I first noticed this on the weekend but only now have had a chance to record it.
2UE have changed the intro for New Day Australia. So far I have only heard the new intro on John Kerr’s show, but it could very well be altered for all of the presenters which would probably be a good idea considering that there have been two different intros used since Stuart Bocking hosted the show…although I don’t remember if his new intro fist graced the airwaves in 2005 when he took over the weekend shift, or 2006 when he took over weekdays.
The old intro had been in use for as long as I had been listening (mid 2003) and as far as I can tell it was used from the time John started hosting New Day Australia in 1994 (Update: Davky points out in the comments below that John used a song by Basia prior to the music I’m used to). I’m sure that I have a better copy of the old intro around here somewhere (I just don’t know where), but that’s irrelevant as I have found a good enough copy from a couple years ago. Here are the old and new intros for New Day Australia:
The metropolitan radio ratings were released yesterday, and whilst 2GB’s victory might not be the exact definition of “massive” there can be no denying that Alan Jones’ victory in the breakfast timeslot is massive. Alan Jones has almost double the audience of any other breakfast show in Sydney, he commands an extraordinary 19.1%. His nearest rivals 2DAY FM and 702 ABC Sydney both get a 10.9% share, leaving everyone else in single figures.
Ray Hadley’s morning show continues the extraordinary figures, being the only morning show in double digits. Ray Hadley has a 17.8% share, well and truly ahead of 2DAY FM on 9.6% and everyone else on 8.3% and lower.
Overall 2GB leads on 14.3% (a gain of 2.6), followed by 702 ABC Sydney on 10.5% (a gain of 1.1), and 2DAY FM on 9.8% (a loss of 0.2). 2GB had the largest gain, whilst Mix 106.5 had the largest loss (1.4). Much of 2GB’s success can be attributed in a jump from 0.8% to 6.2% in the 10 to 17 year old age group.
A big congratulations is in order for all the staff at 2GB. Incidentally Alan Jones was interviewed by their online news service livenews.com.au. It is well worth a watch…it really looks like Alan is (deservedly) pleased with the win, but not letting it go to his head.
One does have to wonder if Fairfax are questioning the merits of buying 2UE. Every single shift except for the weekend lost ground, some by as much as 35% of their audience.
As of yesterday we are in to Canberra’s first radio ratings period for the year. The ratings period runs from February 17 to March 15, a total of 4 weeks, with the results published on Thursday March 27.
Later this week the first metropolitan radio ratings will be released. Sydney and Brisbane will be of particular interest, especially for the Fairfax talk stations. 2UE in Sydney have an almost completely different (perhaps “shuffled” would be a better word) lineup, whilst 4BC have replaced the Sydney based morning show with their own local morning show. It will be a very interesting survey.
On Wednesday, a legend of the Australian radio industry and the Australian music industry, Smoky Dawson (real name Herbert Henry Dawson) died at the age of 94.
2GB’s Jason Morrison has very kindly provided permission for me to reproduce the tribute he and 2GB produced on Thursday.
I’m sure we’ve all seen the rather fanciful use of technology on many television (and movie) law enforcement dramas, ranging from satellites capable of tracking a person in real time to the point of being able to hear the conversation they are having, to a single partial fingerprint being turned in to a complete set of fingerprints and an employment history in the space of about two seconds…along with the idea that recorded CCTV footage (on VHS cassette) of an out of focus numberplate in the distance can somehow be magically restored to a sharp high resolution image of the numberplate, and just for good measure, a perfect image of the people in the car.
How refreshing it is, therefore, to see British police drama “The Bill” using technology in a much more realistic way. Last year I mentioned London’s CCTV network, and this is definitely the most commonly used piece of technology on The Bill. It is rarely conclusive on its own, but is extremely helpful when it comes to proving or disproving alibis, and generally quite helpful in putting a case together. The pictures are generally quite realistic in that they aren’t exactly great quality, and impossible things such as zooming in to a pre-recorded image are never done.
On the weekend I read with interest a blog post by Russell Coker about The Bill‘s use of technology which, for somebody who stopped watching the bill about a decade ago due to a rather ridiculous story about piracy, is quite complementary. Russell makes a point about the electronic whiteboard used to collate a timeline and various bits of data about the case CID (Criminal Investigation Department) were working on, being very realistic (I would debate that for the handwriting recognition which seemed a bit too perfect). It’s interesting that Russell picked this episode as his return to The Bill as it was their first to use an electronic whiteboard. It was a welcome upgrade to the standard whiteboard they had been using, especially due to the ease with which they were able to move events around on the timeline.
The software would also be useful in court, as rather than recreating the whiteboard or producing photos of it, the entire whiteboard could be displayed on a screen, saving valuable court time.
Russell did question whether the software running the whiteboard was used by British Police; Considering The Bill’s strong relationship with the Metropolitan Police (they use real warrant cards, uniforms and police cars, amongst other things), I would be very surprised if the software or something very similar to it isn’t used by the police.
It is only within the last year that I started watching The Bill again, after dropping it in disgust during its peculiar soap opera phase. I am very pleased with the current cast and production team, and I am also pleased with the ABC’s move to screen both episodes on Saturday night. Apparently the Tuesday episode wasn’t rating particularly well, so hopefully the “summer” move will be continued through the year. Repeating them on ABC2 on Tuesday is a nice touch as well.
Radio FIVEaa, Adelaide’s commercial talkback station, have announced the fill-in presenter for afternoon host Amanda Blair…it’s none other than the former federal minister for Foreign Affairs, Alexander Downer MP.
Mr. Downer, who retained the seat of Mayo in last year’s election, will host FIVEaa’s afternoon show from February 25 to March 7.
Mayo appears to be on the outskirts of Adelaide and parts of it would undoubtedly be in range of FIVEaa, which makes me wonder about the merits of allowing a member of parliament to control what comes out of the transmitter for a few hours each day…I can’t find a specific clause in the Commercial Radio Codes of Practice which expressly prevents a member of parliament from hosting a program, however it is blatantly obvious whenever a politician is interviewed, that they generally like their own opinions at the expense of all others, which makes me wonder how well Mr. Downer will be able to uphold clause 2.2 (c):
2.2 In the preparation and presentation of current affairs programs, a licensee must ensure that:
(c) reasonable efforts are made or reasonable opportunities are given to present significant viewpoints when dealing with controversial issues of public importance, either within the same program or similar programs, while the issue has immediate relevance to the community;
Technically the station will be complying with the rules if, for example, Mr. Downer presents a hopelessly biased program and the next program is dedicated to people disagreeing with him…although I’m sure with Media Watch back in session by then, FIVEaa and Mr. Downer won’t want the attention.
On the positive side, it is a very interesting way of being available to your constituents and it is bound to generate a lot of calls. Mr. Downer will almost certainly be able to add a very thorough understanding of foreign affairs to any discussion, and hopefully will follow up on whatever local issues get thrown his way.
I wonder how many people are going to ring up and say that they voted for him?
I have a few concerns about having a current member of parliament hosting a radio program, but from a ratings and publicity perspective it’s a stroke of genius…the main problem though is that if it works, you can expect politicians to start filling in all over the country, and with some of them, that could be incredibly boring.
Mike Bailey, the former ABC weatherman and unsuccessful Labor candidate for North Sydney in last year’s federal election, has joined Channel Nine a weather presenter on their Sydney bulletin.
I was very surprised but also quite pleased to see Mike Bailey on the television again, I didn’t think I would ever see him presenting the weather on a commercial news service. It would appear that Mike will be presenting the weather on Friday and Saturday.
I remember watching an educational video about the weather in High School. Mike Bailey was the host of the video, in which he pushed bags of air around to demonstrate high and low pressure systems. I enjoyed that video, even though others found it incredibly boring…I had the great pleasure of seeing the video about half a dozen times during high school, mostly due Mr. Damien Malony showing it to my class a number of times. The video was produced by Video Education Australia, unfortunately I can’t find it in their catalogue, but I may contact them to see if the video is still available…I would like to have a copy of it.
I just saw a promo for Today Tonight, the unmistakeable head of 2UE’s John Stanley was on there with his son Thomas…it looks like John will be part of a story about older parents tonight.
I don’t often watch Today Tonight, but I think I’ll tune in for that story, and to see how mangled their story about contaminated fruit will be.
There’s a large storm making its way through Sydney at the moment, and another storm near Canberra and expected to hit within the next hour or so.
Both 2CC’s feed from 2UE, and the 2KY feed to their Canberra repeater are having issues this evening as a result of the storms…2KY’s Canberra repeater doesn’t have an emergency tape either.
Incidentally the Bureau Of Meterology is warning of large hailstones, very heavy rainfall, flash flooding and damaging winds in Newcastle, Gosford, Sydney, Wollongong, Nowra, Batemans Bay, Orange, Canberra, Goulburn, Dubbo, Wagga Wagga, Albury, Cobar and Bourke.
Update 7:25pm: Both stations are back on the air and have been broadcasting without issues for the last little while…the storms are still a concern though. End Update
Well, this is a new one for 2CC…the emergency tape sounds like it’s probably a CD, and it skips chronically. It’s been skipping for at least the last hour and a half, and probably longer.
At 6:15 2CC were broadcasting normally, by 8:15 they were not. In that time there was a fairly large thunderstorm in Canberra (it’s still nearby as I write this) so I believe this had something to do with it. I turned on the radio at about 8:15pm and thought “why is Stuart Bocking playing music”, I only had the radio on for a few moments but could hear the music skipping. About fifteen minutes later I turned the radio on again and it was still skipping…it took at least the next twenty minutes for it to progress beyond the tail end of a song and the following commercial.
It’s not a power failure in Mitchell as 2CA’s night time programming is continuing as normal. It also doesn’t sound like a standard network failure as there have been no network pulses or stray bits of audio interrupting the emergency CD…I’m guessing that something has gone seriously wrong between 2CC’s studio and transmitter causing a complete loss of the broadcast feed, which has left the standby program running.
The skipping emergency CD is a bit more of a mystery, it’s been stuck on extracts of the one song and the sting before it for the last twenty minutes, and has only just skipped back to the ad break before it. The CD was stuck on this ad break at 9pm. I suppose it’s possible that the problem is entirely at the transmitter, because otherwise I’m sure that Duncan McCrea would have rushed in to the studio and put on his own backup program by now.
9:51…and as I finish writing this, they’re back on the air…hooray!
Apart from, perhaps, a new colour scheme (I don’t suppose red, white and blue means they’re being purchased by America’s ABC?) I can’t see an awful lot that’s new here…and if Peter Cundall retired, why is he still in the promos?
It’s funny that this ident has appeared, as I was going to post some ABC promos I recorded around the time of The Bill on Saturday…I was quite pleased with what I saw…more on that tomorrow.
Errr, driver loses control of semi-trailer and it crashes in to a wall, fire ensues, flammable cargo (waste paper and rags) burns, road gets closed, fire brigade put out blaze, truck is removed from area, road gets re-opened, police continue investigating…it’s pretty straight-forward and considering that nobody else has any information about what happened before the crash, I think you’ll find that Seven News will have a nice two-to-three minute elaboration on what I just said.
I thought Seven News were doing well enough in the ratings to not need to suck in viewers with misleading statements.
Nine days ago I was pleased to discover that 2CC’s emergency tape had been updated, even though I was unable at that stage to ascertain whether or not the tape was a short loop like the previous emergency tape.
Courtesy of a network news failure at 5:30 this morning I am very pleased to say that the tape is not a short loop, it has an approximately three minute ad break to start with (enough to handle the occasional missing ad break pulse), followed by music. The first song is Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline”.
I didn’t get to hear any more of the tape, but I don’t really need to. All I need to do is say a very big thank you to the people responsible for the new tape at 2CC…hopefully the tape will never be needed again, but if for some reason 2UE disappear from the face of the earth in the middle of the night, at least 2CC’s listeners will have something to keep them entertained…unlike the old six minute ad break loop, which I will hopefully never have to mention ever again.
It certainly didn’t happen on 2CC…must just be a Sydney thing.
I couldn’t help but burst out laughing when I read Frankster’s piece about Channel Ten playing the wrong episode of The Bold and The Beautiful (or “The Bored and the…oh never mind, where’s the remote?” as I like to call it) yesterday. It seems that at 4:30, Channel Ten started the Wednesday episode of the soap opera, and within moments talkback radio was flooded with callers whinging about it. I’m not sure if this was 2UE’s John Stanley or 2GB’s Phillip Clark, (with 702 ABC Sydney covering the cricket, it can’t have been them) but I’d like to think it was both, simply because of the hilarity factor.
According to Frankster, Ten switched to the correct episode within a few minutes, although there is no word on whether they started the episode at the beginning or a few minutes in.
Incidentally, speaking of hilarity, it would appear that 702 ABC Sydney’s webstream is running repeats of the overnight programming during the cricket. Today from 10am to 2pm it’s a repeat of Nightlife with Tony Delroy, and from 2pm to 6pm it’s a repeat of Overnights with Rod Quinn (the only ABC presenter I have ever spoken to on-air…and he was on 666 ABC Canberra in the afternoon at the time). Whilst the timecalls will work as it’s an exact twelve hour delay between the original broadcast and the replay, the “good evening” and “good morning” greetings and any current temperatures will not.
Would it be so hard to have a live national webstream program to fill the void on the local radio webstreams, or just turn the webstream off temporarily like the commercial stations do when they aren’t able to stream something for licensing reasons? Very very odd.
