Entertainment

TV & Radio

Mouthing off ...

Australia's captain Tim Paine receives the ball on during day one of the fourth cricket test match between South Africa ...

A billion dollars is, if my math is correct, a lot of money. Even spread over seven years, as in the latest broadcast deal struck between Cricket Australia and the combined might of Seven and Foxtel, it's a hefty bag of cash to hand over for the privilege of televising ball games. And if anything, the amount CA got for the cricket rights were a little underwhelming compared to what might have been expected a year or so ago – the news that the Australian team gets its sporting goods from the hardware store can't have helped push the price up. Yet incredibly, this colossal sum was paid for a sport that the previous broadcaster, Nine, reportedly made a loss on. So why, in an era of shrinking ad revenues and squeezed budgets, are networks still falling over themselves to shove massive bankrolls down a professional sport's g-string?

Green Guide letters

The participants of Employable Me.

Employable Me a deserving winner; an overload of jingoism at the Commonwealth Games should have been disqualified.