CBD

Ratings nothing to giggle about

The Sunday morning TV talkfest sees some of media's biggest names go head to head in a battle for ratings domination.

There's Alan Kohler and his Inside Business crew, Deborah Knight's Financial Review Sunday and Andrew Bolt's modestly named The Bolt Report.

But just who actually captures the hearts, minds and eyeballs of people silly enough to be watching TV on a Sunday morning?

It seems that brightly coloured cartoon characters are beating the stuffed suits.

While Seven's Sunrise and Nine's Today top the chart, a mischievous koala, a lamb and Big Ted fill the next three slots in the shape of children's shows Penelope, Timmy Time and, of course, Play School, all on the ABC.

The highest-rating "serious" piece of Sunday talk telly, Financial Review Sunday, is eighth - less popular than the Sunday Footy Show and another kids' TV

show, Mouk, and only just beating ABC TV's Giggle and Hoot.

Last weekend the Fin crew had 219,000 viewers, against the Giggle mob's 215,000.

Insiders was 24th, with 178,000 viewers, although it's had as many as 258,000 in the past month.

The Bolt Report came in 29th, with 168,000 viewers (just behind Dorothy the Dinosaur) while Inside Business was 35th with 132,000 viewers. Perhaps Bolt and Insiders host Barry Cassidy need to make their guests wear finger puppets.

Batts in the attic

Trouble in the ceiling cavity for the editor in-chief of The Australian, Chris Mitchell, and the editor of the Herald Sun, Damon Johnston.

CBD hears the company that owns the "pink batts" trademark, Fletcher Insulation, has had enough of being associated with the home insulation scandal associated with reborn PM Kevin Rudd and has written stern letters of complaint to both Mitchell and Johnston.

With the phrase "pink batts scandal" part of the political lexicon, Fletcher, which is Australia's biggest manufacturer of ceiling batts, might find it difficult to stop its product

being associated with the controversy.

Nonetheless, it appears the company is growing sick of the batt-ering.

Inabox debut

It's full steam ahead for Inabox Group, the telco wholesaler chaired by former adman and CBD fan Siimon Reynolds that is set to make its ASX debut on Friday morning.

The company filed its top 20 shareholders on Wednesday night but sadly Reynolds was not among the names, which mostly hailed from Sydney's leafier suburbs.

Mind you, by looking for Siimon with two "I"s, CBD might have missed the former Photon Group bigwig and creator of one of the '80s scariest ads, the Grim Reaper AIDS commercial.

According to a letter sent to CBD by Reynolds' lawyer, Graham Hryce, Reynolds' first name is now "Siiomon".

Documents filed by Inabox show the capital raising eliminated Inabox's $1.5 million in debt and injected $900,000 in cash into the company. That's enough readies to cover Reynolds' $100,000-a-year chairman's fee for nine years.

Still hungry?

Fears that Chinese steel mills are "dumping" excess product in Australia have prompted the federal government to set up a new commission to investigate the practice, but it seems minds at the nation's second-biggest steel maker are more focused on the important things in life - like lunch.

In his first public outing, new Arrium boss Andrew Roberts' tongue slipped as he pondered the influx of Chinese steel.

"If you are successful in getting a dumpling application up, it's helpful, but it's certainly not the thing that is going to be a material change for that business."

Clearly the chunk of red meat served up by the Melbourne Mining Club didn't hit the spot.

Got a tip?

bbutler@fairfaxmedia.com.au