The Victorian Government is sitting on an independent survey it commissioned which shows negligible public demand for faster broadband speeds in Australia’s major cities and even lower demand from people in the bush. Given the results completely undermine the Rudd-Conroy plan to spend $43 billion of your money on bigger, fatter broadband pipes — don’t expect it to be released publicly anytime soon.

In a first for journalism, The Australian newspaper has assigned its Business Editor to full-time gossip writing. Andrew Main, who was poached from the Fin Review‘s gossip column “Rear Window” to become The Australian‘s “Business Editor” has now been permanently assigned to write that newspaper’s business gossip column “City Beat”. Main has nothing to do with editing the business section, but he gets to keep the Biz Ed moniker. Must be the first time a business editor’s job is to write gossip.

The future of Australia Post? The bottom line for Australia Post grows partly at the expense of their Licensee’s. It goes like this. A Licensee finds a new client with a start up mail order business, spends a lot of time helping the client to streamline postage and find the best options to minimise his costs. When Oz Post notices a significant volume increase from the LPO they approach the client, poach his business, which cuts the Licensee’s income by more than half and is left dealing with large volumes of mail they helped generate for little reward.

The ALP conference ended 11 days ago but if you were seeking info on what was decided don’t get too excited. The 2009 “Platform” page on Labor’s website is empty. So much for FOI.

I have a theory about why Fairfax is floundering: they’re getting the basics wrong. I just signed up for a twice weekly email of Executive Style. I listed my details, including my state and postcode (Victoria 3199). I then received an email confirming my online subscription and a bonus offer to subscribe to a Fairfax newspaper. The Sydney Morning Herald. I offered a marketer’s dream: a qualified lead, a young man, reads Fairfax online, signs up to newsletter, only to be missed at the final hurdle by a lack of attention to detail. No The Age subscription for you!

Interesting times for the Macquarie Regional Radio network heads after their syndicated radio show on the SEA FM stream let a pre-recorded blunder get to air. Interestingly “the Benchwarmers” (aka Ant and Becks) were announcing a new show sponsor to their regional listeners when one of the pair took off on a rant about their show being ‘underdogs’. Further complicated by their aired belief that they are much bigger talent than Austereo’s syndicated afternoon hosts “Hamish and Andy”. (A show they clearly lift most of their own show from). Finally punctuating their comments with an expletive and then a count back from 3,2,1 to summarily relaunch their entire announcement from the beginning. The new sponsor must have been wrapped!