Posts filed under 'TV/Radio/Media'
George Gibson, formerly of the weekend edition of New Day Australia, has signed with rival station 2GB. George has been taken in as a fill-in presenter, last night filling in for Frank Crook, and as such acting as a direct competitor to his replacement at 2UE, Stuart Bocking.
Oddly enough, when I rang 2GB yesterday morning to find out if George was going there (as a caller to John Kerr’s show said that George was going to another station) they refused to comment.
George’s National & International fans can now hear him on 2GB’s webstream (requires Real Player) from time to time.
I am led to believe that George will be filling in for Frank Crook from midnight to dawn tonight as well.
Samuel
December 31st, 2005 at 10:31am
I heard some of Stuart Bocking’s show this morning, and I heard him explain the John Kerr situation the way he understands it.
According to Stuart, John’s contract came to an end and 2UE decided to renew it on weekends. This is mildly odd considering that 2UE claim it is a ratings decision, the idea of it being ratings was odd enough considering that John outranks every other 2UE presenter by ratings position, and is well recieved amongst the network station audience, but now this?
2UE, come clean, tell us the truth.
Samuel
December 31st, 2005 at 10:22am
It would seem that the production staff have been busy lately putting together a three hour “Year In Review” program for Sunday (New Years Day) from 6am-9am. This should be very good, featuring news clips, interviews, and more from the year. I will be making sure that I listen.
The Year In Review: 6am-9am, Sunday, January 1, 2006 on 2CC.
Samuel
December 31st, 2005 at 12:21am
The Christmas/New Year period is always interesting on radio as you can never be quite sure who will be doing what, this week has been no exception.
2CC started off the week with Leigh Zaghet on the breakfast show, and took the 2UE drive show with Steve Liebmann (of Today show and “Be alert, not alarmed” fame). Steve handled himself very well, making sure that the show wasn’t Sydney-centric, whilst Leigh ran the breakfast show quite well. Newsreaders were also mildly odd, with only mornings being produced locally, with Kris McKenzie up to his usual high standard.
Wednesday saw public holiday mode disappear (slightly), with the return to two local presenters. Kevin Woolfe took over brekafast, whilst Leigh Zaghet made the move to the drive show. Interestingly, this is a duo that I predicted in conversation with my bus driver friend in the week before Christmas, and semi-predicted back on December 17. News has still only been local in the morning, but 2UE have maintained their usual high quality news during the day, so it hasn’t been overly noticeable. The last couple days have seen David Morgan reading the news locally.
I suppose the question now is “what will happen tomorrow?”, I can’t say that I know, but I will make a fearless prediction that Mike Frame will be back tomorrow, as I seem to recall that he was having a week off.
That leaves next week for pondering, and I am going to suggest, that with Mike Frame back, he will resume the drive show, and Kevin Woolfe will continue the breakfast show, that is, unless Mike Welsh returns (I think he still has another week off, his daughter is/was getting married during his holidays), in which case he will probably return to the brekafast show until Mike Jeffreys returns on January 16 (I previously stated that Mike was returning on January 9, this was a calculation error).
I might just clarify what I think will happen, as I’ve just gone through a convulted list of possibilities, so my predictions are as follows.
This weekend Mike Frame will return to Weekend Magazine and The Trading Post.
On Monday, Kevin Woolfe will continue the breakfast show, and Mike Frame will return to the drive show.
The following week (Starting Monday January 9), Mike Welsh will return to the breakfast show (I could be certain he said he was having two weeks off), and Mike Frame will continue with the drive show.
The week after that (Starting Monday January 16), Mike Jeffreys will return to the breakfast show, Mike Welsh will return to the drive show.
Obviously these are just my predictions based on a sketchy memory of leave details mentioned on-air, and previous listening experience.
Now, just briefly, a bit of trivia for you. Did you know that 2CC’s occasional fill-in Leigh Zaghet and 2UE’s New Day Australia weekend fill-in Spencer Kirk both work in the same company when not filling in on 2CC and 2UE? Leigh Zaghet is Southern Cross Syndication’s Senior Broadcast Operator, whilst Spencer Kirk is their Digital Courier Manager.
Samuel
December 30th, 2005 at 09:46am
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
Just a quick reminder that Carols By Candlelight is on tonight at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl in Melbourne, with a live broadcast on Channel 9 and affiliated regional stations, and a live simulcast on 3AW, 2UE, 4BC and network stations (including 2CC).
It starts at 9pm and is supposed to end at 11:30, although it often goes overtime. Humphrey B. Bear and Santa will make an appearance, and Channel 9 have a replay tomorrow morning (check your local guide for details).
Samuel
December 24th, 2005 at 08:20pm
Kris McKenzie, newsreader on 2CC and 2CA, has moved into presenting shows today, filling in for Mike Frame on Weekend Magazine and The Trading Post. Not only is Kris an excellent newsreader, he has proven that he is a very good presenter, with a friendly and approachable style.
Whilst Kris is still a newsreader, I can certainly see him being handed more fill-in roles after his excellent performance today. Well done Kris!
Coming up today and tomorrow, Glenn Wheeler will be hosting his afternoon show, although he did say he would only be doing so from 2PM tomorrow…hopefully this will mean that Canberra is saved from Sydney gardening, that would make a fantastic Christmas present. Stuart Bocking appears to still be running New Day Australia over weekend, although the other shows are still a mystery to me.
Samuel
December 24th, 2005 at 12:51pm
It probably wasn’t intentional, but it was nice anyway. The current “Open Line” promo on 2CC, where they take a bunch of snippets of calls to their shows and put them all together as an advertisement for how you get to have your say, features roughly two seconds of one of my calls. From memory it contains me saying “I suppose he was partially correct”, as it happens I seem to recall that I was talking about the Cronulla riots (although I can’t remember who I was referring to), I think I was talking with Mike Jeffreys at the time.
Thankyou 2CC, as I said, I’m sure it wasn’t intentional, but it still makes a nice Christmas present.
Samuel
December 24th, 2005 at 12:24am
I was rather surprised to find on a Christmas Album (“Christmas The Album” – Universal Music 1999) a song which John Laws uses on a daily basis. After his intro he has a song (probably a karaoke mix) playing in the background while he runs through the news of the day, once he has run through the news he plays the last 20 seconds or thereabouts of the song. So what is this song? It is “Keeping The Dream Alive” by Frei Heit (seemingly reduced to one word on most websites as “Freiheit”, which is a German word for freedom).
Personally, I’m not entirely sure that it is a Christmas song, it makes no reference to Christmas or related events, and instead seems to focus on relationships. None the less, it is an uplifting song, and probably sounds like a christmas song, and in fairness, if Universal hadn’t put it on this album I probably wouldn’t have known that it really is a song and not just a jingle. If anyone can shed any light on the real year of release I would be appreciative, as Universal claim it was 1988 whilst half the internet claims it was 1989…
One thing is for sure, the royalties these musicians must be earning from Laws playing their song daily must be giving them a decent little income of sorts.
Anyway, here is Keeping The Dream Alive by Frei Heit (or Freiheit).
Tonight the rain is falling,
full of memories, of people and places
and while the past is calling,
in my fantasy I remember their faces.
The hopes we had were much too high,
way out of reach but we have to try.
The game will never be over
because we’re keepin’ the dream alive.
I hear myself recalling,
things you said to me the night it all started.
And still the rain is falling,
makes me feel the way I felt when we parted.
The hopes we had were much too high,
way out of reach but we have to try.
No need to hide, no need to run,
’cause all the answers come one by one.
The game will never be over
because we’re keepin’ the dream alive.
I need you.
I love you.
The game will never be over
because we’re keepin’ the dream alive.
The hopes we had were much too high,
way out of reach but we have to try.
No need to hide, no need to run,
’cause all the answers come one by one.
The hopes we had were much too high,
way out of reach but we have to try.
No need to hide, no need to run,
’cause all the answers come one by one.
The game will never be over
because we’re keepin’ the dream alive.
The game will never be over
because we’re keepin’ the dream alive.
The game will never be over
Hummed: because we’re keepin’ the dream alive.
Samuel
December 22nd, 2005 at 03:06pm
On December 21 2004, a new community radio news service started, then known as Australian National Radio News. This service started on a trial basis, running three bulletins per day Monday-Friday. Within the first two days ANRN picked up their first subscriber station, and within three months they had 12 stations.
In April, director Artie Stevens relaunched the service as Australian Independent Radio News, on a subscription basis with an expanded service, only three stations stayed with AIR News. Now, 12 months after the first day of operation, AIR News is back to 12 stations, spanning every state and territory except for Tasmania and the ACT. At present seven stations are trialling AIR on a free, non-broadcast basis.
Director of AIR News, Artie Stevens remembers the start of ANRN,
“I remember the doomsayers telling me it wouldn’t work, and me being a stubborn old coot and saying it would.”
AIR News has developed a “virtual newsroom”, enabling news readers from all over the country to operate from the comfort of their own studios.
“One of the things we have developed is our Virtual Newsroom and it seems to work so well. All our readers operate from their own home studios, some a little more flash than others, but they all work fine and sound great” Artie said.
Since moving to a subscriber basis, AIR has expanded to provide more than just a news service.
“We provide AIR Sports Mon – Fri at around 6:15am, AIR NEWS Headlines around the same time and The World Mon – Fri around 10am Eastern. ”
Artie describes The World as a “10 minute daily magazine style program compiling reports from our affiliate reporters around the world” on the AIR News website.
AIR has established not only a national presence, but also brings in stories from all over the globe, as Artie explains.
“Our association with Feature Story News in Washington has given us access to reporters around the world, with Washington, New York, Orlando, Ottawa, London, Brussels, Moscow & Tehran all on board.”
Artie also says that AIR News provides Asia-Pacific reports for Feature Story News.
Sport is also covered,
“We also have an association with The Broadcasting Company in London which provides us with elite sports reports. We had some great “exclusives” during the Ashes test series and currently we’re getting updates on the Volvo round the world yacht race.”
Radio historian, Wayne Mac, thinks that AIR has been a fantastic success.
“It’s bloody terrific see someone put themselves out there and to make something happen in this business. As we all know, there are many armchair critics always waiting to pounce or poo-poo an idea.”
Artie Stevens agrees.
“I think it’s been a bottler of a year and I think I’ll have a cold one
tonight to celebrate.”
For more information about AIR News, or to recommend AIR to your local community station or blackspot commercial station, visit www.air-news.net
Samuel
Disclaimer: Samuel Gordon-Stewart has a commercial agreement as a newsreader for Australian Independent Radio News.
December 21st, 2005 at 01:47pm
With Stan Zemanek on leave for a few weeks (I think 4 weeks was the quoted figure), Glenn Wheeler will be pulling a seven day a week shift filling in for Stan. Glenn has also announced that he will still be doing his weekend afternoon show on Christmas Day and New Years Day.
For those who are still wondering where Glenn Wheeler is now that he isn’t on 2GB, you can find him on 2UE and network stations from 8PM-Midnight on weekdays, and Midday-6PM on weekends. Note that network station times may vary, I would say “check your local guides”, but has anyone seen a radio guide lately? What happened to them?
Samuel
December 19th, 2005 at 07:38pm
This morning at 10:30 Nattie, Humphrey and myself watched an episode of Here’s Humphrey in which Humphrey built a magic car which went on an adventure and sent him postcards. As always, Here’s Humphrey was a lot of fun. Nattie sat on my lap right through the show, as did Humphrey, and after the show I took this photo of Nattie sitting with Humphrey.
As per usual, Humphrey will be making an appreance with his good friend Santa on Christmas eve on Carols By Candlelight. Nattie, Humphrey and myself will all be watching.
Samuel
December 19th, 2005 at 12:09pm
Carols In The Park seemed to go quite well, with plenty of entertainment and a spot of good weather (although it did rain here in Reid, which isn’t far from Norwood Park). 2CC ran a simulcast of the event, with a Mike Frame outside broadcast thrown in. 2CC gave listeners the chance to ring in and wish people a merry christmas, I thought they would be run off their feet with callers, but they weren’t, and half an hour into the broadcast I became the first caller. I wished Cheryl (A nurse who lives near me and listens to 2CC) a merry christmas, to which Mike Frame announced that he has a sister named Cheryl who is a nurse, unfortunately we didn’t have time to work out if it was the same person or not.
The carols went well, 2CC took ad breaks during carol breaks, and continued to run the news on the hour. The thing that had me concerned was their plan at 9:30 when the carols were due to end, obviously they couldn’t return to Sydney programming and mess up the advertising schedule, so what to do?
9:30 came around and Mike Frame announced that they would play christmas requests until 10pm, he said goodnight, and somehow, with a combination of requested music, promos and generic ads the staff in the Mitchell studios managed to time out for the 10PM news perfectly. Well done!
Apparently Norwood Park plan on doing it all again next year, the only thing I can advise is that they schedule it for a night when free-to-air television isn’t running a different carols ceremony, as Channel 7’s screening of “Carols In The Domain” may have cost Norwood Park a few people.
Overall the event went well, and everyone at 2CC did an excellent job, hopefully the Aurora coverage went just as well. I might just take this opportunity to wish the couple who got engaged just after 6PM at Norwood Park all the best for their wedding and the future.
Samuel
December 18th, 2005 at 11:10pm
Carols In The Park has gotten off to a good start at Norwood Park, with the 2CC broadcast going well as well. If you want to send a Christmas message to anyone, ring 2CC on 62554444 and you will probably have the opportunity to do so, depending on timing of events and how many other calls they get.
Samuel
December 17th, 2005 at 06:42pm
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