Sky News shines on. For one brief, unshining day, Crikey felt like it had affected the news. On Wednesday, we noted Sky News’ propensity to dress its female newsreaders in satin. Come Thursday and there was no sheen to be seen. Success! But today, like Terminator 2’s morphing metallic predator T-1000, it’s back with a vengeance. Presenter Sharon McKenzie is a sight in silver…

Don’t forget your hardware. From an anonymous Crikey tipster: Mark Scott and his Local Radio execs proudly showed off their latest radio station on the Sunshine Coast, recently. It cost north of $3.5m, a record for a regional ABC radio station. (The previous record was held by the ABC’s Ballarat station at $2.5m built on a whim and in a hurry by Jonathan Shier because it was his home town and didn’t have a local ABC radio station!) Back to the Sunshine Coast: Would you believe those lunatics at the ABC spent 18 months building a state-of-the-art regional broadcasting facility and forgot to order the actual broadcasting infrastructure? The following is a clip sent to me from someone who works at Telstra… the words appeared in a recent in-house Telstra publication. Telstra’s wording is generous, because the ABC’s regionals are a major client!:

Imagine building a new radio studio, publicising its launch, arranging for staff to move in and even preparing a kick-off party, only to realise just three days before going “live” that you’d forgotten to order all the technology needed to make it work. That was the problem facing ABC staff in Maroochydore at the end of March when Telstra Enterprise & Government’s Nicholas Collins took a panicked call from the ABC.

“In the broadcast world the biggest fear a station has is ‘dead air’ where there is nothing but silence. Yet that is precisely what ABC, and its listeners throughout the Sunshine Coast, were facing until they called Telstra,” Nicholas said.

“Telstra’s services make up much of the backbone for the ABC and, without our infrastructure, the new station would have a very quiet launch. Talkback calls would have been impossible, and the lack of critical transmission technology would make broadcasting very challenging.”

But in another example of the Anything Possible attitude at the new Telstra, a team across TE&G, Telstra Services and Telstra Country Wide, banded together and completed a 24 hour transformation that would have put any Lifestyle Channel makeover show to shame.

“In true Telstra form, the team sprang into action and pulled out all stops to get services ordered, designed and installed within the same day,” Nicholas said.

Telstra’s Service Director for the ABC, Ayesha Canteenwalla, said “from first thing in the morning we had people on site working with the ABC to make it all happen. Time was against us but it was an awesome team effort and the ABC was incredibly grateful for Telstra’s speedy response.”

 The team Telstra that made it all possible included Ayesha Canteenwalla, Adrian Van Der Poel, Arthur Papadopoulos, Mark Worrad, Lidija Dulevski, Peter Hunt, John Warhurst, Customer Network Number Range team, Gary Jalocha, Clive Saunders, Col Grevett, Ian Cameron, Lee Brown, Mark Fay and Nicholas Collins.

So next time you tune into ABC on the Sunshine Coast, or listen to the ABC online *just remember that the continuing broadcast was all made possible by the hard work of Telstra.

Position available. Ten Network’s long time head of corporate communications, Margaret Fearn leaves today and the company advertised her gig in the today’s AFR on Page 18. And that has raised eyebrows because Ten was interviewing candidates for the role last month. But there has been some confusion from Ten about what the role might entail. Some suggest it could be head of marketing and publicity, including corporate relations, others say it should be a more investor/corporate PR role. The role, as set out in the AFR ad, seems to be the latter. So why the ad when some of the candidates were in this area? — Glenn Dyer

Proud sponsors of The Pope. Crikey reader Hugh Bateup thought Crikey might find the below image of the Pope surrounded by corporate sponsorship in New York amusing. Well, we do.

The Oz’s Michael Sainsbury gives Sky the lowdown Fairfax board movements — watch here:

Last night’s TV ratings
The Winners: A repeat of Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares at 8.30pm on Nine was number one with 1.628 million. Followed by Seven News with 1.385 million and Today Tonight with 1.325 million. The Biggest Loser averaged a solid 1.274 million for Ten at 7pm to 8pm and Home and Away was not far away in 5th spot with 1.250 million people. A Current Affair was 6th with 1.250 million and Nine News was next with 1.224 million. The Footy Shows were 8th at 9.30pm for Nine with 1.204 million (293,000 in Sydney for the NRL and 480,000 in Melbourne for the AFL). Getaway was 9th with 1.194 million and Seven’s 8pm program, How I Met Your Mother was 10th with 1.172 million. Ten’s Law And Order SVU averaged 1.047 million at 8.30pm and the 7pm ABC News was 12th with 1.027 million. Jamie At Home and Ten at 8pm, 989,000 for a repeat, Seven’s Ghost Whisperer at 8.30pm, 950,000. That 70’s Show on Seven at 7.30pm, 900,000.

The Losers: Seven from 8.30pm looks fairly forlorn at the moment. Seven’s night just faded away. When 1.6 million people want to watch a repeat, you know a show’s got buzz with viewers. And that’s what happened with the repeat of Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares last night. Lost at 9.30pm on Seven, 689,000. Almost fading to grey.

News & CA: Seven News again won nationally and in every market but Melbourne and Today Tonight bar Melbourne and Adelaide. Nine News and ACA had a stronger night. Ten News averaged 792,000, the late News/Sports Tonight, 405,000. Nine’s Nightline, 584,000 after The Footy Shows finished at 11pm. The 7.30 Report, 863,000, Lateline, 246,000 and Lateline Business, 122,000. 6.30pm SBS News 174,000, 145,000 at 9.30pm. 7am Sunrise down to 372,000, 7am Today up to 295,000.

The Stats: Nine won with a share of 33.0% (31.0%), from Seven with 24.9%(25.9%), Ten with 22.4% (20.8%), the ABC with 15.5% (17.8%) and SBS with 4.1% (4.5%). Seven won Perth, Nine won the rest of the metro markets and had a big win in regional areas where WIN/NBN finished with 32.8% from Prime/7Qld with 24.8%, Southern Cross (Ten) with 21.9%, the ABC with 15.6% and SBS with 4.8%.

Glenn Dyer’s comments: A big win for Nine and it makes you wonder why they can’t do this more often on other nights. Nine now leads the week, Seven will take it back tonight with the AFL out pointing the NRL, along with Better Homes And Gardens. Tomorrow night sees Ten’s IPL Twenty20 cricket from India on at 7.30pm in Sydney and Brisbane and the AFL elsewhere and the Twenty20 after that. Nine goes for Harry Potter to trump Seven for the third week in a row and win the week with it for the second time in three.

Source: OzTAM, TV Networks reports