Archive for August 18th, 2008

Highly Travelled

It says something about the travel habits of Kevin Rudd when radio news stories can start with the line “The Prime Minister’s been in Canberra today”. On this occasion he was doing something noteworthy in Canberra, but it’s only a matter of time until him spending time in Canberra is newsworthy on its own.

That day will be slightly closer tonight after he adds New Zealand to his rapidly growing “I’ve been there” list.

Samuel

August 18th, 2008 at 06:33pm

Motor vehicle accident and power outage in Fyshwick

I didn’t catch the full details in 2CC’s 3pm news as I was distracted, but there has been a motor vehicle accident at the corner of Gladstone Street and another street (Update: the other street is Wollongong Street, and traffic is blocked in both directions) in Fyshwick. A vehicle has crashed in to a power pole, causing a power outage in the area.

Further update 3:30pm: Apparently it’s a truck which has run off the road, and it has hit a building. End Update

4pm Update: The truck has damaged a store and spilled a large amount of fuel in the process. According to 2CC, ActewAGL claim that power has been restored to most businesses, but 20 or so businesses will need to wait until the power pole is repaired this evening. I had a look on Google Street View and it would appear that the power poles on that corner carry a lot of power lines, so I’m not surprised that so many businesses were affected by the crash. 1WAY FM are running scheduled programming, so I can only assume that they have power.End Update

Correction 4:14pm: 1WAY FM’s part of Fyshwick was not affected by the power outage. They’re just having Internet connection issues. Apologies for any confusion. End Correction.

Samuel

August 18th, 2008 at 03:10pm

Mike Frame on State Focus

A few months back, Mike Frame left 2CC to host the Queensland version of Southern Cross Ten’s State Focus programme. Mike does this from the Southern Cross Ten studios in Watson which is interesting not only because the regional program doesn’t have to be filmed in the region, but also because Mike didn’t have to leave Canberra and was therefore able to appear in the social pages of The Chronicle last week, attending a function at Thoroughbred Park.

That photo reminded me that I’ve been meaning to check for a video of Framey on State Focus for a while, and this morning I spotted the following extract which originally aired on the 6th of July.

It looks like Mike is enjoying hosting State Focus, but he doesn’t look comfortable reading the autocue. Firing question off with some degree of ad-libbing makes Framey look more “at home”, hopefully the autocue part of his job will become more natural as time goes by.

Whilst on the subject of Framey, apparently he filled in for Graham Robinson on a Sunday on 2CC a few weeks ago. I missed it as I was sleeping at the time, I would have called in otherwise. As for the question of why I haven’t called Graham on the weekend yet…well I’m rarely able to call on a Saturday during the Weekend Magazine, and I don’t really have much to contribute to the gardening show or The Tradies Post…I do listen though.

Samuel

August 18th, 2008 at 02:56pm

If a trend is a glitch, what do I make of 2CH?

The Australian is reporting on a rather peculiar statement from Macquarie Radio (Sydney’s 2GB and 2CH) chief executive Angela Clark.

Ms. Clark claims that Deborah Cameron’s success this year on ABC 702 Sydney’s morning show is “a survey glitch”. She is referring to the latest survey in particular where Ms. Cameron had the attention of 10.1% of the Sydney audience, putting her in second place behind 2GB’s Ray Hadley who was in the ear of 13.7% of Sydney listeners.

Ms. Cameron is relatively new to the airwaves, having taken over the morning show at the beginning of this year as a replacement for Virginia Trioli, leaving her newspaper journalism role to do so. It has been widely noted that Ms. Cameron doesn’t come across as a “polished” radio presenter, and perhaps that is part of her charm and part of the reason for her success. In many ways I think talk radio presenters sound more credible when they sound like they are ad-libbing rather than reading a piece of paper.

Anyway, back to my point. Angela Clark claims that the latest survey is a glitch, but I would like to know what she makes of the trend.

Virginia Trioli scored 7.2% in the final survey of last year. This year Deborah Cameron’s ratings have been:
Survey 1: 7.9%
Survey 2: 8.0%
Survey 3: 7.7%
Survey 4: 9.4%
Survey 5: 10.1%

The clear trend here is upwards, and if there was a “glitch” in the data used in survey four, then I would have expected survey five to deliver a lower percentage, not a higher one. To explain, the metro markets such as Sydney generally use two reporting periods per survey. Survey one only has one reporting period, but that is shared with survey two which uses reporting periods one and two, survey three uses reporting periods two and three, survey four uses reporting period three and four, and so on. If reporting period four was abnormally high, then it should have been balanced out by reporting period five, but it wasn’t, so the trend is an upward one.

This all makes me wonder what Ms. Clark expects me to make of 2CH’s unexpected success this year, especially considering that Macquarie have publicly expressed their pleasure with 2CH’s results:
Survey 1: 5.6% (9th)
Survey 2: 5.4% (9th)
Survey 3: 6.7% (7th)
Survey 4: 7.3% (6th)
Survey 5: 7.1% (6th)

The trend here is an upward one, and for a station which works with a minimal budget and virtually no promotion, it’s an impressive jump, especially considering that they are now ahead of six of the eight other music stations.

That said though, if 2CH’s trend isn’t as strong as Deborah Cameron’s trend, and Ms. Cameron’s trend can be written off as a glitch by Ms. Clark, surely Macquarie should be wary about praising 2CH’s wonderful upward glitch. Or does the goose live under separate conditions to the gander?

Samuel

August 18th, 2008 at 11:45am

Samuel’s Blog (not quite weekly) Poll: Proper English In Text Messages

As tempted as I am to run a guaranteed vote-grabber poll along the lines of “How interested are you in the Olympic Games”, I will restrain myself and run a more interesting poll.

In the last few days I’ve been wondering whether I am alone in my quest to use proper English in text messages and instant messaging. With a few minor exceptions, I tend to use full sentences and words, plus punctuation, in text messages and instant messaging. I’m fairly certain that, in doing so, I’m placing myself in a very small minority, but I’d be interested to see whether this is true. As such, the poll for this week:

In text messages and instant messaging you use:

Total Votes: 67
Started: August 18, 2008

The last poll’s results:

The recent spate of aeroplane issues has:

Total Votes: 21
Started: August 1, 2008

I can’t be bothered going through the logs to check, but I’d say that it’s a fairly good bet that somebody was having a bit too much fun finding ways to vote multiple times in that poll.

Results of previous polls can be seen by clicking here.

Samuel

August 18th, 2008 at 07:48am

Samuel’s Musicians Of The Week

It has been a few weeks since I last did this, and I’ve decided not to bother with catching up on the missing weeks. I will, however, pick up where I left off, and as promised purposefully pick a song from the ever-growing list rather than allow the random number generator to choose for me.

As I said a few weeks ago, Michael Thompson left 2CC for 2GB and he has been intermittently bugging me to give the award to The Bee Gees. As you wish Michael.

The feature song is First Of May.

When I was small, and christmas trees were tall,
We used to love while others used to play.
Don’t ask me why, but time has passed us by,
Some one else moved in from far away.

Now we are tall, and christmas trees are small,
And you don’t ask the time of day.
But you and I, our love will never die,
But guess we’ll cry come first of May.

The apple tree that grew for you and me,
I watched the apples falling one by one.
And I recall the moment of them all,
The day I kissed your cheek and you were mine.

Now we are tall, and christmas trees are small,
And you don’t ask the time of day.
But you and I, our love will never die,
But guess we’ll cry come first of May.

When I was small, and christmas trees were tall,
Do do do do do do do do do…
Don’t ask me why, but time has passed us by,
Some one else moved in from far away.

Samuel

August 18th, 2008 at 05:19am


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