MEDIA BROWSER

THEY say the price tag was around $160 million when the Media Monitors outfit was sold last week which leads Browser to ponder the book value of the Victorian government's own quivering set of ears, the MMU (Media Monitoring Unit). It was set up a year ago (Spring Street previously used Rehame then Media Monitors) and, like all bureaucratic beasties, the MMU just keeps growing.

Each day MMU flacks anxiously log all major TV and radio stations, ever alert to looming political hiccups or possible opportunities to land a blow. But there's more, or will be. In an office bulletin last week Spring Street signalled that "exciting announcements" were pending at MMU, a development insiders say will see the squad monitoring the social networks like Twitter. This should provide some fascinating food for thought. ("Just put out the cat. Must buy new flea collar. Ted.")

Mind you, much of what the MMU monitors is Brumby Inc's own spin as we we hear the number of PR-type flacks on the government payroll has soared from 170 (when King Jeff was toppled from his pedestal) to around 1300 now.

Good old Rupert

HOW'S Rupert Murdoch's Wapping great paywall experiment going? Since May 25 his readers have had to cough up dough to access his Times and Sunday Times (Aussie titles are due later this year) and early reports indicate some bleeding. However Browser applauds Rupe's optimism about the good health of his remaining customers. As part of the registration process to enter the land of the Sun King, you divulge such intimacies as your credit card details and birthdate. The drop-down box for year of birth goes back as far as 1880, which would rope in readers aged up to 130. They may need to crank up their screen magnification.

Bucking the trend

CONFUSINGLY, three months after the launch of Male Testosterone Radio MTR, there are two MTRs listed in the Melbourne White Pages. The first is the "Melbourne Talk Radio MTR" in Glen Gully Road, Eltham, registered by canny media boundary rider Ash Long, and the second is the actual MTR broadcasting pod in Richmond. And that's despite the fact the ailing Long gave up his arm-wrestle over rights two months ago, offering to sell the name for $1. He says he has for weeks asked Telstra to remove his online MTR listing and he's been waiting even longer for his dollar. Meanwhile, Steve Bedwell (pictured), producer of the MTR show for former celebrity share-trader Steve Vizard, disappeared this week amid some angst. One observer said Bedwell, Vizard's biographer, was still on the payroll but claimed the station has been unsympathetic to the mysterious blackout problem which caused him to crash his car last month. "Steve was in hospital recently and was sent an email from MTR saying they hoped he was enjoying his 'little holiday'."

Naughty boys

HEADLINE of the week came from Reuters yesterday, covering the athletics in Oregon: "Tired Gay succumbs to Dix in 200 metres." Shades of that classic cricket combination at the Oval in 1976: "The bowler's Holding, the batsman's Willey".

AbraMcCrabra

AS A slave/cadet journo on the old Sun News-Pictorial, Browser would occasionally take down the quotes from the boards at the Stock Exchange with clean-shaven uni student Terry McCrann, a lad destined to become the furry fiscal wizard for Murdoch's Australian empire. So Browser can safely assure one curious reader that, no, our old mate Tezza, shown gesturing hypnotically in a picture byline this week (left), is not related to magician David Copperfield (right). Although come to think of it four senior scribes have just disappeared from the Hun finance department!

Send your juicy media goss to lmoney@theage.com.au