I started on hospital radio in my early teens. The audience was sick and I was chronic!
After I graduated I landed a gig at Radio Tees in NE England producing radio commercials, helping with sales pitches and presenting on-air.
In the eighties I came to Oz and presented the graveyard shift on 2JJJ. In those days everyone on Triple-J whispered, except me, the guy who was on when everyone was trying to get to sleep.
In the nineties and beyond I presented music shows on FM99.3 in Chatswood.
In 2008 I started my daily podcast on BNet. It can now be heard around the world, including CBS news sites in the US.
Okay so the election campaigning has started, and it's down to the sound-bites.
It's a perfect opportunity to revisit the classic "Two Tribes"
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If In Doubt, Press the Genghis Button
Written by Phil Dobbie
Tuesday, 18 May 2010 13:27
Sydney's 2UE will shift further to the right in a desperate bid for ratings. Just look at their sister station 3AW in Melbourne to see how far they are prepared to go.
Graham Mott, the head of Fairfax Radio is on record many a time as saying right-wing works on talk radio. Just look at A. Jones esquire. Lots of people like him although, of course, most don't. Still those that do, afford him a lead in Sydney breakfast.
2UE is slipping further and further into the abyss, I'd suggest not because it's not right wing enough, but because there's no passion. Alan Jones does research and work hard, I'll give him that. He provides a lot of information some of which, like the time-checks for example, is believable.
The result is 2UE will move more to compete with 2GB for the older extremists with very firm opinions on immigration, dole-bludgers and ... er, immigration. We've already seen it start with David Oldfield, dumped from 2GB, filling-in on drive and getting in the news for choice comments about "frying" asylum seekers who try to escape from Christmas Island. That would have been a story on - oh yes, immigration.
2UE is well placed to pitch to the knuckle draggers because they are already doing it so well on 3AW in Melbourne. Read the transcript from this week's Media Watch of John Michael Howson prattling on about Muslim women wearing the Burqa. Appalling stuff, but a clear ratings winner with certain elements of the population. A cheap win I'd say.
Now, freedom of speech advocates would say 3AW should be able to broadcast whatever it likes. I agree. But let's free up the radio industry first. Let's give them at least 50 prospective competitors, so only the strongest survive --- then let's see how they do. Otherwise, they have a scary proportion of the total voice and that does harm to the well being of the Aussie community, of all walks and races.
2UE won't move anywhere except to the right. And, by the right, I don't mean towards unfettered capitalism. There's the interesting thing. These stations talk about the free market and protectionism in the same breath. Their version of the right is not economic, it's xenophobic, the sort that the chap with the moustache played to in the forties.It's basically wall-us-in fear mongering. Talk radio's fight for lebensraum. Is that a cheap shot? Well you have to fight fire with fire.
And we can't expect anything less as long as Mott's in charge, but wouldn't it be refreshing for 2UE to decide that there's scope for a different approach. Keep the passion but channel it in a more positive direction. 2UE is failing, not because the presenters are too nice, but for three reasons:
1. The subjects are banale.
2. Listeners learn nothing new.
3. There's no passion.
There are thousands of topics for discussion every day - why limit it to immigration and ... was there another topic?
There's another issue here. This is Fairfax radio. Do the publishers of the Herald, the Age and the AFR really want their brand tattered by these peddlers of filth? Time to offset the assets I think.
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Russell Crowe's Irish Robin Hood
Written by Phil Dobbie
Monday, 17 May 2010 18:04
Here's the audio of that Radio 4 interview where Russell Crowe is accused - quite rightly I think - of giving Robin Hood an Irish accent. Or at least an Irishman who holidays in Australia a lot.
Admit it Russell, you just can't do north of England!
Another example of Crowe showing the world what an arrogant prick he really is! What do you think?
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Radio Ratings Survey #2 2010
Written by Phil Dobbie
Tuesday, 30 March 2010 14:09
Here's a look at the Sydney ratings in graph form. The headline news as usual is Alan Jones leads, 2Day doing well etc etc.
There are some early indications that digital radio in Australia might just be proving sceptics wrong.
Many, myself included, argued that it was all too late, pointing to the mixed success overseas and the rise in online listening. With most sets over the $100 mark, limited abilities to pick it up in your car and availability restricted to just five state capitals, you would expect a low take-up rate. Forecasts were far from optimistic, with the industry predictions put at 50,000 receivers sold in the first 12 months. In reality, in less than half that time, there are 104,000 digital sets out there in Australia, although I suspect this figure includes many still sitting on the shelves at your local technology store.
Those that do have them love them and, yes, I count myself amongst them. The first radio survey of the year shows that of all radio listeners in the five state capitals 3.7% listened to DAB+ digital radio, for an average of 8 hours 16 minutes a week. That’s not too shabby when you consider that the comparable figure for internet radio was 4.2% for just 5 hours 31 minutes a week.
71% of those who bought a DAB radio did so for the digital sound quality
The undoubted benefits are the clarity of the sound and the extra channels. Surprisingly 71% of those who bought a DAB radio did so for the digital sound quality, according to research commissioned by Commercial Radio Australia late last year. Many of those, I suspect, are AM listeners. I’d suggest for most people the improvement over FM would not be worth the investment. The new channels were less important. Only 20% of DAB+ listeners listened to them at all and there’s no word on how long they listened for. I’d say they had novelty appeal at best, after all they are nothing more than automated juke boxes. Not being a cricket fan I did catch some of the voice-tracked music alternatives offered by the ABC over summer where announcers could be heard, albeit not entirely live. I’d have said that if you really wanted to listen to music all day devoid of personalities you don’t need to buy a digital radio, you just listen to Vega, but hang on, I forgot, they disbanded because no one was listening. Maybe that tells us something about how people still want to hear people on the radio.
The good news is that with such a high initial take-up of digital radio, perhaps there’s scope for more entertaining options down the track. The bad news is that government regulations restrict the providers of those services to incumbent operators for some time to come. This isn’t an industry that likes too much competition.
it works a treat, except in the underground car park at Westfield Hornsby
There’s one development that will certainly have a marked impact – in-car listening. There are no DAB+ car radios available right now and even in Europe, where digital radio has been around for many years, new cars are generally sold without them. There is an expensive gadget available here that sticks on your windscreen and rebroadcasts the digital signal into your FM radio, but that kinda defeats the purpose. Although if you are an Alan Jones fan you will be able to hear his holiness and his AM shock jock stalwarts in crystal clear FM stereo.
There’s another choice if you want digital radio on the go. I spent $85 on the cheapest DAB+ radio I could find, plugged it into the auxiliary socket on my car stereo and it works a treat, except in the underground car park at Westfield Hornsby. And there’s a simple fix for that. Don’t go shopping in Hornsby. A win all round, I’d say.
Radio
The result is 2UE will move more to compete with 2GB for the older extremists with very firm opinions on immigration, dole-bludgers and ... er, immigration. We've already seen it start with David Oldfield, dumped from 2GB, filling-in on drive and getting in the news for choice comments about "frying" asylum seekers who try to escape from Christmas Island. That would have been a story on - oh yes, immigration.
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