Today in Media Files, ABC radio went for some cheap clicks yesterday by posting a talkback call that suggested Hitler had done a good thing by sending gay people to concentration camps.

ABC goes for online clicks with Hitler caller. The ABC went for some cheap clicks yesterday by clipping and posting a talkback call that said Hitler had done a “good thing” by putting homosexual people in concentration camps, before later deleting it. A caller named “Don” on Jon Faine’s morning program in Melbourne yesterday said, “Hitler had put all those kind of people in their own concentration camp. It’s one of the two good things he did.” Faine was taking callers on the marriage equality survey with a guest, Victorian equal opportunity commissioner Kristen Hilton. After clarifying what the caller was saying (and repeating it), Faine said, “When people invoke Nazism for or against an argument, you pretty much know you’ve lost,” and ended the call.

The call stirred up some chatter on Twitter, and within a few hours, the call (without any other callers) had been clipped up, posted online and tweeted by the ABC Radio Melbourne account, but was later deleted.

 

The ABC responded to Crikey‘s questions with a statement that apologised for tweeting the call, but refused to explain why the audio was posted, and why it was later deleted. It would also not explain the guidelines for producers on which segments and calls they should clip up and post on social media.

“ABC Radio admits that it was wrong to have tweeted this call-back segment due to the offensive nature of the content and apologises for the error,” a spokesman said.

Reporter’s conference ban after negative stories. A health reporter in the UK has been refused a press pass to a public health service conference after a series of negative stories about the National Health Service (NHS). Martyn Halle, an award-winning reporter who covers national health issues, told Press Gazette he’d been given a pass to cover the NHS Health and Care Innovation Expo running this week, but over the weekend a press officer emailed him to say his application had been refused without an explanation:

“It’s obstructing journalists from doing their job. It’s unforgivable that NHS England should stop a health journalist covering an event like that and give no reason at all. I think it’s because I have done critical stories, but I do not know why they would do it and he wouldn’t give a reason other than we don’t have a relationship with you, which is nonsense. I ring them up about stories that I’m working on quite often.”

Cambodia Daily founder claims liability for tax bill. Cambodia Daily founder says he will return to the country to face tax bills handed to the current publishers (including his daughter) in what the newspaper has said is a government attempt to control the press. Bernard Krisher wrote to the government saying the back taxes were acquired while he still owned the paper, saying he was “preparing to travel to Cambodia to save my daughter”, according to the Phnomh Penh Post. Krisher’s daughter Deborah Krisher-Steele and Dominic Steele are the directors of the paper, and have been charged with tax evasion and have been barred from leaving the country. The newspaper announced it would close immediately last week, calling the government a dictatorship, and saying it had been targeted. Krisher-Steele has walked back that claim in her own letter to the government, saying the closure was not linked to the tax bill or press freedom.

Hurricane Irma hits US. Hurricane Irma has passed over Florida, and newspapers around the region have dedicated their front pages to the storm.

 

Ad spend forecast downgraded. The global economy may be rebounding from the low point in late 2015 and early last year, but not so ad spending across most classes, where growth rates have slowed as 2017 has gone on. In fact, the 3rd of four quarterly ad spend surveys from Zenith (owned by the huge French owned Publicis media agency) sees a 4% rise in spending by the end of the year, down from the 4.2% in its June forecast and 4.4% at the start of the year. Ad spend rose 4.8% in 2016, boosted by the US elections.

Zenith says total ad expenditures are now expected to reach US$558 billion in 2017. Economic data shows the eurozone is enjoying rising growth, falling unemployment and low inflation, with the threat from right-wing populist movements now fading (the German elections later this month will tell us more about that). The US economy is still solid, despite worries about president trump and his policies.

Next year, the early forecast is for 4.2% growth in global ad spend, boosted by the Winter Olympics in Korea, soccer’s World Cup in Russia, and the US mid terms next November. Zenith says that the Advanced Asia region, including Australia, ad spend grew at 5.3% in 2015, but slipped to 2.8% last year. It expects the growth rate to stick at 2.8% a year until 2019. — Glenn Dyer

Glenn Dyer’s TV Ratings.  Nine’s night thanks to The Block, the news, This Time Next Year and A Current Affair. Night over, onto tonight when it will be reprised. 

The Block had its best Monday night figures for the season so far with 1.9 million national viewers and more than 1.3 million in the metros. This Time Next Year averaged 1.277 million nationally, while ACA averaged more than 1.3 million. Seven’s best was the news and Home and Away, which was not enough.

Australian Survivor was again a lucky program; it managed 780,000 national viewers and was easily beaten by the program that followed it: Have You Been Paying Attention, which grabbed 994,000 national viewers. That is a real insult for such an expensive, time-wasting reality program. Attention is cheaper (and more intelligent) and more cost-effective and that has to be the way of the future for Ten once its ownership is sorted out. Flops like Survivor are delusional and a waste of time and money. — Read the rest on the Crikey website