Today in Media Files, the Advertising Standards Board has ruled it too rude for a boy to describe YouFoodz ready meals as “un-forkin’-believable” in an ad, and an expert’s report has found Ten’s shares to be worthless.

Un-forkin’-believable. The Advertising Standards Board has upheld a complaint about an ad for ready meals where a child says he finds the meals “un-forkin’-believable”, finding it used strong or offensive language. In the YouFoodz ad, the boy also says the meals take “two forking minutes” to prepare. YouFoodz responded to complaints by saying the script was light-hearted and that consumers needed a fork to consume the meals, but the board found that it sounded too close to “fucking”: “In the board’s view the way the young boy says the word ‘forkin” makes it sound very close to the strong swear word it is clearly imitating”.

YouFoodz said it would modify the ad, which took effect from Monday.

Ten shares worthless. Having some of the country’s richest people on Ten’s share register has been an utter disaster for the network’s shareholders, an independent expert’s report confirms. Lachlan Murdoch and Bruce Gordon hold 7.7% and 14.9% respectively. James Packer had about 7.7% and Gina Rinehart less than 10%. Those holdings date from 2010. From 2015, Foxtel, 50% owned by News Corp (of which Murdoch is co-executive chair and a major shareholder) owned 13.8% of Ten. Ten shares were valued at 16 cents each at the time of the move into administration, and the company was valued at $58 million. 

Under bankruptcy laws, shareholders in a failed company may challenge the transfer of shares to a buyer (in this case CBS), but if the duo are to mount a legal challenge to the transfer of shares to CBS they must do so by 4pm this Friday.

According to an independent expert’s report from KPMG, Ten’s shares are worthless — a finding that will limit any potential legal challenge from Murdoch and Gordon over the transfer of the shares to CBS. The report from KPMG assessed the value of Ten’s equity in two ways, via going concern and distressed valuations, and both had the same result: no value. The report suggested Ten’s equity value was between negative $529.2 million and negative $543.7 million.

Including the claims made by program suppliers, CBS and 21st Century, (assessed by administrator KordaMentha to be a combined $543 million), Ten’s equity valuation was found to be $1.055 billion. In order for Ten shares to have any value, the businesses the free-to-air broadcaster operates needed to be worth at least $646.9 million because of the debt claims (from the likes of CBS and Fox and borrowings fro the Commonwealth Bank and other claims it had).

In the end Ten ran out of room in its cost base and its balance sheet to give it more time and financial room to construct a new survival plan. Given the observations from KPMG, CBS will find it tough to keep Ten viable without making deeper cost cuts.

The report provides no room for Murdoch and Gordon to move to block CBS so far as their shareholdings are concerned. Ten creditors have already voted overwhelmingly in favour of a sale to CBS. But we won’t know until after Friday afternoon if Gordon and Murdoch have accepted their fates. There’s a directions hearing in the Federal Court on Monday and a three-day hearing has been set for October 31. — Glenn Dyer

Powerful woman. The ABC’s managing director Michelle Guthrie has been listed in The Hollywood Reporter‘s annual list of powerful women in global television. Guthrie was the only Australian on this year’s list, with the magazine citing her commitment to diversity at the public broadcaster. She was quoted from an address given at the University of Melbourne, saying: “The ABC is at an important moment in its history. The challenges we face as an industry have the potential to change the way the ABC engages with its audience and how it remains relevant for the next generation.”

Front page of the day.

Police stuff-up kept Weinstein free. A stuff up by the New York Police Department two years ago allowed disgraced Hollywood film mogul, Harvey Weinstein to remain free and harass women. According to US media reports, the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office says it would have attempted to prosecute Weinstein on criminal charges two years ago if the New York Police Department had coordinated the matter involving claims by model Ambra Battilana Gutierrez with them.

The news came at the end of a day when new reports of sexual harassment claims published in The New Yorker and a second major report in The New York Times. The New Yorker story included audio of a recorded conversation between Gutierrez and Weinstein at the Tribeca Grand Hotel in 2015 as part of a sting operation. On the tape, Weinstein is reportedly heard trying to lure Gutierrez into his room, and admits inappropriately touching her in an earlier encounter.

The DA’s office said the NYPD had arranged the sting operation, which prosecutors hadn’t been involved in, and the recording didn’t have sufficient evidence to prove a crime under New York law.

Glenn Dyer TV Ratings. Australian Survivor couldn’t manage a million viewers in the five metro markets last night, and while it managed it in the national figures for the winner announcement — 1.01 million — the rest of the final could only grab 938,000 across the country. It was a rotten result for Ten. The finale of the 2016 series grabbed 1.45 million national viewers for the winner’s announcement — a nasty 30% fall. That sort of sums up what is Ten’s horrid 2017.

The World Cup Soccer heart stopper on Nine’s Go (667,000) and Fox Sports (401,000) totaled 1.06 million last night. The Block grabbed 1.76 million including 1.19 million in the metros where it was the only program with a million or more viewers. That gave Nine a very easy win, and it’s game over for the week.

In regional markets Seven News was tops with 592,000, followed by The Block with 574,000, Seven News/Today Tonight was third  with 486,000, fourth was Home and Away with 471,000 and 800 Words was fifth with 444,000. — Read the rest on the Crikey website