The proof is in the pudding, or in this case, in the continual games of “Schedule Shuffles” that 2UE management insist on playing.
This time around it is John Kerr and his many loyal listeners being given the pointy end of the stick. John Kerr is being moved to weekends as of his return from holidays in late January. Stuart Bocking is taking over the weekday version of New Day Australia, thereby confirming the June rumors of this happening.
2UE claim that this was due to the recent release of the annual overnight ratings (which it seems I forgot to write an article about), this is pure nonsense as 2GB had a very large and clear lead beforehand. Certainly 2GB’s Jim Ball gained 6.8 points to be on 29.4%, but a large proportion of this could be attributed to his recent Media Watch infamy, where he had an award for media dupes named after him, due to the fact that he fell for a clearly fictional internet story about a fictional school in a fictional town banning (a fictional?) graduation.
John Kerr may have lost 3.1 points, to be on 8.9%, but he has a distince advantage over Jim Ball, in that his show is syndicated to a whole heap of stations up and down the eastern states. John has a (mostly) very loyal bunch of listeners who have formed a nice community. John might only have 108,000 listeners in Sydney on a weekly basis (not far short of 2GB’s 168,000…I don’t know how those figures work), but he has a very large audience in the eastern states which earn Southern Cross Syndication big bucks.
I will admit that, after Media Watch made a big deal of Jim Ball, I checked out the 2GB webstream to see what his show was like, and it put me to sleep…it would appear to me that Jim Ball is more interested in his own voice than that of the callers, or perhaps, he doesn’t have many callers. Either way, John has the more interesting ad entertaining show.
John was obviously told by 2UE management to keep this quiet, the only notice he gave to his listeners was a cryptic reference to “weekends” in the few Christmas Cards he sent out. Ultimately this could have meant anything, as John is well known for chatting with listeners off the air. He did signal that something was up when he said on the Christmas Cruise that “we might not be together next year” or something to that effect.
John did confirm this by email to some listeners just before Christmas, but appeared to want it kept quiet, at least until he goes on holidays at the end of this week, so you can imagine his response when, just after reading through the emails after 1am and saying “your P.S is appreciated” or something to that effect in reply to my P.S about sending 2UE letter of protest later in the week, a caller who had been sent a card enquired about the reference to weekends…it sounded like John nearly choked on a glass of water! John did at this stage, being the honest man that he is, make it public knowledge that he is moving to weekends. Whilst he made no comment about it, it was clear from the tone of his voice that he was disappointed about the move, and he was then flooded by callers who didn’t want him to move.
Now, let me make this perfectly clear, I have nothing against Stuart Bocking, I think he is a great bloke and a great presenter, and I think weekends suit him (even if I do miss George Gibson), but 2UE are making the wrong decision by moving John Kerr to the weekend. John has not only built up an internationally popular show thanks to streaming radio, but has also formed a close relationship with just about every listener and has put together (with some help), a formula which works, with guests who are willing to come into the studio at obscene hours of the early morning because John and the listeners are there to have some fun.
Southern Cross Syndication sold New Day Australia to network stations who could have easily run automated music overnight by saying that “John Kerr has a close relationship with his audience, his friendly and approachable style is great company for the hundreds of thousands of people who are working, travelling or just can’t sleep each morning between midnight and 5:30am.” They even added that “The direct benefits for your station include the advertising opportunities that exist with this type of program. Talk radio is foreground radio. Talk radio means your audience has the radio up, they’re listening and involved.” (Source: Southern Cross Syndication website, (C) 2002-2005 Southern Cross Syndication)
If you add these two statements together, it is quite clear that they are making the point that advertising during John Kerr’s show is listened to by the audience because they are taking part in the conversation which John Kerr is having. According to what Southern Cross Syndication wrote, John Kerr makes people feel like they are part of the show, he involves them.
If 2UE go ahead with this move, not only do I think that the overnight ratings will fall further, I think they will lose a lot of money from Stations pulling the plug on their New Day Australia subscription.
2UE really need to listen to what the audience want, it is very clear from the calls after the announcement that the majority of the listeners do not want John Kerr to be moved, and do not want Stuart Bocking on weekdays.
John Kerr has previously announced that he may retire at the end of this year or next year anyway, so 2UE management, let him serve out his time on weekdays, and let him go when he wants to, the audience, the sponsors, and the network stations will thank you for it.
Here at Samuel’s Blog, I have decided to start up a petition to keep John Kerr on weekdays, not only will I be writing 2UE a letter of protest over their silly move, I will also be sending them copies of the petition on a weekly basis. To sign the petition, either leave a comment here, or visit the petition page, and help us keep John Kerr on weekdays!
Samuel
December 27th, 2005 at 02:55am
Whilst I was not glued to the radio, I did endeavour to check what was happening at the top of each hour, and although I missed that on Boxing day, this is a fairly close schedule of events.
Christmas Day:
Midnight: New Day Australia with Stuart Bocking
6am: The best of the Mike Jeffreys year (Including local news on the hour. News on the half hour also occurred for some of this time).
10am: The emergency christmas music. According to the first ad break (straight out of the 10am news), this was supposed to be George Moore and Paul B. Kidd, but something went wrong and we had a rather enjoyable couple hours of Christmas Music, and more hourly local news.
Midday: 2UE’s Christmas Around The World. 2UE brought us Christmas songs from various corners of the globe.
2PM: Glenn Wheeler
6PM: Mike Williams.
Boxing Day
Midnight: New Day Australia with John Kerr.
5:30-9am: I wouldn’t have a clue. Sorry, I wasn’t listening.
9am: The John Laws Morning Show, with Tim Webster
Midday: Afternoon’s with Stuart Bocking filling in for Murray Olds filling in for John Stanley (The promos said Murray was on, the presenter didn’t).
3PM: A surprise, The Steve Liebmann Drive Show (Filling in for Steve Price)…live from Sydney, and on again tomorrow. Steve did a surprisingly good job of making the show as non-Sydney centric as possible, and mentioned 2CC every time he mentioned 2UE, well done Steve.
6PM: Sports Today
8PM: Nights with Glenn Wheeler filling in for Stan Zemanek. I Can’t confirm if Glenn was on as I didn’t hear it.
December 27th, 2005 at 01:47am
I hope you all had a good Christmas, because I certainly did.
I woke up at 6am when my alarm went off and arranged a few things in my room, I checked to see what 2CC were doing and discovered that they were running highlights of the Mike Jeffreys Breakfast Show of 2005 with local news bulletins. I went back to sleep shortly after.
Around 7:20 I woke up again as I could hear someone downstairs making coffee, as it happened, Mum was downstairs and was making drinks for herself and Dad. I went downstairs (and took the portable radio with me) and made myself a cup of coffee, when I went downstairs I noticed a note from Santa, it would appear that he is gaining creativity in his old age.
While I was making myself a drink, 2CC were replaying Mike Jeffreys’ interview with ACT Chief Turnip Jon Stanhope just after his confidential document leak, I had forgotten just how funny this interview was, Stanhope really is capable of complex nonsensical tangential babbling.
I went back upstairs and enjoyed my coffee while 2CC played some Christmas music before the news, and then had more Mike Jeffreys highlights.
A little while later it was time to get up, and before we had Breakfast, Dad started cooking the lunch, Nattie was riveted by this, and keenly watched the food preparations.
The food being cooked at this time was the duck and four spatchcocks, which can be seen in the Easycook fan forced oven here.
Once this was being cooked, we had breakfast. Whilst myself, Mum & Dad enjoyed a cup of tea and some Cereal, Nattie had a bowl of milk, which she enjoyed thoroughly.
Then it came to present time, Nattie took part in this as well, she received a roast turkey breast fillet and some shaved jarlsberg cheese.
At 10am I was making my bed and had the radio on in my room, if the first ad break after the news it to be believed, 2CC were going to take the last two hours of George Moore and Paul B. Kidd, however something went wrong and they played two hours of Christmas music instead. Nattie and I enjoyed this whilst on our Christmas morning walk.
Upon retruning home I took some more photos, firstly we have the nativity scene next to the Christmas tree.
Then Santa’s Sleigh and his “eight tiny reindeer”, A musical snow ornament and an angel.
Then I took a closeup photo of the sleigh itself, which contains Rudolph and a helper mouse, Santa’s bag, and of course the man himself, Santa Clause.
A little bit later on the duck and spatchcocks were cooked, and looked and smelled quite delectable.
I also took the opportunity to take a photo of the other Christmas scene, which surrounded the red downstairs radio (Tuned to 2CC of course). From left to right we have the clown shedding a tear of joy, a Chimney, a special ornament, a snowman holding a book of Christmas carols, and Christmas Bear.
After this, Dad was preparing the Turkey roll.
He also prepared a small turkey piece for a visitor with special dietary need whom we were going to have over for lunch.
This signalled Morning Tea time in which everyone had a cup of coffee and a shortbread biscuit (Nattie didn’t have a cup of tea, but did have a shortbread biscuit). Here Nattie can be seen sitting on Dad’s lap after having her biscuit. The first photo shows them having a chat.
The second photo shows them posing for the camera.
Shortly after that Photo was taken (and sometime around 12:30), our visitor, neighbour Maria arrived. Maria was the lady who looked after Nattie on the night of the tree incident.
She brought some food, some traditional South American pies, these became an entree, and everyone, including Nattie, thought they were delicious.
There was a lot of conversation, and Maria showed us some of her photos from the tree incident, and we gave her copies of our photos, Dad was busy in the kitchen continuing with Christmas lunch preparations. Close to 3PM it was dinner time, and the Turkey roll (which had been kept warm in the conventional oven during preparation of other foods) had the final serving performed upon it. I took these photos when it was still being kept warm.
Of course, it does help when you use a flash and the camera doesn’t attempt to over expose the photo to compensate for bad light.
Shortly after, Lunch was served, with some wanting more than others.
I took a photo of my plate.
Nattie had the duck neck, and later got some turkey, is it any wonder that she likes Christmas?
At the end of Lunch, Mum was still hungry and requested the Christmas cake, however, Christmas functions being Christmas functions, a large amount of conversation ensued, and it was nearly 5PM when I took this photo, featuring Maria, Nattie and Mum, and still no sign of cake!
With plenty more conversation, the Cake and coffees and teas finally started to appear a bit after 6PM, here you can see Mum sitting down with Nattie.
Cake was certainly being prepared, as can be seen here.
Maria, having special dietary needs, and not feeling hungry, did not want any Cake, but Nattie had some, as did Dad, Mum & myself.
As you can see in this photo, Nattie is quite partial to anything caked or creamed.
As time went on, many more conversations took place, here, just after 7PM, Mum was chatting with Maria whilst Nattie received some cuddles. I can’t recall what Mum was pointing at.
At about 8PM, Maria was preparing to leave, and Nattie and I went for a walk, upon our return at 8:40, Maria was still chatting away, and Nattie was very pleased to see her. It was close to 10PM when Maria did decide to go home, and Mum went with her and they had more of a chat and looked through some photo albums, Mum got home close to midnight.
Nobody was hungry enough for dinner, and the leftovers from Christmas day will serve us well as lunches over the coming weeks, in fact, that was part of the plan, to have enough to enjoy over the many coming weeks…I think there is a ham somewhere too!
This has to have been one of the best Christmases ever, the time went very quickly and the company was fantastic, as was the food and other events. A top day, and one which I will remember for a long time to come.
I hope you had a great Christmas as well!
Samuel
December 27th, 2005 at 01:22am
