Posts filed under 'TV/Radio/Media'
On Thursday afternoon at about 5:55 (GMT+11) Optus Satellite Control lost communications with the aging Optus Satellite B1 during routine orbital positional adjustment. This caused ABC relay stations, Macquarie Regional Radioworks stations, Southern Cross Syndication services, and New Zealand’s main Pay TV service, Sky Television, to stop broadcasting, along with a handful of other Australian TV stations.
Apparently Optus B1 is getting a bit long in the tooth, and has had previous failures, including a complete failure of the main guidance system, which means it is now operating on the backup system, it is also being used well in excess of its original specifications. It was supposed to be replaced by the new Optus D1 satellite late last year, but this has been postponed until at least the middle of this year…assuming B1 lasts that long.
Thankfully Optus regained control of B1, but when they did it was broadcasting in the wrong direction, and they had to wait for it to recharge after the northern hemisphere solar exclipse before they could do anything about it. B1 was back online for its users at 7:17am Friday (GMT+11).
I don’t know what 2CC did about it before midnight as I wasn’t listening, but I would like to congratulate them on not giving up and playing automated music, and instead using the 2UE webstream with a panel operator playing local ads and promos. It did sound a bit rough around the edges, but overall they did a fantastic job under the conditions. I gather that a number of other stations around the nation did similar things with panel operators and webstreams, although there were a few who just went into automated music mode, or played a webstream with the streamer’s ads and all.
Also congratulations to the ABC for replacing some of their C1 services with the lost B1 services so that relays could be back on-air by 2am (GMT+11).
For those interested, the good people over at Usenet Aus.Radio.Broadcast have a good summary of what happened, and what affected stations did.
Heres hoping that D1 is up there soon to relieve the aging and slowly failing B1, as the longer B1 is left up there in its semi working state, the more of these outages we are going to experience, and eventually, we might have a complete failure.
Samuel
April 1st, 2006 at 07:51am
I am pleased to be able to confirm that AFL did not get the chop in 2CA’s recent format change, and will be broadcast again this year, continuing to make the Capital Radio Network the sports leader in Canberra, with the excellent 3AW AFL coverage relayed on 2CA, and the excellent 2GB NRL coverage relayed on 2CC, with 2CC’s own local team covering Raiders matches not covered by 2GB.
Samuel
March 30th, 2006 at 09:16am
According to Radioinfo, Greg “Robbo” Robson is leaving 2CA’s breakfast show at the end of the week, and taking up a full time position with Motto Media and Fyshwick.com. Robbo, who has been a stalwart of Canberra media over the last three decades, took over the breakfast show when Daniel Gibson left it for his full time weatherman position on Prime, shortly after Prime and Ten Capital closed their local news services.
Interestingly, Daniel Gibson, who was doing night-shift for 2CA last time I checked, will be hosting the breakfast show until 2CA find a permanent replacement. Whether he will take time off from Prime to do this remains a mystery, as does the length of his temporary breakfast assignment.
I suppose the really big question here is, who will take over the breakfast show permanently? George Gibson loves playing music, maybe he would be willing to move to Canberra for a few years…although with the “New sound of Canberra’s 1053 2CA” in force, they might be looking for somebody a bit younger.
I spent a morning with Robbo while on Work Experience last year, and whilst I can’t say much for confidentiality reasons, I believe that I can tell you that he seemed fairly pleased with the progress of Fyshwick.com, and also seemed to be enjoying the breakfast shift. I am not in the least bit surprised that Fyshwick.com now requires him on a full time basis, considering the sheer volume of ads that they seem to have on both television and radio for their Fyshwick based clients.
2CA is quite clearly a different station to what it was in 2000, with practically the entire lineup of on-air talent being different. If I remember rightly, they even used Macquarie National News back then, and didn’t have a traffic reporter, which is a very big difference to the current situation where they share traffic reporters and news resources with 2CC.
Anyway, I wish Robbo the best of luck, and will have to remember to give him a call later in the week to convey that message, I also easgerly await Daniel Gibson’s temporary return to Breakfast, as I have fond memories of the last time he was on the breakfast shift. Perhaps I should track down my recording of the time I won a vegemite T-Shirt by singing the Vegemite song. I might do that and share it with you in the next couple of days.
Radioinfo also reported that Canberra radio will be in survey mode again soon, which poses two questions:
- Will ABC Local Radio waste taxpayers money on pointless giveaways and ads on Commercial Television?
- Will the changes at 2CA make a difference to their ratings results?
For the former I would have to say “probably”, and for the latter, well, only if they advertise the changes. There have probably been some people who have converted from one of the FM music stations through word-of-mouth recommendation, but I don’t think anybody will really know or care unless 2CA actually advertise the fact that they have a new sound and new presenters.
None the less, Canberra radio is looking pretty exciting for the next few weeks!
Samuel
March 28th, 2006 at 10:50pm
Last Sunday was Black Opal day, the feature day of the Canberra horse racing calendar. Southern Cross Ten were broadcasting live from Canberra’s race track, Thoroughbred Park.
This is something which should be commended as it shows as comittment to local television and the local community, as well as setting an example for the other local stations which haven’t ventured out of the studios for a live broadcast since…well…I don’t think living memory goes back that far. A live broadcast of a sporting event is no easy task, especially for a station that hasn’t done anything like it since stopping live local news bulletins from a studio about five years ago.
Anyway, the coverage got underway at 2:30pm
Our host was Alison Drower (rhymes with “grower”), who appeared to be in front of a green screen, with the background footage superimposed. The studio was probably up in a corporate box somewhere, and I don’t know why they stuck the netting there, but they did, and it made for an interesting background.
On 2CC that morning, Mike Frame announced that he would be part of the coverage, adding “colourful local racing personality” to his business card on top of “2CC’s Classic Aussie” and various other titles. This got me thinking…what titles would people get? Mike Frame appeared, with Ex-Fill In Prime TV Weatherman David Honke (pronounced Honk-EE).
David Honke did not get a title
Despite hiring Mike as a “colourful local racing personality”, they gave him the easier to fit on to the captions “Racing Commentator”. It is worthwhile pointing out that Mike worked for SSS FM, Canberra’s old ACTTAB funded community racing station, and former inhabitant of 103.9MHz, long before News Radio moved in from their old 1440KHz (AM).
Mike and David spent a bit of time talking, before we went to Simon Dearing and Julie Nehme, the fashion and crowd reporters for the day. They started off in a bad for TV shaded area next to a sunny area.
Later on we saw ex-2CC newsreader Guy Sweeting talking with Canberra race caller Tony Campbell about the history of the Black Opal and what will happen today.
Near the end of the interview, and in a different location, we finally see the face of Guy Sweeting.
Tony Campbell then did a “phantom call” of the race.
Mike Frame appeared again, interviewing Gratz Vella, the trainer of One Time, a horse running in the Black Opal
We then saw One Time having a bit of a roll in the sand.
The first studio guest was Camille Ducker, head of Fashion and Design at CIT, mildly eccentric, but great fun to interview…or so it seemed.
Julie Nehme appeared again, this time with Fashions On The Field
Simon Dearing then went to the opposite extreme and found the people who were looking somewhat odd for the day.
David Honke then had a chat with local bookmaker Roger Norton, who has been at every Black Opal.
He even got a title of “Bookmaker”
David Honke then had a very interesting chat with Ted Doon, the jockey who came second in the inaugural Black Opal of 1973. This is an interesting story because it came down to a photo finish, and apparently an earthquake a week beforehand had moved the photo finish camera slightly out of allignment, and cost him the race…according to him.
David and Ted did a rerace, won by Ted
And the photo finish from 1973
We got to see the crowd quite a few times, and it looked like a good turnout.
Mike Frame had a chat with Gary Buchanan of the Canberra Racing Club about the training pool.
And a horse in the training pool.
Alison then had another studio guest, this time a short interview with John Crommie, Manager of AAMI Insurance in the ACT/Regional NSW area. This mainly involved their reasons for sponsoring the Black Opal.
Next up was Kevin Sweeney, who has been involved in every Black Opal since the first. Guy Sweeting did this inerview.
The horses enjoy Kevin’s company by the looks of it.
Then it was time to cross to Mike Frame in the bettin ring to tell us who the punters thought would win.
Alison’s hat decoration managed to move the netting a few times
We headed back to Julie Nehme who had Trish Hanrahan telling us about the winners of Fashion In The Fields. Apparently we saw the winners briefly…but it was that brief that it could have been anyone.
Simon Dearing checked with the racegoers who they thought was going to win
Then it was time to head back to the studio, where Mike, Alison and David conducted an in depth look at the race
They appeared to have fun too
The analysis continued as the Sky Channel footage started to roll in and ruin the lovely green oasis images which Southern Cross Ten had been producing all day.
The all important race list was shown
Now bored of watching Sky footage of horses slowly entering the barrier with no race caller, we went back to the studio
Race Caller Ian Craig appeared, and Sky footage returned to the broadcast, but the barrier attendants had to push a horse into the barrier, it didn’t want to budge for a while though.
Finally the race was ready to go with light flashing and Ian Craig ready for the 1200m Black Opal. The Cyclist at top right made it just in time for the race and television coverage, arriving just moments before this picture.
“They’re off in the Black Opal”
They were pretty spread out through the back straight.
Coming around the home turn
With 200m to go One Time is in the lead
With 100m to go Down The Wicket is flying up the outside
Down The Wicket wins the 2006 Black Opal, followed closely by One Time and Luvuleo
Back to the studio with Mike, Alison and David while we wait for Sky’s interview with the jockey.
A race replay while we wait.
Alison tears up her non-winning ticket.
According to the ACTTAB race board’s offical results display, the first six horses were 8 (Down The Wicket), 7(One Time), 2(Luvuleo), 4(Solar Mighty), 14(Ellas Bar), 9(Navaho Trail). Down The Wicket ran a time of 1 minute, 9.94 seconds, with the last 600m taking up 35.84 seconds. Down The Wicket beat One Time by a long neck, and One Time beat Luvuleo by 1 length. The track was good.
There was some post race analysis with Mike, Alison and David.
Unlike Mike Frame, Julie Nehme tipped the horse Mike said would win, and it did. Simon wasn’t so lucky.
Alison informed us that Sky didn’t provide an interview.
And that it is time to say goodbye.
It was then time for the extensive credits, and the Southern Cross Ten logo, before they returned to pre-recorded programming.
Well done Southern Cross Ten, you did a fantastic job, and let’s hope that more of these “live and local” events occur. It is good to see that regional television is still alive and kicking. Well done to all involved!
For the record, the ACTTAB dividends were as follows:
8. Down The Wicket: Win $35.10, Place $7.00
7. One Time: Place $7.30
2. Luvuleo: Place $2.60
Quinella 8-7: $325.40
Trifecta 8-7-2: $9830.10
Exacta 8-7: $1102.80
Running Double 6-8: $341.90
Scratchings: 3-6-17-18
Samuel
(Update: It would appear that Southern Cross Ten misspelled Simon Deering’s name, and I did too as I based my spelling of names on their spelling of names. Sorry about that.)
March 24th, 2006 at 03:30pm
According to a job advertisement on radioinfo, 2CA & 2CC are looking for a “Senior Journalist”. Does this mean that either Kris or James are leaving us? The ad certainly makes it sound that way:
You’ll be responsible for all operational duties in our small newsroom – as well as a weekday news shift. There will some occasional overtime weekend work.
It seems that most of the 2CA/2CC journalistic talent gets snapped up by 2UE, and in some cases television stations (Aela Callen went to Seven, James Goodwin went to 2UE and then WIN). None the less, if somebody is going I will miss them, and I’m sure I represent most, if not all, of the listeners in wishing them the best of luck.
Of course it is possible that 2CA/2CC are just adding another person to the news team now that they are producing seperate bulletins for 2CA and 2CC.
As has been said by many people on many occasions….”Only time will tell”!
And before somebody suggests it, the timing of Editorial Echoes ending and this job ad appearing are purely coincidental…besides, I don’t fit the criteria in the job ad.
Samuel
March 23rd, 2006 at 08:06am
Wayne Mac is currently on Mix 106.3 cohosting the “Cold 30” program…there is a webstream on the mix website for those who are out of town.
Edit: Whoops, forgot to mention that Wayne’s playing hits from 1977! Doing a great job too…you’d never know he left radio.
Further Update: The number one song from the week of July 13, 1977 was “Walk Right In”.
Samuel
March 22nd, 2006 at 08:24pm
As citizens of commonwealth countries would be well aware by now, the Melbourne 2006 Commonwealth Games start on Wednesday night. Various broadcasters around the world will be covering it, but here in Australia the coverage will be brought to you by Channel 9, ABC Radio, and much more interestingly, Southern Cross Radio and affiliates.
Among the people bringing you the Commonwealth Games on Southern Cross are Bruce McAvaney, Kieran Perkins, Shane Healy, Tony Leonard, Murray Olds, Matt Granland, John Gibbs & Raelene Boyle.
The “host” broadcaster is 3AW (not surprising considering that they are in Melbourne), and the games coverage will be relayed to Southern Cross and subscriber stations. In most cases this is likely to be your local John Laws broadcaster.
Games coverage on 3AW will take place from 10am to 1pm and again from 6pm to 10pm daily. I would presume that 2UE will continue the John Laws Morning Show during the 10am-1pm session, and possibly even Afternoons with John Stanley during that time for the benefit of network stations who aren’t taking the Games, but I would expect 2UE to take the full games coverage.
Network stations’ own broadcast schedule is a mystery, and will obviously be up to them. I would personally be surprised if 2CC interrupt the rugby league coverage for the Commonwealth Games, and would be even more surprised if they don’t interrupt Laws and Stanley for the Commonwealth Games. None the less, contact your local stations for details.
Radioinfo have a bit more information about the Commonwealth Games coverage:
The game plan for the Games on 3AW Southern Cross Radio
10 Mar 2006
3AW, the official commercial radio broadcaster for the 2006 Melbourne Commonwealth Games will begin its coverage with a special program at 6pm on Wednesday by the breakfast boys, Ross Stevenson and John Burns, from the station’s outside broadcast site at the special Live Site at Queensbridge on the Yarra.
The coverage will then move to the MCG where Clinton Grybas will join Bruce Mansfield and Philip Brady to cover the opening ceremony in Nightline.
For the 12 days of the games 3AW will provide extensive coverage of all sporting events. There will be block coverage of events from 10am through to 1pm and again at 6pm to the close of the day’s competition around 10pm.
3AW programs will also be out and about during the games. Mornings with Neil Mitchell, Afternoons with Ernie Sigley and Drive with Derryn Hinch will broadcast from 3AW’s special games outside broadcast facilities at the Live Site and from the MCG.
Each night after the conclusion of sporting events, Bruce Mansfield and Philip Brady will broadcast from the Queensbridge Live Site.
In addition to more than 80 hours live sporting coverage, 3AW will bring listeners all the news as it breaks, interviews with the stars and The Games Today, a daily wrap of all the action, hosted by Bruce McAvaney and Clinton Grybas at 6pm.
Weekend programs will also be out and about the city during the duration of the games.
The broadcast team is headed by Bruce McAvaney with more than 20 years of broadcasting including six summer Olympics under his belt. Sportscaster Clinton Grybas has broadcast just about every sport over the last 11 years, spanning the Olympics, the AFL Grand Final, The Australian Open Tennis and the Manchester and Kuala Lumpur Commonwealth Games. And Kieran Perkins brings his great knowledge of swimming to 3AW listeners.
Also joining the team will be Shane Healy, Tony Leonard, George Grljusich, Benny Pike, Smokey Dawson, Murray Olds, Matt Granland, John Gibbs, Karl Langdon and Andrew Hewett.
Expert analysis will be provided by Raelene Boyle, David Wansborough, Phil Smyth, Michele Timms, Jim Irvine, Eloise Southby-Halbish and James Victor.
So, my plan for the Games. I will naturally be listening on 2CC, and when I’m watching on TV I will have the TV muted, and 2CC turned up. It will be very good to hear Bruce McAvaney in full voice and, to change the topic for a moment, I can’t wait to hear him calling Friday Night AFL for Seven again next year.
Samuel
March 10th, 2006 at 11:16pm
OK, time for some corrections.
Firstly, the KFI stream was acting up this morning, and I wasn’t awake to call Leo anyway, I’ll try again in the morning.
Secondly, there were plenty of dead air and emergency tape adventures overnight on 2CC, I didn’t time anything so I don’t know if the computer was skipping ads or 2UE were very late returning from ad breaks, the 2UE webstream sounded fine though. If anyone at 2CC wants to investigate, check 1am-3am.
Samuel
March 5th, 2006 at 12:33pm
2CC have a new computer! They’ve had it for a bit over a week now, and I must say that it is sounding good. It doesn’t die like the old one used to do in the middle of the night, it is capable of crossfading (long overdue) and can understand a station ID pulse coming in while it is playing something else (usually a music return) and act upon it.
This is something us night owls are very happy about as it means we don’t have the same ad break 5000 times in a row from the emergency tape any more.
The computer did have a few teething issues, and it was entertaining to listen to the local presenters telling it off, and the overnight programs were fun where it would skip the first ad in an ad break by starting two ads at the same time fading the first ad out under the second ad, funny, but cringe inducing.
In related news, 2CC have moved the spoken intro on the news theme forward a bit, this is probably related to an issue I raised a few months ago when 2UE moved into their new studios with new equipment and the overnight news intro pulse started arriving a second late. As the spoken intro was designed to finish just as the network newsreaders are scheduled to start the news (7 seconds past the hour), any delay caused a clash between the newsreader and the voiceover, by moving the voiceover forward a little bit this issue has been resolved.
Overall I would have to say the overnight broadcast quality of 2CC has improved considerably, as has the daytime quality, this change is indeed better than a holiday.
I wonder what they did with the old system and if it is for sale? The software it was running would make a good collectors item, unfortunately I can’t say any more about that for risk of breaching a confidentiality agreement.
Samuel
March 4th, 2006 at 04:57pm
It occured to me over the weekend that 2CC would be a very good podcaster. They have a lot of very interesting programming which would work quite well in a podcast format, and provide them with a new business opportunity.
My idea is that 2CC’s local programming could be released later in the day without the broadcast ads, but with a reduced number of podcast ads, the podcast ads for a 2CC podcast could be somewhat Canberra centric as the majority of 2CC’s podcast audience would probably be based in Canberra.
I should probably explain why I think their programming would make good podcast material. Firstly, it deals with Canberra and Australian news and contains a lot of interesting interviews, which would be of interest to many people, not just in Canberra. Some people may want to hear a certain interview again, or may be referred to an interview they missed. It could even add an extra dimension of listener interactivity to the programming, and make emails a bit more prominent. Many ex-Canberrans may be interested to hear what is happening in Canberra, in much the same way ex-Australians often listen to the 2UE webstream.
I ran a few quick calculations, based on 10 minutes of news and 12 minutes of commercials and found that Breakfast would run for 133 minutes and Drive for 114 minutes, which would, at 64kbps mono, work out at 63.84MB and 54.72MB respectively. These figures do not take into account the podcast ads, and they could probably get away with a half the bitrate and still have decent audio quality for speech.
The weekend programming would also be good in podcast form, and I think the 2CC podcasts would be quite popular.
I suppose they would probably need another staff member to handle the podcasts (I’d be happy to put my hand up!), but I still think they would make a profit from them if they had podcast ads.
Of course, another useful thing would be webstreaming, although I’m not sure if they would be allowed to stream network programming, and if they’re not able to, then I doubt that they would be inclined to run a part-time stream. None the less, I think the podcasts are a good idea.
On that note, Samuel’s Persiflage #3 has exceeded 100 downloads this month, the first episode to do so.
Samuel
February 28th, 2006 at 08:40am
As I mentioned yesterday, Wayne Mac was scheduled to be on 2UE and 6PR last night. This did indeed occur, but the 6PR webstream stopped working at some stage yesterday afternoon and was still offline when Wayne was on. I most certainly was not going to ring Perth and record it off the phone line. I do have the 2UE interview with Mike Williams though, although I am disappointed that I wasn’t able to hear 6PR’s hour long interview with Wayne.
Anyway, at about 8:15 last night Wayne Mac was on the line with Mike Williams on 2UE. The discussion centred around the top 40 format, talkback radio, and 2UE’s leading role in all of it. The PMG gets a mention when it comes to approving the talkback format, and Wayne informs everyone that Angus & Robertson stores may be able to order in his book, which is available on his website.
The interview is taken from the 2UE webstream, which is only just acceptable quality for speech, don’t expect much from the vintage jingles which are played. I could have recorded it from 2CC’s broadcast signal, but I didn’t want to get excessive interference from a nearby computer or risk losing half of the interview to 2CC’s new computer system.
I’ve kept the recording as a 64kbps mono MP3 to avoid excessive compression of already overly compressed audio, as that could make hard to understand. As it is, the sound quality should be fine.
You can download the 14 minutes and 26 seconds worth of interview (6.61MB) here.
Apoligies about the 6PR webstream failure, I guess these things will happen when you outsource your streaming to third parties.
Samuel
February 27th, 2006 at 01:17am
Wayne Mac, author of Don’t Touch That Dial, will be on 6PR’s “The Way We Were” program this Sunday evening. Most interviews on that show last for a very long time, you may recall that they interviewed Wayne a while back and it lasted for quite some time.
Wayne will be on there this weekend at 10PM on Sunday (Perth time), which equates to 1am Monday (Canberra time) and 2PM Sunday (GMT).
6PR have a webstream on their website, and I’ll see about recording it for your enjoyment.
Incidentally, 2UE’s John Stanley (who once shared a house with Wayne here in Canberra) briefly interviewed Wayne a few weeks ago, I have the recording for you here.
Also, I interviewed Wayne in the January edition of Samuel’s Persiflage.
Samuel
February 22nd, 2006 at 12:35pm
It’s John Kerr’s birthday, and I’ll be giving him a call to wish him a happy birthday, if all goes to plan I should the audio shortly. I’m sure plenty of people will be ringing and emailing John for the exact same reason between Midnight and 6am GMT+11 (Sydney time). You can ring John on 13 13 32 (+61 131332 from outside Australia) or email him jkerr@2ue.com
2UE have a webstream of John’s show, and 4BC have it on a one hour delay except for the final hour
Samuel
February 19th, 2006 at 12:00am
The Canberra Capitals have beaten the Dandenong Rangers 68-55 in the WNBL (Women’s National Basketball League) grand final.
This from our friends at The Age
Canberra wins WNBL grand final
Lauren Jackson has spearheaded the Canberra Capitals to their fourth women’s national basketball title in seven years with a 68-55 victory over Dandenong Rangers.
Jackson scored a game-high 24 points and 12 rebounds in the WNBL final with 13 of her points coming in a blistering second quarter performance as the Capitals raced to a 14-point halftime lead.
The Rangers powered back early in the third quarter, closing to within three points and keeping Jackson scoreless for the entire term.
But Canberra steadied and closed the match out in front of a sellout 2,200 crowd at the Dandenong Basketball Stadium.
Jackson received great support inside from fellow Opals giant Jenny Whittle (12 points and nine rebounds) while guard Kellie Abrams scored 14 – including two important late third quarter baskets.
For the Rangers, Caitlin Ryan and Carly Wilson top-scored with 17 points apiece.
The defeat ended the Rangers’ recent dominance of the WNBL after they had won the past two championships.
For the Capitals, this season’s victory adds to their 1999-00, 2001-02 and 2002-03 titles.
The grand final is expected to be Jackson’s final WNBL match for the foreseeable future as she concentrates on her American WNBA commitments with Seattle.
I caught the last ten minutes or so of the TV coverage on the ABC, and was rather surprised to find erstwhile AFL commentator for Seven and ABC News Radio was the main commentator and host of the ABC basketball coverage. It’s good to see Drew still doing what he loves, and I hope he comes back to Seven when they resume coverage of AFL in 2007. Drew was looking well too.
Update: ABC2 (Available on free to air digital and possibly pay TV) will be replaying the full two hours of live coverage tomorrow at 11am. I’ll probably tune in as I would like to see the match.
Samuel
February 18th, 2006 at 06:51pm
It was about 12:30 when I finished lunch and caught a 116 bus (an orange one) to Belconnen, having forgotten my headphones I carried out my backup radio listening plan of turning the volume right down, putting the speaker to my ear and turning it up just enough for me to hear it clearly, at this volume it is impossible to hear the radio any further than 10cm from the speaker.
This early bus trip meant that I was well ahead of schedule, so I decided to have a coffee, but on my way across the bridge from the Belconnen bus interchange to the shopping centre I noticed this fantastic view down Benjamin Way, the road I would later walk down.
I went in to Westfield Belconnen and went to Cafe Mochalat (oddly enough, this cafe was the focus of a discussion I had been a part of earlier in the day where nobody could remember the name) where I had a flat white and a jam tart. I then visited an ATM and its associated queue as I realised I had almost run out of money, not that I spend much, but you never know when you might need it.
At 1PM (well, a tad after, Kris was already into the news) I left Westfield and made the journey down Benjamin Way. Near the end of the road to my right were the Belconnen Fresh Food Markets and beyond that Bunnings Belconnen, I wasn’t sure if the carpark was open at both ends though, so I opted to walk the long way around, onto Belconnen Way and then into Bunnings. I’m glad I did as it provided me with some very nice views.
Firstly Bunnings from near the corner of Benjamin Way and Belconnen Way
Then Bunnings from near the traffic lights shown in the previous picture.
Followed by the grass around Bunnings and its carpark, which was provided by Canturf (a Canberra grass business), hopefully they got a discount for showing the Canturf signs, of which the photographed one had fallen over.
Next up an overview of the Canturf lawn, the carpark and the Bunnings Belconnen store itself.
All Bunnings stores seem to have the same exterior, including the slogan “Lowest Prices Are Just The Beginning…”
Yet another angle, the radio of the pictured ute was tuned to 2CC and was clearly audible, when I heard it I checked to see if it was a 2CC staff member, which it wasn’t.
I started to have a look around Bunnings, and ran into some people I know, who were doing some shopping, they were very impressed with the new store, I accompanied them on their shopping adventure, before going with them to a coffee shop in the Belconnen Fresh Food Markets.
After this they left with their purchases and I returned the trolley to Bunnings and resumed my tour, I had finished all of two aisles when I spotted movement at the 2CC stand in the form of Mike Frame and 2CC office manager (whoops, sorry, I’m bad with names sometimes). I went over to say hello, and before long was embarking on a store tour with Framey…this was 2:30. Framey and I had a bit of a chat, mostly about the new Bunnings store, but also about lawn bowls and what we’d been up to lately. Whilst we were in the garden section we spotted some bonzai, which is when Framey came up with his catchcry for the day that “everything’s big at Bunnings except the bonzai”.
Between then and 2:55 I acted as “Mike Frame’s Shadow” and there were many chats with many people, including a Bunnings staff member who had never heard of 2CC before, and correctly guessed that John Laws was on there…well, more or less, I think Lawsie’s name just flew off his tongue at the mention of talk radio. A few familiar faces turned up including Kevin Woolfe (Aka “The Wolfman” or “Woolfie”) and 2CC’s manager, David Leitch, who seemed to have a smile on his face all day.
Sometime around 2:55 Framey sent me off to get him a can of Coke, which I did and returned during the news, just in time to take two photos of the 2CC Bunnings balloons, and to get a video of Framey’s first moment on air (the voice before the voice over is that of newsreader Kris McKenzie).
(Note about videos, my camera is terribly inefficient when it comes to video bit rates, needlessly enocoding at almost double the required bitrate (maybe it saves on processing power). I have re-encoded the video in a number of formats with minimal to no quality loss. In all cases, the MPEG 4 video is the smallest, followed by the quicktime video, followed by the Real Media, followed by the Windows Media. In all cases, the MPEG4 is the best quality, followed by Quicktime, Windows Media and Real Media.)
Watch Framey’s first moments on air from Bunnings Belconnen
MPEG4
Quicktime
Windows Media
Real Media
A shortwhile thereafter they had their first OB guest, Bruce Huskings, complex manager of Bunnings Belconnen (I only remember his name because I wrote it down). In this photo from left to right, Bruce from Bunnings, Mike Frame and Kevin Woolfe.
There is also a short video of this interview where Bruce and Mike are alking about some of Bunnings Belconnen’s Grand Opening activities (Humphrey gets a mention). Note that this is before they fixed the PA so that the speakers emit the sounds from the microphones.
MPEG4
Quicktime
Windows Media
Real Media
The lights in the background were turned on prior to the beginning of the broadcast, which had me wondering if they were to a reverse television thing where, instead of having stage lights pointing at their faces (and everything else), they lit up their backs…I think too much, I must have gone potty from all the pots in the garden area (third time I’ve used that joke in the last 24 hours, I will desist now).
Here we have a random video clip of Mike summarising some of the guests who would be on the show later in the day…and the PA works.
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The “coming off delay” seven seconds of silence prior to the 3:30 news gave everyone a fright, thankfully Gareth The Tech had dropped by and was able to reassure everyone that it was normal. Recent commenter T-Bone also dropped by.
I decided to take a couple photos of the store, firstly looking lengthways down Bunnings from near one end of the store.
And one looking in a direction at right angles to the last photo (it doesn’t give a proper perspective of the size due to a zoom accident).
Then we have the video which I think is the best one of the lot, and I am very proud of it. I successfully guessed the final ad in the ad break, and pressed record right at the start of the intro, I then zoomed in one Mike as remained zoomed in on him as he spoke. A passing trolley moving stock can be heard at one stage, and the camera did its “overly cautious about having enough battery power to save the video trick” and cut the video off about two seconds early, but I still think this is the best video of the lot.
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During the ad break aroud 3:45 I decided to make my way home, and said goodbye to those who were still there (and waved to those deep in conversation), once out of the store I turned my radio back on, and started walking back to the Belconnen bus interchange. On my way, I took this photo of Bunnings Belconnen (and the Belconnen Fresh Food Markets’ carpark).
It was around 4PM when I got back to the bus interchange, I soon discovered that the next scheduled orange bus would arrive at 4:30 or thereabouts, as I had some time on my hands I decided to avoid the green buses and wait for an orange one. Around 4:15 I gave Mike Frame a call, in which I jokingly informed him that it’s a good thing that David Young (2CC’s gardener) is in Africa and not in the garden section at Bunnings, because he will come back from Africa.
Some time close to 5PM I reached home and only heard a few more minutes of the OB, John B1_B5 informs us that there was a “music break” at one stage when the OB signal was lost, I can only assume that this was some time after the 5:05 “by the seat of their pants” appearance of the clown and the man on stilts, as I didn’t hear any break in transmission before then.
Anyway, well done to 2CC for the outside broadcast, and well done to Bunnings for their brand new Belconnen store, it is absolutely fantastic and I recomend that you take a look if you have some spare time or some hardware needs in or around the ACT. Mike Frame was right when he said that you could spend half a day walking around that place, there is just so much to see.
Samuel
February 11th, 2006 at 01:36am
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