ad for the upcoming series of Big Brother, featuring the outraged former PM:

A good example of the stunning irrelevance of newspapers. Yesterday’s jobs advertisement series report for March from the ANZ Bank contained the shock horror news that job ads in newspapers had fallen sharply. The news was enough to awaken Piers Ackerman who opined grandly in today’s rant in The Daily Telegraph that the interest rate increases from the Reserve Bank had “created such a climate of fear that job advertisements in major newspapers yesterday had fallen to the lowest level in more than 14 years”. But Piers didn’t bother to tell his 20 or so readers just how many ad we were talking about in the ANZ survey. The ANZ said the number of jobs advertised in major metropolitan newspapers fell 10.5% in the month to 17,115 a week, the lowest number since October 1993. NSW saw the number of job ads at its lowest since December 1983. Newspaper job ads fell in every state and territory, with the Northern Territory experiencing the biggest decline of 31.1%, its biggest monthly fall on record. That’s unreservedly bad news for News Ltd which has newspapers in every state, but local monopolies in Brisbane, Adelaide, Hobart and Darwin. In contrast to the performance of newspapers, the ANZ said the number of internet advertised jobs fell just 0.1% in March to an average of 249,926 a week, (I repeat 249,926 jobs advertised each week in March) so no real story, except that it is very bad news for the papers and their owners. The ANZ job ads series shows that the total number of website and print advertisements declined by a seasonally adjusted 0.7% per cent in March to a weekly average of 267,041. Newspaper ads made up a total of 6.4% of average weekly ad numbers in March. That’s irrelevance. The jobs market is still strong because internet advertising is still solid. Just don’t tell Piers, he might see the story. — Glenn Dyer

Underbelly DVD on sale in May. Underbelly — Uncut is due for release on Friday the 9th of May — contained in the Dick Smith catalogue is the proviso that the DVDs won’t be for sale in Victoria, though how that will stop them crossing the border we’re not sure…

Typo watch.Newspapers (oh, and blogs, too) are used to the occasional typo and goof. But for the New York Times to goof on Page 1? And above the fold?!? Tsk tsk. Readers of the Gray Lady’s Washington edition read this headline this morning: “When Foreigners by the factory: 2 Towns, Opposite Paths.” Right: It’s “buy” not “by.” It’s fixed online and the NYT has posted a clean version of its front page — Mediabistro, Fishbowl DC

Last night’s TV ratings
The Winners: Seven’s Border Security  had 1.788 million viewers for top spot again, from Seven News with 1.572 million and Today Tonight with 1.425 million. Home And Away was 4th with 1.396 million and Serious Crash Unit (from NZ, a local version is coming) averaged 1.392 million at 8pm. Australian Story with the Bob Irwin Story on the ABC at 8pm averaged 1.321 million, and was even promoted on A Current Affair on Nine). The results episode of So You Think You Can Dance Australia on Ten averaged 1.249 million in 7th spot. Next came Nine News with 1.234 million, with Desperate Housewives on Seven at 8.30pm in 9th spot with 1.232 million. The elimination episode of The Biggest Loser averaged 1.222 million from 7pm to 7.30pm and A Current Affair was 11th with 1.218 million. Sea Patrol was 12th with 1.215 million and the 7pm ABC News was 13th with 1.143 million viewers on average. Good News Week on Ten averaged 954,000 and CSI New York is fading and averaged 953,000 at 9.30pm on Nine.

The Losers: No way but to describe it as a losing night for Nine – except for the news, ACA and Sea Patrol. The Power of 10 should have been yanked after failing first up. It lost more viewers to end up in SBS country with a miserable 521,000 viewers. The format and host Steve Jacobs are the reasons. It just beat a Mythbusters repeat on SBS by 1,000 viewers. Two And A Half Men, 974,000 and 4th, again. It was a repeat and it’s worse the second time around. Dirty Sexy Money, Seven at 9.30pm, 679,000 viewers – also dead. Law And Order on Ten at 9.35pm, 635,000. A real trio of losers last night. No wonder Andrew Denton was able to win the timeslot with a tough subject like his film on metal health called “Angels and Demons”. It averaged 982,000 and stood out compared to the dross elsewhere.

News & CA: Seven News again won nationally and in every market but Melbourne. Today Tonight won everywhere bar Brisbane. Ten News at Five averaged 901,000 . The Late News/Sports Tonight averaged 333,000. The 7.30 Report averaged 932,000 viewers; Four Corners at 8.30pm, 955,000, Media Watch, 884,000; Lateline, 425,000, Lateline Business, 168,000. Nine’s Nightline, 251,000. World News Australia on SBS, 204,000, the 9.30pm edition, 170,000. 7am Sunrise 420,00, 7am Today 304,000.

The Stats: Seven won with 29.0% (27.0% a week ago) from Nine with 23.3% (23.4%), Ten with 22.0% (23.2%), the ABC with 19.4% (21.0%) and SBS with 5.4%. Seven won all five metro markets. Seven leads the week 28.7% to 25.8% for Nine. In regional areas a win to Prime/7Qld with 28.0% from WIN/NBN with 26.4%, Southern Cross (Ten) with 19.5%, the ABC with 19.2% and SBS with 6.9%.

Glenn Dyer’s comments: Sea Patrol the re-run, sorry, Series 11 spent one night on top of the 8.30pm slot and then relinquished it to Seven’s Desperate Housewives by 14,000 viewers. Desperate Housewives featured a boat as does Sea Patrol. Viewers just preferred the Seven soap to the Nine suds. Sea Patrol shed 20,000 viewers, Desperate Housewives added 100,000 on a week ago. Sea Patrol though did better, boosting its audience by around 700,000 viewers after the disaster called The Power of 10. How Nine thought this confection would be a winner is beyond me. Bring back Temptation. Four Corners was solid. There will be a couple of people at the Nine network’s Sunday program a bit miffed as they were trying to get the Phuong Ngo story up as well. Tonight, It takes Two on Seven, Ramsay on Nine and NCIS on Ten. Seven has snuck half an hour of Medical Emergency into its schedule at 9pm to try and boost the lead in for All Saints now at 9.30pm. Last week All Saints sank to just over a million viewers starting at 9pm.

Source: OzTAM, TV Networks reports