Rebel disagrees with the vibe of her defo damages ruling, a throwback from The Adelaide Advertiser, plus other media tidbits from the day.

Rebel Wilson court saga continues. Actor Rebel Wilson has requested special leave from the High Court to appeal the Victorian Court of Appeal’s decision to overturn her record $4.5 million damages for defamation against Bauer Media. The court will decide whether it will hear an appeal over the coming months.

Wilson hasn’t yet commented on the latest development, but she did tweet overnight a list of her favourite Australian movies, including The Castle — the classic film about a blue collar family’s fight for their home that went to the High Court.

Happy birthday, ‘Tiser. Adelaide’s Advertiser is celebrating its 160th birthday today with a special edition, including a wrap-around front page made up in the style of the original The South Australian Advertiser, first printed in 1858.

A note inside from editor Matt Deighton talks about the changing nature of the news, the paper itself and its place in South Australia. No mention of the mass redundancies at the paper, which Guardian Australia reported as responsible for as many as 26 departures from the offices last week.

Sky Plc bidding war continues. Comcast has topped 21st Century Fox’s offer for Sky Plc in the UK, and is now prepared to offer US$34 billion — well above the Murdoch family company’s original offer of about US$26 billion. Comcast said it had committed financing available to satisfy the full cash consideration payable to Sky shareholders. 

Sky revealed a higher offer only hours earlier, and is still waiting for the final approval from the UK government which must come within the next 24 hours. Comcast says it will be in a position to send out its offer tomorrow. Presumably the new UK Culture and Media Minister Jeremy Wright will clear Fox’s offer in the next day, as the previous minister Matt Hancock planned (he was shifted to another portfolio in the cabinet reshuffle on Monday).

Disney has agreed a US$71 billion takeover of Fox’s entertainment assets, including its 39% stake in Sky, and will take full ownership of Sky if Fox succeeds with its bid. Comcast is currently also working on a counter proposal to top Disney’s deal with Fox. Under Fox’s latest proposal it will sell Sky News to Disney, and provide a Disney-owned Sky News channel with funding of at least £100 million a year for 15 years. This would meet US regulators’ criteria to approve the deal.

The UK government previously delayed the Fox bid (first made in December, 2016) on media-plurality grounds, citing concerns that it would give the Murdoch family too much influence in British media. — Glenn Dyer

Front page of the day.

Glenn Dyer’s TV Ratings. Origin night. Queensland wins, Nine wins, but not as convincingly as hoped. In fact it was the lowest rating State of Origin games since Game Three of the 2016 series (just over 2.3 million people nationally). The audience fell 22% on a national basis from the 3.45 million national figure for Game One on June 6 to 2.63 million last night. That’s a fall of 773,000, which is substantial by any measure. Metro viewers fell to 1.77 million, down 577,000 or 24% from Game One, and the regional audience fell to 864,000 from 1.10 million, a drop of around 22%..

And hidden away down south in AFL markets, another bath for Eddie McGuire and Nine’s AFL Footy Show — it managed just 235,000 national viewers and 111,000 in the core market of Melbourne. Seven’s The Front Bar managed 375,000 nationally and 196,000 in Melbourne. In regional markets Origin was on top with 864,000, followed by Seven News with 592,000, then Seven News/Today Tonight with 479,000, the Origin Pre-Match with 453,000 and Home and Away with 425,000.

Read the rest on the Crikey website.