I note that Rush Limbaugh, the most listened to radio host in America, heard by approximately 13.5 million people on 590 radio stations, has made his way on to Time Magazine’s “Time 100” list of the world’s most influential people, apparently in position number 38 (although I can’t find an in-order list of the people, just category listings).
Rush’s entry in the listing is written by fellow broadcaster Glenn Beck:
When Rush wants to talk to America, all he has to do is grab his microphone.
He attracts more listeners with just his voice than the rest of us could ever imagine. He is simply on another level.
[..]
Rush, 58, saved the spoken-word radio format from obscurity and paved the way for thousands of broadcasters, including myself. His career serves as the most successful stimulus package in radio history. All without a government dime.
Knowing firsthand just how hard it is to hold an audience’s attention for a few hours makes it that much more amazing to have seen Rush do it for more than 20 years. To say that he has set the standard for success in broadcasting would truly be an understatement.
Barack and Michelle Obama also made the list (the former I understand, the latter, other than people furnishing their wardrobes based on what she wears, I don’t), and I find it interesting that Sarah Palin made the list, but John McCain did not. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, Sarah needs to run for president again.
According to Mike, 2CC have wanted to replace him with Mark Parton since November (which squares with a few rumours which have floated across my desk…that is, rumours about various people at 2CC wanting to get rid of Jeffreys, not rumours about wanting to replace him with Mark Parton. RiotACT got the scoop on that rumour).
Mike responds to a few rumours in his blog post:
It was my choice to leave. Not true. I was called in to the manager’s office last Friday, told I was sacked and asked to return my door key then and there. It was a very brief conversation and came completely without warning.
It was about the ratings. Bullshit. The present breakfast host was on air before and during the most recent ratings period, so any decline in the numbers is as likely to be down to him as me. It may be worth noting that he was on the morning (9am to noon) time slot for an extended period prior to the survey and it really bombed.
It was about the Spalding case. In a way. But it’s the reverse of what has been implied. It’s my belief that if it hadn’t been for the Spalding case I would have been gone back in November as soon as they put Parton on the payroll (RiotACT got it right). But the lawyers told 2CC that success or failure in the case very much depended on my credibility as a witness. With the case out of the way, they fired me.
On the topic of the defamation case, I have to agree with the lawyers. Mike’s comments (for which the station was being sued) were an opinion based on various facts, and a court would have needed to decide whether that opinion was a reasonably held opinion. Mike’s credibility, which in part would have been determined by the support he was shown by the station, would have been a vital aspect in determining the reasonableness of his opinion.
As for Mike’s future, all I can say at this time is “watch this space”, although I would love to be able to say more.
I was intrigued by this job ad on Seek the other day
In particular this bit:
This newly created role is dedicated to both the State and Federal Politics rounds.
This makes me wonder if WIN are planning on increasing the scope of their news operations, possibly dumping Nine News in favour of producing their own all encompassing local/national/international bulletins similar to the way ABC TV handles local news in Canberra or the way Ten Capital used to produce an hour-long local/national/international bulletin instead of broadcasting Sydney’s Ten News.
If they do, it will be interesting to see if they can rate better or do a better job than Nine News. It would, in Canberra at least, provide a locally-focussed alternative to the Sydney-centric 6pm bulletins.
The shock has worn off, but the disbelief hasn’t. 2CC have apparently fired breakfast host Mike Jeffreys. I say “apparently” because the actual mode of Jeffreys’ departure (be it dismissal, redundancy, quit) are not known, although given his rapid disappearance from the 2CC website (his profile, listing in the schedule and his podcasts are gone, although they haven’t deleted all of his photos yet…I did have to dig a bit to find them though), dismissal is the most likely option.
Update: I can now confirm independently of The Canberra Times that Mike was fired. The importance of verifying this independently of said newspaper is that the CT have had an axe to grind against Jeffreys for some time now, and I have to take anything which they say about Jeffreys with a grain of salt. End Update
The rumour circulating at the moment is that Mark Parton is taking over as breakfast host, although I can’t confirm it as tomorrow is a public holiday and Mike is therefore expectedly absent from the lineup.
Update: And now I can confirm it. Mark arranged an interview with Michael Linke from the RSPCA via Twitter. 6:50am Tuesday requested and agreed to. I also note Mark’s casual reference to Saturday’s Canberra Times, but a clear absence of any mention of the story about Mike Jeffreys which was in that paper. I think I need to go and wash my hands in bleach after linking to Twitter that many times. End Update
The rumour does make sense though, as 2CC have just bought the rights to the satirical series “How Green Was My Cactus” which used to air on Mark Parton’s old stomping ground, Mix 106.3…and quite frankly, I can’t imagine Mike Jeffreys allowing such an interruption to his show multiple times per morning.
As for why Mike and 2CC are separating, RiotACT are speculating that it’s to do with the recent defamation action against 2CC and Mike Jeffreys by (the now late) Koomarri CEO Margaret Spalding. (Personally, having listened to the broadcast in question, I think Mike’s comments were not defamatory, and were a reasonably held opinion backed up by a number of facts, but I’m not a lawyer). I doubt that the defamation action is the sole reason for Mike’s departure, especially considering that talk stations often receive defamation lawsuits…it’s just that most aren’t publicly well-known.
The rumours abound that certain senior staff at the station are not exactly best friends with Jeffreys, so I would be more inclined to believe that it’s a combination of the recent ratings result in which 2CC ranked second last in the listed stations and the publicity surrounding the defamation case, giving some people a good excuse to get rid of somebody they don’t particularly like. Obviously this is only a theory, but without further information, it’s the only logical conclusion I can draw.
So, what now for 2CC? Well if previously leaked information about Mike’s ratings are anything to go by, this is probably not the best time to let him go. Mike has traditionally rated pretty well for the station, even if the station overall has not. I struggle to see how 2CC can hold its breakfast share in the short term and I now expect the next survey to see another fall for 2CC, possibly far enough to put them in last place. This isn’t to say that Mark Parton can’t make his way in the timeslot…I’m sure that over time he will grow an audience of his own, but if I had to choose a replacement breakfast host it would be Mike Welsh, not Mark Parton, and I have a very good reason for this.
I am yet to see proof of Mark’s aggressive streak, he’s a “nice guy” of radio who can launch the occasional necessary tirade, but just doesn’t strike me as being aggressive enough to keep the local politicians in check. Welshie on the other hand has a good track record doing just that, and in my opinion would shed less of the existing Jeffreys audience than Parton. Don’t get me wrong…I like Mark, he’s a nice guy and he did a great job filling the 9am-midday shift over Christmas/New Year, but I don’t think he is the right person for a hard-hitting breakfast show.
Mike Jeffreys is THE strong conservative voice of Canberra Radio in the morning, and I think this has been one of their main draw cards. As far as I’m concerned, Canberra no longer has a strong conservative voice in the morning. In the long term this could prove to be a good thing for 2CC as this is a fairly left-wing town, but that will only work if they drop a lot of the 2UE programming…a move which would be a disaster for the conservative movement in Canberra, and would require a lot of rebranding and reworking of 2CC program lineup.
As for Mike Jeffreys, I’ll miss him. I’ve been listening to him for six years and he is, in my view, one of the best talk hosts in the country. I only hope that he resurfaces on radio soon…and perhaps with Alan Jones dropping back to part time next year, there may be a slot for him up at 2GB. In the meantime, I hope he starts updating his website again.
Also I should note that Mike Welsh is the only remaining person in the timeslot listed on the poster I made in 2005 for my school bag. For this reason, Welshie will be getting a signed copy of said poster.
I should also mention that I am now undecided as to what I will be listening to in the morning. As I said earlier, I like Mark, but without meaning to offend him in any way, I would probably prefer to listen to Alan Jones on 2GB Sydney or Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Mark Levin (depending on timezone differences) on KXNT Las Vegas or James Scott on 1WAY FM Canberra at that time of day. I will give Mark a go though.
Update: I forgot to mention that “The Best of Mike Jeffreys” aired as usual between 6am and 7am today. If I had been thinking I would have recorded it like I did with the final “Best of John Laws”…I suppose I can always buy it from Media Monitors. End Update
It is starting to get on my nerves that I can not post anything here for a week and I’m bound to get an email enquring about my health (and not just from a spammer offering to sell me some magic cure in exchange for my bank account details), but if the emails come, there’s bound to be others wondering.
Right now my Internet connection has been shaped (read: slowed down to a tad faster than dialup) as I’ve exceeded my monthly download quota (first time for everything eh?) and in order to make the Internet even remotely bearable I’ve disabled images on all websites by default (except for Seek which seems to have issues with the “apply for a job” form not submitting if the images haven’t loaded, and a couple other sites on a case-by-case basis) and even then I’m using the Internet less due to the annoying nature of the issue.
All goes back to normal in about four or five days, but for now I’m posting here less, because I have less to post.
Unfortunately this means that photos of the Belconnen Bus Interchange won’t be uploaded for a few days as I don’t feel like sacrificing the rest of the Internet for the next four or five days while the images upload.
On the bright side though, I can still get the KXNT webstream (it its 32kbps glory) without a problem, and it’s sounding better than usual at the moment as the ad replacement (where ads for the broadcast station are replaced by other ads on the webstream) doesn’t appear to be working, meaning that I get to hear the normal ads and promos from KXNT and don’t lose bits of sentences when the ad replacement kicks in at the wrong time. Oh, and unfortunately Rush Limbaugh is taking the next two days off (pity as I’ve been enjoying his show when I haven’t been on a 2am walk) but he has Mark Steyn filling in for him tomorrow (Friday 2am-5am Canberra time) which will be good, I haven’t heard Mark for a few months.
Finally some good news for Channel Nine Sydney’s news and current affairs department:
Nine’s Today Show outrated it’s Seven rival Sunrise on Friday for the first time in five years.
The Sun Herald reports that Sunrise, which was broadcasting from Melbourne’s Good Friday appeal, was watched by 275,000 viewers on Friday compared to 279,000 watching Today on Nine, which was presented by Lisa Wilkinson, Karl Stefanovic, Mark Ferguson and Andrew Voss.
Today also won Sydney 107,000 to 96,000.
Executive Producer of Today, Tom Malone, told the Sun Herald: “We’ve been slowly closing in on them for 18 months. It’s a small but significant step in the breakfast TV ratings war. This year I think we’re up about 10 per cent and they are down about 10 per cent. We’re really happy, but it’s one day so there’s a lot of work still to do.”
One does have to wonder if the excellent Mark Ferguson has anything to do with the recent gains by Today. I know that I stopped watching Nine News when they booted him in favour of Peter Overton. Peter is a good journalist, but he just doesn’t have the “anchor vibe” in my books.
Anyway, all of this gives me an excuse to run a video I’ve been holding on to for a very long time, just waiting for the right moment.
SHE used to be his boss at 2UE and is now his breakfast co-host and yesterday Sandy Aloisi certainly tried to counsel Mike Carlton when he went on a predictable tirade.
Looks like the Daily Telegraph have a template for this story. That opening sentence seems far too familiar.
The self-described atheist praised the decision to de-Christianise Royal North Shore Hospital’s chapel and criticised aggrieved Mosman Mayor Dominic Lopez.
Carlton then talked over an exasperated Aloisi – to the point she told him not to silence her with a kill button.
A 2UE source ensured us there was no such button.
They’re right, there isn’t a “kill” button, but if Mike Carlton is the panel operator, there is a button for him to turn Sandy’s microphone off.
Anyway, that article gets my award for “useless non-story of the week”.
This video popped up on Radioinfo earlier in the week and I thought it worthy of sharing. It’s a documentary of sorts about Clive Robertson thirty years ago when he was presenting breakfast on 2BL in Sydney (now 702 ABC Sydney).
I’ve got to say, I don’t think much has changed (which is a good thing).
Back in late December I noted that a song had been playing on the PA system in the IGA in Deniliquin and that until then I didn’t realise that it was actually a song, as I had only heard the bed from the song used as a bed for an ad, but I couldn’t remember who the advertiser was. This bugged me for weeks, until mid-February when I was upstairs and I heard the music on the television downstairs, so I ran down the stairs (nearly tripping over Nattie on the way) and caught the tail end of the ad.
The song, as you may recall, was In Grid’s You Promised Me
And I’m pleased to be able to say that the advertiser is Michael Hill Jeweller.
I’m even more pleased to say, given my current financial position, that I was not subconsciously forced to buy stuff from Michael Hill Jeweller…or maybe I was and that’s where the money went. Hmmm.
Earlier this week I rang KXNT‘s Alan Stock when he was discussing research which claims that women find it harder to resist tempting food than men. I had to contradict the research with the fact that I ate an entire packet of Tim Tams in the space of about an hour on Sunday night without noticing.
My mention of Tim Tams was great with “a packet of what?”. They were short on time, so on the advice of Alan’s producer, I revised it to “a packet of chocolate cookies”. I was later stunned when I checked the Wikipedia article for Tim Tams and found that they are only sold in Australia, New Caledonia and New Zealand.
I have subsequently emailed the Wikipedia article to Alan, and have decided to use part of my stimulus payment to buy a packet of Tim Tams and post them to Alan and the crew at KXNT. I informed Alan of this in my email and he apparently discussed this on the air with his colleagues this morning (a segment which I regrettably missed) and they are all apparently looking forward to receiving the biscuits. As such (and I haven’t told Alan this) I think I’ll be generous and buy two packets for them. If they’re anything like me, they’ll need the second packet!
The Tim Tams will be my second voluntary use of my stimulus payment (which is yet to arrive), behind purchasing Mark Levin’s book “Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto” as I mentioned yesterday.
It doesn’t look like Nielsen Media Research have placed the full results online yet, however Jock’s Journal have this brief blurb:
104.7 has rated No 1 in the latest Canberra ratings (Nielsen Media Research – People 10+ Sun-Mon). They were followed by ABC 666 with 19%, then Mix 106.3 – 16%. 2CA rated 5.9% with sister station 2CC on 5.6%.
I’m assuming that they mean “Sunday to Saturday” and not “Sunday to Monday”.
Originally my plan was to wipe out my debt with the $900 stimulus payment (which hasn’t arrived yet…which is most annoying as when it arrives my net worth, not including debts, will be somewhere in the range of $905). Unfortunately I’m no longer in a position to do that, although I’ll probably have to use some of it to keep my debts in check. At the moment I’m really only in a position to hoard most of the payment and treat it as income rather than a spending spree.
That said, there is one thing which I will be spending money on. It’s US talk radio host Mark Levin’s new book “Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto“, and in the spirit of the stimulus payments I will see if any of the local book stores can get it in quickly…but if they can’t I’ll just buy it from Amazon…and probably buy two in order to make the shipping worthwhile. That way I can keep a copy for myself, and give away a copy to somebody on this blog through some form of competition.
I’ve heard Mark talk about the book on his show (although I don’t hear much of his show so it was only brief) and I was very interested by the hour that Sean Hannity dedicated to interviewing Mark about the book. As a “Hannity Insider” I was able to get my hands on the audio from that interview without ads (although I’ve left Sean’s live-read ad in…it’s the least I can do in exchange for publishing an hour of his show here). If you’ve got 36 minutes to spare (or even if you don’t) I’d recommend taking a listen as Mark outlines what’s in the book and why he wrote it.
Or if you don’t have time for that, enjoy Mark’s shorter chat with KXNT Las Vegas’ Alan Stock which goes for 16 minutes.
[audio:https://samuelgordonstewart.com/wp-content/MarkLevinBook-KXNTAlanStock.mp3] Download MP3
Personally, I enjoyed both.
Incidentally, here’s the synopsis that has been sent out to book stores:
Product Description
Conservative talk radio’s fastest-growing superstar is also a New York Times bestselling phenomenon: the author of the groundbreaking critique of the Supreme Court, Men in Black, and the deeply personal dog lover’s memoir Rescuing Sprite, Mark R. Levin now delivers the book that characterizes both his devotion to his more than 5 million listeners and his love of our country and the legacy of our Founding Fathers: Liberty and Tyranny is Mark R. Levin’s clarion call to conservative America, a new manifesto for the conservative movement for the 21st century.
In the face of the modern liberal assault on Constitution-based values, an attack that has steadily snowballed since President Roosevelt’s New Deal of the 1930s and resulted in a federal government that is a massive, unaccountable conglomerate, the time for re-enforcing the intellectual and practical case for conservatism is now. Conservative beliefs in individual freedoms do in the end stand for liberty for all Americans, while liberal dictates lead to the breakdown of civilized society — in short, tyranny. Looking back to look to the future, Levin writes “conservatism is the antidote to tyranny precisely because its principles are our founding principles.” And in a series of powerful essays, Levin lays out how conservatives can counter the liberal corrosion that has filtered into every timely issue affecting our daily lives, from the economy to health care, global warming, immigration, and more — and illustrates how change, as seen through the conservative lens, is always prudent, and always an enhancement to individual freedom.
As provocative, well-reasoned, robust, and informed as his on-air commentary, Levin’s narrative will galvanize readers to begin a new era in conservative thinking and action. Liberty and Tyranny provides a philosophical, historical, and practical framework for revitalizing the conservative vision and ensuring the preservation of American society.
About the Author
Mark R. Levin is a nationally syndicated talk radio host and president of Landmark Legal Foundation. He has also worked as an attorney in the private sector and as a top adviser and administrator to several members of President Reagan’s cabinet. The author of the New York Times bestselling books Rescuing Sprite and Men in Black: How the Supreme Court Is Destroying America, Mark holds a B.A. from Temple University and a J.D. from Temple University School of Law.
Some days I’m astounded by the stuff which AAP distribute without any proofreading:
NT: Some communication services restored to NT
Telstra is still trying to get to the bottom of a 10-hour communication blackout that cut the Northern Territory off from the rest of Australia.
Territorians awoke this morning to find internet .. mobile phone and STD land connections were down .. along with most ATM services.
Telstra says a system failure near Kununurra in Western Australia overnight saw network traffic redirected through Marla in South Australia .. but it also failed.
Technicians were flown in to both remoted site .. and NT services were restored about 11am (CST).
Telstra spokesman MARK SWEET says the telco will find out what caused the unprecedented occurrence that left Territorians scrabbling for coffee money .. unable to access ATMs.
I didn’t know that people played Scrabble to get coffee money, or that remote sites could be “remoted”…maybe I’m just leading a sheltered life.
On the bright side, at least today’s stuff is readable. One of the main stories yesterday contained a sentence which I had to read four times just to work out what they were trying to say so that I could rewrite it and make it make sense.
Hmmm, looks like the ABC1 Electronic Program Guide has already reverted to Eastern Standard Time. I’m glad that I noticed because otherwise I would have recorded the hour before The Bill, and only 30 minutes of the first 45 minute episode.
The Bill will be screening in my house at 10pm, following Saturday Night Football: Carlton V Brisbane from 3AW Melbourne.
That said, there is one thing which I will be spending money on. It’s US talk radio host Mark Levin’s new book “