In the UK, commercial radio stations are licensed to provide a certain service. If they want to change their format, they have to apply to the regulator, Ofcom. The Guardian reports that a station in Wales, Nation Radio, has received permission to play "credible rock and avoiding 'manufactured' pop". Well done, Ofcom.

One of the first things journalists learn is how to write an attention-grabbing intro. I suppose it helps to do this when you work in the Northern Territory, where out-of-the-ordinary events (often involving crocodiles and alcohol) are commonplace. Take today's NT News story, bylined Alyssa Betts, that begins:

A MAN who pleaded guilty to his 11th drive unlicensed charge believes his troubles began when he was stabbed in the back while having sex.

But wait, there's more! Those who choose to read on - and who wouldn't? - discover that the stabbing occurred while the defendant was "having sex and trying to organise a three-way orgy". Apparently he invited a 19-year-old woman, who was watching the act, to join in. Instead, she stabbed him in the back with a kitchen knife. The NT News reports that the man "paused in his sexual activity and noticed the knife sticking out of his back". As you would ...

It's inevitable that we will be soon asked to pay for certain content on news websites that have hitherto been free. The Australian reports this morning that Rupert and James Murdoch and senior News Corp executives (including News Ltd managers) attended a meeting last month to discuss plans to charge for online content. The paper reports:

News Limited (publisher of The Australian) has undertaken a research study into the types of content for which Australians are likely to pay, although it's understood the company has no plans to release details.

And, of course, that's the key. What will people pay for? I'm assuming that the News bosses realise much of what is already on its websites is not worth paying for -- not because it's not informative, but because the same stories are mostly accessible elsewhere for free. This puzzles me, because I would have thought that if you were going to start, apparently imminently, to charge for a product, you'd be doing your best to make the free version so outstanding that many people would have no hesitation in paying when asked to do so. This leads me to the thought that it's not the exisitng news websites that News intends to charge for, but new, targetted sites or subsites yet to be unveiled.

Given Richard Dawkins was in Australia last week, plugging his new book, I think it appropriate that this weekend's video features a South Park-style animation of him answering the "most simplest" question: "What if you're wrong?"


PS: My other favourite of the week is the Taiwanese TV station's animated version of allegations about bullying by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. The video, via British TV show The Bubble, is here.

Don't say you haven't been warned: The Footy Show is returning to Channel 9 next Thursday night at 9.30. This year it will face competition from a new show on Seven fronted by former Footy Show star Matthew Johns and featuring Shane Webke. It will premiere sometime this month. To misquote Roy and HG, sometimes too much sport is more than enough.

If you missed me on Spencer Howson's program on 612ABC, the audio has been posted here. We spoke about the possibility that I will run as an independent candidate for Lord Mayor of Brisbane -- on the grounds that local government decision-making in the city is far too politicised (and has been since 1955). I also asked: since when is 60 "elderly"?

Channel Seven Brisbane is declaring victory in the battle for Ipswich. A day after both Seven's Sunrise and Nine's Today broadcast from the southeast Queensland city, Seven has issued a media release declaring it had an average of 76,000 viewers on the day. The release continued: "For 6 consecutive years Sunrise, hosted by Melissa Doyle and David Koch has remained south east Queensland’s number one breakfast program and in that time has not lost one week of ratings. " The folks at Nine know they have a way to go and, according to information relayed at a briefing (i.e. long lunch) for journalists (me included) and other media folk at the Normanby Hotel on Tuesday, they are pumping more money into the Queensland market with a view to making Today No. 1. The good news for viewers should be that intense competition makes for better TV. Or, it should ...

After an interview with Jeanine Basinger, the Corwin-Fuller Professor of Film Studies and Founder and Curator of The Cinema Archives at Wesleyan University, the Daily Beast's Jacob Bernstein has come up with a list of 10 ways to win an Academy Award. They include:
+ Speak with a funny accent;
+ Play a famous person;
+ Get fat/ go ugly (by, for example, donning a plastic nose);
+ Play the piano;
+ Die ("either beautifully or horribly".)
Oh, and with the notable exception of Jimmy Cagney in Yankee Doodle Dandy, singing and dancing won't win you a gong.
More here.

The internet continues to present a challenge for radio folk who've never had to know how to spell. Here's a bit of my pedantry on Twitter (read from the bottom up):

A sneak preview of Jerry Seinfeld's new show, The Marriage Ref, has received scathing reviews in the US. Here's a few lines from the critics:
"Jerry Seinfeld''s new show almost cancels out Seinfeld." (Gawker)
"The most God-awful mishmash of a comedy-variety show." (Time)
"Who knew Seinfeld could be this unfunny?" (Baltimore Sun)
"Painful, pointless, obnoxious..." (New Jersey Star-Ledger)
"How could a man as funny as Seinfeld produce such a remarkably unfunny show?" (Huffington Post)
Mind you, TV.com says: "My recommendation is to take a look at the show for what it is, and not for what so many are pissed off that it isn't."

It was a publishing sensation. Charles Pellegrino's book The Last Train to Hiroshima, about events leading to the atomic bomb attacks on Japan in 1945, was a bestseller with fantastic reviews and a movie option secured by Avatar director James Cameron. But now the publisher, Henry Holt, has removed all copies from sale and promised refunds to retailers. Why? Because the existence of key characters and the veracity of certain "facts" in the book have been placed in serious doubt. And some of Pelligrino's claims about himself, including his claim to have a PhD, don't hold up to scrutiny. New York Times book critic Dwight Garner wrote: "At first, it seemed that Charles Pellegrino was duped by a fantasist, but now it looks like he may have been one himself. It's another occasion where you wish publishers employed fact-checkers." There's more here.

No need for Australian free-to-air viewers to wait until nighttime this year; Channel 9 has announced it will screen the Academy Awards live on Monday, March 8, from 11am. According to a Nine media release, the coverage will start with the Today Show’s Karl Stefanovic and Lisa Wilkinson hosting a red-carpet special, crossing to Richard Wilkins at the Kodak Theatre in Los Angeles at 11am. The award ceremony proper, hosted by Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin, will start at 11.30am.
Update: I spoke to Richard Wilkins today and, ironically, he says, as a viewer, he'd much prefer to wait until the nighttime broadcast, like a footy fan who turns away when the scores are on the news. However, he says, the internet and other news sources has created a demand for a live broadcast. And, of course, he'll be in LA, so there'll be no escaping it. (Still, it's hard to feel sorry for him.)

Take a look at the list of the most popular stories on any news website and you're almost certain to see at least one with the word "nude" in it. It is, of course, one of the most searched-for words and it draws Googlers to sites they might not otherwise visit. At the moment, the story doing all the business is about footballer Brendan Fevola's nude photograph of model Lara Bingle, with whom he had a brief fling a few years ago. (Are the management of Fevola's new club, the Brisbane Lions, surprised it took him so long to get into the headlines for the wrong reasons, I wonder.) However, with paid content very much on the agenda at the major news organisations, is this kind of traffic really helpful? How many of the people who come to these websites because they think they are going to see a naked model would ever pay to do so? (A quick estimation: none. Especially after they discover that they don't actually get to see a nude photo.) And does a reputation for prominently posting such material (or at least pretending to be publishing it) really help the credibility of news sites that hope to charge for content one day soon? These are questions people in high places in the media really should be asking themselves as a matter of urgency.
PS: Before anybody else says it, the Fevola-Bingle story is a legitimate one. But plenty of "nude" news stories are not and their presence on news websites is used purely to draw traffic in what I would argue is a very short-term strategy.

Coincidence or not? According to information from the two networks, both Channel 7's Sunrise and Channel 9's Today show will be broadcasting live from Ipswich, near Brisbane, on Wednesday. Well, presumably, they'll actually be broadcasting live to Sydney and Melbourne but on a one-hour delay to Brisbane. But they will be here.
Update: Spencer Howson tells me it's Ipswich's 150th aniversary on Wednesday, and 612ABC will have reporter Anne O'Keeffe on the scene, too. Time for your close-up, Cr Pisasale?

The old George/ Lyceum Theatre in George Street is reopening on March 11 under the name Tribal Theatre. Films already programmed range from Casablanca to Pulp Fiction. Details here.

I am trying to put together a showreel of highlights from my various radio spots and decided to search for audio on the ABC Brisbane website. Although I know Spencer Howson posts my segment every week, a search for "Debritz" at abc.net.au/brisbane yielded just one result (from 2007, when I co-judged a 612ABC competition with Lord Mayor Campbell Newman) and this message:

An email from John Cleese reveals that the former Monty Python member is working on a musical version of his hit film A Fish Called Wanda. Cleese writes to his fans:

"It appears that my daughter, Camilla, is doing her best to outpace her dear old dad at every turn. We've just completed the book for the musical of A Fish Called Wanda and I'm pleased that Camilla hasn't completely stolen all of my dignity in writing so brilliantly. She's left me a few scraps to hang onto to keep me warm at night. Soon, we'll start to work on the songs for the show with Bill Bailey, who, among his many achievements, is an honourary member of the Society of Crematorium Organists. This musical is destined to be a hit amongst funeral directors."

One of my pet hates has resurfaced -- the way films and television programs depict newspapers. Here's a still from a promo for the pay-TV channel 13th Street. No professional newspaper journalist I know would repeat the word "husband" from the main headline in the subhead, and none of them, I hope, would forget to put an apostrophe on the possessive form of the word.

Luminaries from the Brisbane media, past and present, gathered at the Paddington Tavern on Friday night to say to farewell to producer Majella Marsden, who is retiring after 30 years working in broadcasting. Majella has worked with 4BK, 4BC, B105, Channel 9, River 949 and, most recently, 612ABC. Among those on hand to say farewell were Wayne Roberts (who is also Majella's brother in law), Rick Burnett, Billy J. Smith, Spencer Howson, Kelly Higgins-Devine, Loretta Ryan, Richard Fidler, Gerry Collins, David Greenwood, Rod "Mr T." Tiley, Peter Psaltis, Donna Lynch, Natalie Bochenski, Peter Gooch and Peter Dick. Earlier in the say, Kelly Higgins-Devine hosted an on-air farewell which included contributions from Wayne Roberts (pictured with Majella) and Jamie Dunn. More pictures from the function are here.

"You’ve heard of sexual dynamite, meet the man who’s sexual kryptonite." That's the tagline for the standup shows from Greg Sullivan, better known as Sully from Triple M Brisbane's The Cage breakfast show. He'll appear at the Brisbane Powerhouse from March2-7 as part of the Brisbane Comedy Festival which will also feature performances by Wil Anderson, Adam Hills, Josh Thomas, Kitty Flanaghan, Frank Woodley, Melinda Buttle, Felicity Ward, Peter Helliar and the Pyjama Men. Details here.