It seem Senator Barnaby Joyce isn't the only one having trouble distinguishing between billions and millions. The couriermail.com.au website can't quite decide, between the headline and story intro, how much the Moranbah ammonium nitrate plant is worth.

When is live not live? When it's on television and on delay, of course. It's something we in Queensland put up with every summer, when "live" shows from Sydney and Melbourne are, in fact, an hour old. So what's the big deal? Well, last night a lot of my Twitter friends were furiously tweeting for an hour about the ABC's Q&A program, featuring Kevin Rudd answering questions in Old Parliament House, Canberra. Meanwhile, Four Corners and Media Watch were playing on ABC TV here in Brisbane. After that, a promo came on with Q&A host Tony Jones announcing that the program would soon be coming up "live". If we're not going to win the battle on daylight saving in Queensland, at least we should be able to watch "live" programs as they happening - especially if we want to join in real-time debate and commentary online.

In the UK, 50 broadcasters are lobbying the government to delay the planned 2015 switchover to digital radio. While digital is well established in Britain, they argue that consumers will not be ready to abandon their analogue sets by then - and it will give time for the current DAB system to be upgraded to DAB+, as used here in Australia. Unsurprisingly, the manufacturers of digital radios back the current government timetable. More here at Media Guardian. Meanwhile, The Australian reports today that digital radio sales in Australia have exceeded expectations. Lara Sinclair reports that more than 100,000 units were sold in the first six months of digital broadcasting. I'm told, however, that given Australia's geography, a full switch-off of analogue services here is a long way away. I note, however, the Dick Smith is offering a DAB+ radio for $78 - the cheapest I've seen so far.

More from the Austereo Brisbane launch at GoMA on Thursday night ...
+ Don't expect to hear national drive stars Hamish and Andy in the breakfast shift (although I'm sure their bosses, and listeners, would love it). Andy Lee, who was one of the last to leave the function - well after the brekkie crews had made their excuses and headed for bed, with alarms clocks set for 3.30am) told me he and Hamish Blake are night owls who would never be able to get up early enough.
+ An Austereo executive told me Triple M Melbourne's latest breakfast experiment, led by Eddie McGuire, will absollutely pay off, despite it starting from a very low ratings base. He wouldn't be drawn on the future of Gus Worland and the Grill Team on Sydney's Triple M, however.
+ In the "formal" part of the evening, HG Nelson and Roy Slaven had the audience in stitches with their spray about how much they loved Brisbane (to the point, allegedly, where their Sydney and Melbourne bosses are telling them to shut up about it) and their pledge to keep the new Austereo promise that the future is loud. B105's Labby, Camilla and the Triple M Cage team - Ian "Skip" Skippen, Greg "Marto" Martin, Greg "Sully" Sullivan and Emily-Jade O'Keeffe - presented their plans for the year, while Hamish and Andy did a hilarious Q and A (with each other) aimed at getting the advertisers and agencies in the audience to open up their pockets.

Just for fun, here's a YouTube clip editing together Alfred Hitchcock's cameos in his own films. Can you spot him?

First the bad news: Hamish and Andy will be quitting their popular national drivetime show, heard in Brisbane on B105. Now, the good news: not just yet. Andy Lee told me at the Austereo Brisbane launch at GoMA on Thursday night that the duo wouldn't be doing radio forever. But, they will remain a double act - they are, he stressed, old mates who had always worked together, unlike some of the media's artificially created teams. With management reps both in Australia and the US, where they've already performed a well-received turn on The Jay Leno Show, Hamish and Andy are open to offers down the track. But, Lee says, it's got to be the right project at the right time. Lee (right) and Hamish Blake were certainly a hit with the ladies at the Brisbane launch, although some attendees (below) also sought out the company of Triple M's HG Nelson (aka Greig Pickhaver) and Ian "Skip" Skippen.

Austereo had its advertisers and media launch in Brisbane on Thursday night, and the message was that they are expecting to reach the No. 1 spot with B105 this year. My prediction is it'll happen by survey four, but Austereo bosses reckon they'll best Nova 106.9 by survey two or three. Also, Greg "Marto" Martin, from The Cage on Triple M, has confirmed that he will run for a seat at the federal election this year. He hinted at a team effort, with more than one candidate, and Cage member Greg "Sully" Sullivan revealed that he lives in prime minister Kevin Rudd's electorate, making him elegible to do a Maxine McKew. More on this story, including pictures from the big night at GoMA, to follow over the next day (or two).

The Telegraph in the UK is reportedly moving away from chasing more and more hits. Media Guardian quotes the Telegraph Media Group's digital editor, Edward Roussel, as saying:

The big focus for us now is yielding a sustainable business model. Rather than focusing relentlessly on the aggregated numbers of unique users and page impressions, we are now looking more at channels.

The Telegraph's mantra, apparently, is "content, commerce and clubs".

"How Rupert quit worrying and learned to love the iPad" is the title of this opinion piece by the ABC's Media Watch host, Johnathan Holmes. He says the big issue in media this year "will be whether the so-called heritage media - and especially those substantial bits of it owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation - will start charging for content online, and if so, how". But, as Holmes points out, when Apple boss Steve Jobs launched the iPad, it was with an app designed for the New York Times, not part of the Murdoch empire - although News Corp was very quick subsequently to jump on the iPad bandwagon. Drawing on Murdoch biographer Michael Wolff, Holmes argues that Murdoch's apparent strategy is flawed. News Corp, he says, wants to sell an electronic newspaper compiled by his journalists and editors to an audience that has already become too used to setting its own news agenda. And, of course, he wants to sell news to people who are accustomed to getting it for free. I guess the question is, will Murdoch - who has survived and prospered longer in the cut-throat media world than anybody in modern times - prevail again, or will he ride that bomb towards extinction?

Kyle Sandilands has been announced as one of the judges of Channel Seven's Australia's Got Talent. I wish him well in this fresh start. Honestly. Brisbane auditions will be held on Tuesday, February 9, at the University of Queensland Union Level 2, Union Complex (Building 22), Union Rd, St Lucia from 11am–6pm.

In May last year, I wrote about (here) and broadcast (on 612ABC) my concerns that plans for the Australian pavilion at Expo 2010 in Shanghai showed our nation's name would be displayed on the building all in lower case, including the initial "A". I was so concerned that I emailed federal education minister Julia Gillard (who didn't reply at all) and her Queensland counterpart, Geoff Wilson (who said in reply that he'd look in to the matter). My sources in China have sent me photographic evidence that the English language has come up trumps. Here, at left, is drawing released last year and, at right, the building now under construction (with "Australia" in capitals):

A man - who I won't name for reasons that will soon become obvious - has appeared in a Brisbane court. The same man appeared in court many years ago. Briefly, Brisbane's two major internet news sites mentioned the man's "prior" before realising that to do so was prejudicial to his right to the presumption of innocence and, consequently, to a fair trial. They would also have been aware that publication of the information could be a breach of the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act. The ABC television news and the print edition of The Courier-Mail's coverage of the story was limited to the matters now before the court. However, at least one commercial television news service either deliberately decided to flout the law, or its reporter and editors were unaware of the law, and details of the man's previous conviction were broadcast. Astounding.

I heard a story recently about a police officer who pulled up a taxi driver for a minor traffic offence. The cabby pleaded with the cop: "Give me a break. I'm driving all day, every day. I only crossed a double line, it’s not so serious – and I can’t afford to lose any more points." The policeman looked him in the eye and said: “No, you don’t deserve a break. You’re a professional driver; this is what you do for a living. And if you can’t do it properly, you don't deserve to have a licence.” Harsh? Well, maybe. But what if the cab driver in question was a repeat offender who used that excuse every time, and often got away with it? It would mean there’s a dangerous driver on the road. And if the police routinely cut cabbies, truckers and other fulltime drivers some slack, the roads would be full of people who drove as if they had immunity from the law. Now, to the not-so-life-threatening business of journalism ... I’m sad to report that an increasing number of people in my profession are just like that taxi driver: they believe the rules don't apply to them. I’ve done lots of jobs in newspapers, and I’ve worked in the electronic and online media, and I’ve met quite a few cowboys and girls in my time. Now, with resources becoming scarcer, it’s time to weed them out. I’m not talking about the people who make the occasional mistake – we all do that, so please don’t comb through my blog to shove my unedited errors in my face – I’m talking about the people who demonstrate no professionalism whatsoever in undertaking the job they are paid to do. At one prestigious newspaper I could but won’t name, there’s a specialist writer who can’t spell the names of the people involved in the industry he (or maybe it’s she) writes about. The bosses laugh it off as if it doesn’t matter because it’s “the subs’ job” to fix it up. Another person I’ve dealt with blithely ignores deadlines, despite having a small workload and a round where late-breaking news is very much the exception. “Don’t worry,” these slackers seem to be saying, “the subs will just work harder to get it through. Oh, yeah, and I’ll make sure I fire off a complaint when they make a mistake even if I file my last copy more than an hour after the page is supposed to be complete.” Oh, and in case you’re an indignant reporter reading this, there are more than a few slack sub-editors, too. But because jobs – especially subbing jobs – are being cut across the board in journalism, everybody has to lift their game. If you’re in a round, the absolute minimum requirement is being able to spell the names of the people you’re writing about. If you can’t do that, how can anybody trust the other “facts” in the story? If you have a deadline, you stick to it. Preferably, you beat it wherever possible. If journalists want respect – and if they want secure jobs – they have to start behaving in a professional manner. The vast majority of my friends in the media do their job very well, but many of them are moving on. They are retiring, or they are taking up jobs in government and commercial PR. It would be easy for their bosses to replace them with cheap workers who aren’t very good – but that would be a false economy. What I believe should be happening is that the onus for accuracy is put on the shoulders of those who originate the copy, not those who have to handle it down the track and often don’t have access to the first-hand sources of information. This will speed-up the production process and lead to savings all around. If a mistake is made, it is worn by the person who made the error and corrected as soon as possible. Only when journalists are prepared to “own” their work, rather than palm off irritants like spelling and grammar and accuracy, will they be able to distinguish themselves sufficiently from the bloggers and enthusiasts who are threatening the viability of professional media. The punters don’t care what school you went to, who you know or who designed your outfit, they just want to read, and hear and see news and comment that informs and entertains – and is trustworthy and reliable. The time-wasters and amateurs will, hopefully, fade away, but the people who do the job properly and are willing to adapt their working practices will thrive whatever “delivery platform” they end up working on.

Especially for those of us who loved Trigger Happy TV, Dom Joly has created this topical take on his most famous skit: