Frank Avis Returns To Sydney - Mid-80's
Posted at: June 23, 2009
Related Topic(s): 1980s I returned to Sydney, along with Mike Jeffreys, on a Friday afternoon.We got word that we were to start on Breakfast the following Monday, which was a bit of a shock. I had to get into the newsroom to familiarise myself with the panel over the weekend.
My obligation was news on the half-hour, plus quarter hour "special input" with anything unusual/strange into Mike's brekky programme. There was just me and my assistant.journalist. I quickly sussed-out the audience 2DAY FM was targeting - the top-end of the 25-50 market - and got my assistant to start doing half-hour business updates, basically the Dow, Australian Dollar, price of oil, etc, etc.
I didn't get a lot of positive reaction over this with some of my internal critics suggesting that if we were going to put a specialist reporter on to something it shouldn't be in finance. But I thought it was a meaningful contribution: it provided critical information for a fairly large number of listeners and even if the audience wasn't directly involved a lot would have been content to hear this sort of content, in that they would have perceived themselves as among Sydney's "movers and shakers". It's sort of like the middle aged man you see get on a morning bus, going to work, with the Financial Review tucked under his arm. He never reads it but he feels better to be perceived as a FR reader (actually at one point when 2DAY FM was going really well, I used a senior Financial Review journalist to do regular finance updates in our Breakfast news).
It's a long time ago but I'm trying to remember the cast from that era. I know George Moore was doing mornings (and very, very well - boy did he fit that adult format!) along with Tony Hartney, Keith Williams and Tim Webster. I'm also recalling Grant Goldman, George Donikian, Holgar Brockman, Terry Mabb, Michelle Aleksandrovics, Norris Smith, John Kesby, Angie Nelson and Simon Latimer.
I'll ask my large production team to see if they can include an attached piece by Harry Robinson who must have been feeling kindly disposed towards me as breakfast presenter.
We knew that we had to get some extra bite into the overall station presentation so Cherie hired Debbie Spillane to do sports. We tried to generate a sense of humour in our presentation, especially if I had the opportunity to remind Miss Spillane of any or her sporting predictions which hadn't worked out. She had a cheeky sense of humour and the Debbie and Frank show seemed to work ok for a time.
It was during this period that I worked closely with Production specialist Peter Kukura in putting Debbie forward for an annual RAWARDS, as Best Sports Presenter (I think they're now knows as the ACRAS). We waded through tape after tape and Pete ended up putting a wonderful package together. Imagine how it felt when I was sitting at the 2DAY FM table on the night of the awards and heard the MC read out, "and the RAWARD for Best Sports presenter goes to... Debbie Spillane, 2DAY FM." Don't you love it when a plan comes together.
It was also during my second tenure at 2DAY FM that I started to concentrate on some other areas of my career: doing a one-minute history piece Monday to Thursday with George Moore and a regular Friday Travel segment. These both worked quite well. In fact Friday travel was a real surprise generating tremendous audience feedback. Of course the audience Cherie was targeting was smack bang in the middle of the same audience profile for the travel operators - upwardly mobile 25 to 45's who were extremely interested in... THEMSELVES. I remember one day Japan Airlines faxed me a release announcing a special one-off $100 fare to Tokyo, to introduce a new Sydney-Japan service. They had intended it to be released to the weekend press travel sections as well but had to ring me urgently at noon that day, 90 minutes after the feature went to air, saying they'd already filled the 450 seats available. George really did have a strong and loyal audience.
My histories with George also attracted the attention of Dick Smith's Australian Geographic magazine and I got a call one day from the Editor, asking if I'd do the History segments in their first-ever calendar.
I agreed of course and settled down with their historians at AG to work out the format.
The 1989 Australian Geographic calendar is a collector's item and I'm so proud that I assisted with that historic production.
Our in-house photographer Darleen is now being asked to provide some pictorial highlights from this magazine for the Producer of this web site, son John, to include on this page. Hopefully all has gone well and the highlights will appear before you as we speak.
  
At this point of my career it became obvious that my on air work was falling away: my voice was clearly getting weaker, lacking projection and Noel and Cherie saved me having to make a tough decision about myself by calling me in and asking how I'd feel about Tim Webster coming back to 2DAY to read breakfast news. I was ecstatic. He was such a good voice and near-perfect for the station's news presentation. Plus he was a really good bloke and excellent team member.
At the same time, Debbie took time off for a baby and Cherie discovered the legendary larrikin, Tim Bailey who came in to do sport. And so we begin probably the most controversial thing in my long period as a News Director. 2DAY FM Breakfast featuring the "two Tims", Webster and Bailey.
Well, from day one Web absolutely loved Bailey. And vice versa.
And somehow the morning sports report gradually turned into an all out,no holds barred riot.
Devotees absolutely loved it,and rang in laughing deliriously. But there were those who regarded their sport as sacrosanct who protested vigorously. "How dare we laugh at sport"? Among those was Debbie Spillane who had come back doing weekend sports and was beside herself at the antics of the Two Tims.
Actually it started out innocently enough.
I'd always made a habit of collecting the famous one liners of history. Everytime I heard somebody utter something that seemed to capture the story or the era I'd grab it on tape. I had 3 reel-to-reels full of famous quotes which I carried to every station along with my three drawer filing cabinet full of information about anything and everything. Anyway one day Tim Webster was in the newsroom when I played my favorite John McEnroe outburst - you probably know the one where he screams at the umpire, "You cannot be serious... You CANNOT be serious." As he utters the second line his face has gone bright red and spit can be seen flying 3 metres out of his mouth.
It's just my all time favorite. Tim quietly asked if I could cut him a cart with this one liner on it. It was simple enough and I was happy to oblige. Imagine my surprise when in the following news a Tim Bailey report was followed by McEnroe screaming, "You cannot be serious… You cannot be serious."
I looked into the news booth and Webster was sitting totally inscrutable as if the whole thing was a complete surprise. Bailey was looking at him glaring daggers. The battle was joined. Soon both men had a repertoire of one liners which they used with gay abandon. These ranged from Rhett Butler responding to Tim Bailey‘s weekend league predictions with, " Frankly, Scarlett, I don't give a damn," to a range of totally unsuitable additions like Mae West saying, "Come up and see me some time," to Marlon Brando's, "I could have been a contender." Pretty soon Cherie was looking at me very strangely and Noel kept ducking into his office and shutting the door as I walked by.
Clearly they were trying to tell me something: actually I think they were trying NOT to tell my something, hoping the whole thing would just go away.
And everything would have been fine had Australia not taken part in the Commonwealth Games that year and had Tim Bailey not been working on 2DAY FM. This was not my mistake. I take no responsibility for the ebb and flow of history. This was just fate.
This was the time when the Australian male athletes decided to wear extremely revealing, tight fitting track suits. One particular track star filled his suit incredibly well. Indeed when Channel 9 showed the front on shot of him winning a gold medal there was little doubt that he was a remarkably well endowed young man.
The problem was Bailey just couldn't believe any man could be that... er... well built.
He went to air at 8 o'clock, announcing that the man in question had in fact stuffed plasticine down the front of his pants. Even the normally well controlled Mr Webster took a liking to this theory and expanded on it to some extent.
It was terribly difficult to know what to say to Bails. I sat at the news desk, I think completely stunned.
Bailey obviously knew he was on pretty thin ice with this one and it took him 15 minutes to summon up enough courage to return to the newsroom. All I remember is this face coming around the door and Bails looking at me like a naughty schoolboy asking, "Do you think I went too far?"
Too Far? He'd gone that far he was no longer in the same postcode! He smiled at me, cheekily - he was always so good at being cheeky - and I broke down into complete laughter, sliding out of the chair and falling on the ground. It took half an hour for newsroom staff to help to return to reasonable operating order. I mean what can you say?
At 8.20 a man rang me in absolute hysterics announcing that he had just lost complete control of his car on Victoria Road and crashed into a telegraph pole. The thing was he was still laughing. He rang me back at 10 to tell me that when he told the police officer what had caused the accident the officer then broke down into hysterics. Bystanders reported seeing a car smashed into a pole with a man and a police officer both sitting on the gutter laughing.
So we somehow survived that crisis until 11.30 when a particularly serious gentleman rang asking to speak to the News Director. He promptly announced that he was a solicitor representing the said athlete, informing me that his client had been grossly defamed in our morning news.
He went on to explain that the said defamation was heard by the man's wife and family and that they had thought our comments were highly offensive. I asked if he'd actually heard the comments himself and he said yes, indeed he had heard the 8 AM news on the way to work.
There was a slight break in his voice and I admit I actually started to laugh.
Then he broke down and started to laugh. And we both spent the next 15 minutes laughing hysterically.
Finally he hung up and we never heard from him again.
At last the Games came to an end and we sadly had to say goodbye to the allegations of the plasticine in the pants.
Webster and I looked at each other and the look in our eyes said the same thing, "Please God, just don't let Bailey loose again, just give us some breathing room, just normal news and sport."
It was not to be. God in his wisdom had decided that New Zealand would play a test cricket series in Australia including a match in Sydney. Mr Bailey left little doubt about his opinion of New Zealanders making various thinly veiled remarks about the Land of the Long White Cloud. He gave the Kiwis heaps.
Then New Zealand struck back at Bailey with the great all rounder Richard Hadlee announcing that he was going to retire at the end of the season. This would be the last time we'd see him in action in Australia. Bailey announced this piece of news and for a brief moment it sounded as if there was actually a hint of sorrow in his voice. People started to call in support of Hadlee, happy to give Bailey some of his own medicine. I was on to this at the speed of light and opened up our recording line for people to call in and say their farewells to the great Richard (soon to become Sir Richard) Hadlee.
The phones were flooded. Some cricket fans were actually crying. We kept the recording line going for 48 hours. Then I rang the Prime Minister's office and asked if Bob Hawke would like to join in. He was on the line in 20 seconds with the most incredible tribute. We played it uncut. We couldn't stop the phone calls. They just kept coming. Clearly the public loved this bloke Hadlee. He epitomized the whole Australia/NZ relationship - we give each other heaps, and we absolutely hate to lose when we play each other at sport - but when the chips are down we are there in the trenches together. Does the word Anzac ring any bells?
Anyway, it was early afternoon and my batting average on this story was pretty close to Don Bradman's so I thought I'd go all the way and ring the New Zealand Prime Minister, I think it was Jim Bolger, to see if he'd like to say a few words on air. Now his office was adamant, "No way!" Jim had apparently had a shit of a month and had taken off on a fishing trip, not to be disturbed under any circumstances.
There was no way he'd agree to call.
15 minutes later the Prime Minister of New Zealand rang 2DAY FM with the most heartfelt tribute you have ever heard in your life. Hadlee of course was an icon.
I had a quick meeting with Cherie and Noel (yes they were talking to me now, well not openly so that anyone could see, but definitely talking) and we all agreed.
Peter Kukura and I would put a one hour special on cassette full of all of these wonderful tributes and we'd present them to Hadlee at a coming test match in New Zealand.
I'd already been very sneaky by leaking a lot of the audio to one of our sister stations in New Zealand, and they lapped it up. So the whole thing was absolutely huge in Kiwi land.
There was only one thing left to do. We called Tim Bailey in and in very sobre terms informed him that he would be flying to Auckland and in front of a huge crowd of New Zealanders, it would be him who'd be presenting this tape to Richard Hadlee. Personally. Smack in the middle of enemy territory.
Webster and I loved it. Here was the ultimate penalty for that little smart alec. He'd ducked all of the bouncers we'd bowled at him but now was the ultimate reckoning. We doubted he'd actually get out of Auckland alive. Indeed Webster and I had put together what we thought was a fitting tribute to Mr Bailey should he fail to make it back over the Tasman.
As usual – yes, you guessed it - the trip was an overwhelming triumph for you know who.
As I understood it, Bails entered the cricket ground for this famous presentation decked out in a dinner suit jacket, accompanied by shorts and a pair of work boots. They loved him. This man who had personally delivered more insults to Kiwis than Ian Chappell at first slip charmed the living daylights out of the lot of them. The Auckland radio station rang, "Could Tim stay longer to do some guest appearances," "He's the biggest celebrity in the country," etc, etc. It was absolutely mortifying.
I looked at Webster and we both thought the same thing, "No, you bloody send him back home. He's not going to swan around New Zealand like a superstar." And so he returned but it was never the same.
The station had by now moved into the ownership of Austereo and it quickly became obvious that the two Tims were not actually Austereo material. Every time I mentioned the Tims Paul Thompson, Greg Smith and their team looked left of camera and suddenly found they had to get to an urgent appointment somewhere.
Oh well, we had a good run and for a few months radio was suddenly the way it was back in the 50's. No one had a script, it just sort of happened, but oh brother when it happened to someone like John Harper on 2KY and years later to the "Two Tims" on 2DAY FM, boy, did it happen. And how wonderful it was to be there.
Austereo was very successful in this new breed of programming. Everything was researched. You gave the target audience exactly what they wanted. Nothing just happened. Not even the humour. Spontaneity? Sorry not on the menu. Funny thing about Austereo, no one really laughed. It was very, very serious.
But to be fair, they had the last laugh with both their ratings and their bank balance. They were clearly doing what their audience wanted. The thing is that they took this philosophy into news. News became what the audience wanted. If they didn't want it, it wasn't news. Which took us all into a whole new arena as we essentially argued the key issue: does a journalist have a responsibility beyond the audience's demands? It may not be a hot item in the monthly "focus sessions" but what if the journalist believes it to be important for the audience to know? Tricky, huh.
This was the basis of a keynote speech when I went to the RTNDA symposium in Las Vegas that year. The CBS reporter Jeff Greenfield spent some time talking about the "death of the gatekeeper". He said that one of the most crucial components of any newsroom was the "gatekeeper" - the veteran who'd been through it all and was able to sit back and say, "That isn't news," or "Hey, why aren't we doing this story?" and then explain to his fellow journos why.
Greenfield argued that the gatekeeper was being removed from most of the gates in radio and TV around the globe and that we were essentially reverting to news which was strongly driven by demands for trivia. The exploits of 21 year old actresses, who were stars after making one movie, had suddenly become preeminent. Look, let's be honest, the Austereo format which was basically a quick series of headlines and weather followed by a 30-60 second "informational", essentially aimed at the female audience, was also legitimate and proved to be highly successful.
The truth is we now have so much programme diversity that everyone is catered for. If you want the more traditional news you know where to go.
This entry is probably going too long but there are a couple of things I should also mention.
First was the day Austereo's ND John Williams (a really nice bloke, we also got on extremely well) brought in this hot shot news programmer from the US West Coast. He was the man who apparently formulated a lot of their ideas. So I was ushered into the Board Room where John and I sat down with several of the Austereo heavies to hear what the great man had to say.
He was walking up and down the boardroom looking out of the window. He did this for some time, in fact he did it for a very, very long time. Suddenly he turned and uttered these immortal words, "Headines... Very important!" Then, allowing us sufficient time to mentally process this incredible breakthrough in news programming he returned to his pacing up and down the room.
Some time later he suddenly wheeled around again and looked me smack in the eye saying,"Weather... That's critical!" After that I think he left the room, probably to recover from this incredible intellectual feat. I walked slowly back to the newsroom thinking, "I've got to get out of this industry... Something's happening."
Also at this time I had another major brain wave. Again, the timing was gloriously awful.
The allies had just launched their major operation to kick Sadam Hussein out of Kuwait and all the way back to Baghdad. I wanted to do something entirely different.
I suggested to the powers that be that we could operate a national update from 2DAY FM which would feature a retired Senior Army Officer who would brief us on the operation at several peak bulletins through the day: 6, 7, 8, Noon and 6 PM.
I wanted to call it the War Room (Stop sniggering, it would have worked).
In these key bulletins we would have crossed to Colonel X in the 2DAY FM War Room for his latest update on the fighting. He'd take us behind the battles, describing the terrain where they were fighting and what sort of weaponry was featured at the coal front etc, etc.
I wanted to do a deal with one of the daily newspapers, preferably the Australian because they published in most of the capital cities, to include a two page detailed, coloured map of the area so that the audience could use the map to follow the Colnel's updates.
He'd even be able to use cross-references from the map to add to the authenticity.
I flew this idea before the senior administrators and I have to report that it went down like the proverbial lead balloon. There were a lot of sideways glances, heavy whistling and movement from one foot to the other before we sort of went our separate ways down the hallway.
So, we all gradually rode into the sunset.
I went for a brief stint to 2SM which was in the process of self destruction at the time (do you realise 2SM no longer appears on the ratings sheets in Sydney? They have to be included among "Others").
As for the two Tims, well, I don't see anyone anymore really but I watch them. Web does the sport on Ten News and Bailey does the Weather, cheeky as always.
Thanks guys for one of the most memorable, albeit controversial, periods of my radio career.
There were other developments during this period, including my movement into teaching, but I think that'll have to wait till next time we meet.
PS. If there's anybody I haven't defamed so far please leave your name and I'll correct the oversight as soon as possible.
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Frank Avis at 2 DAY FM
Posted at: February 15, 2009
Related Topic(s): 1990s, 1980s It was the early 80's and I'd made the move from Bondi Junction to Crows Nest - MMM to 2DAY FM.
Part owner Graham Kennedy continued to call it TWO DAY FM despite our recommendation that it was TODAY FM, essentially for marketing purposes, but THE KING just wouldn't have it. I'd had a bit of contact with Kennedy since XY in the 60’s and he always remained totally supportive of my career. He was a very nice, extremely quiet bloke who did some hilarious routines on his old XY show.
Ask Producer Brian Newington about those days: he would have a stack of very funny memories.
When I got to 2 DAY, it really didn't take long to organize the newsroom and start putting out a moderately decent product, especially as news started out essentially as a peak-hour component.
Brendan Sheedy was in charge and if I remember correctly he soon hired Cherie Romaro to run programming along with Tony Hartney and Gerry O'Shea. Noel McGurgan was the Sales chief, but soon to take over as Chief Executive. I'm trying to remember the on air staff in those early days. I'm sure Laurie Bennett, from XY, was there and I know Tim Webster came over later on, but my memory is a big vague after that.
The Chief Engineer was The Admiral Graham Greenwood and he had organized the station to utilize an automatic system, which meant the station could run for hours without an actual "live" presenter.
Everything was mixed in the Control room, which included all of the music, commercials and the announcer “drop ins”, pre-taped prior to the shift.
It was good in theory and probably would have been effective for the late evening-mid to dawn arena, but I think it just drifted away as it became clear that all the programmes lacked immediacy.
I mean what do you do if Sydney's hit by a cyclone mid morning and the guy on air is running the show as if nothing has happened? You've got the news bulletins of course, announcing the imminent end of the Earth, but as far as the rest of the show is concerned, it's all fun and giggles.
I remember Tim used to come in an pre-tape his 9-1 shift and all I had to do every hour was pause for the news and then hit the programme start key for Tim's tape to go to the next hour.
It worked ok just as long as nothing untoward happened. Then we were in trouble.
My memory of this time is pretty hazy but I think Brendan and Cherie were already putting the fundamentals in place for the later successful 2 DAY FM "adult" contempory format, based strongly on album input. I remember at the time that I thought the programming was getting better and better by the day. Although, like MMM, there was a lot of pressure on Brendan because of the poor rating figures. It was pretty much like the earlier story of 6PR. We knew the actual listenership was improving every month but it just didn't show on the surveys. This is one of those phenomena which our peculiar industry just has to live with - there is this delay in what is actually happening among the mass audience and the confirmation of this in the monthly ratings. It can sometimes take a long time to move up the ladder, just as it can often take a long time to start moving down.
Then came one of those things that in retrospect you really can't explain.
I got a phone call from Brian Rangott, of channel 9 fame, who was a major shareholder in 3MP.
It transpires that the Board had decided to clean out the place after a series of rating disappointments.
The General Manager Ray Bean was leaving to be replaced by Norm Spencer. My pal Dean Matters had gone and Brian told me they were releasing News director Barry Owen. I was extremely sorry to hear this as I know that Barry really didn't want to replace me as ND when I left. He would have been much happier continuing in his role as the Senior reader, which he did really well. So I blamed myself for some of this, having put him in a difficult position when I resigned in the 70's. Basically, Brian was asking if I would mind assisting the station in vetting any candidates who might emerge from the Sydney market.
I loved 3MP of course, as we had a lot of history together, and I agreed to provide any assistance required. The trouble was no suitable candidates were coming forward. MP was looking for somebody to not only run the newsroom but to put ideas to Management to take the place forward. Weeks and weeks went by and no one surfaced.
Anyway, the long and short of this saga was that I decided to take up the challenge myself. I still don't know why. Just one of those things.
So, I broke the unwritten law of our industry, NEVER GO BACK.
Not only did I break it once but I broke it twice in succession. If you want to stir up the Gods of radio that’s how you do it.
I returned to Melbourne and resettled in beautiful Mt Eliza. I was actually met at the airport by Norm Spencer (I loved him... Everybody loved him) who briefed me on the trip back to the Peninsula.
I can't remember everybody but I know my old mate Ian Nicholls was in the newsroom, along with Chris Morris, Rob Curtain and the Traffic girls. Andrew Rutherford had taken over the Community Services sector including the Victoria Story and Rupert Macaw was the chief engineer.
I remember Leigh Mathews was our football expert. At DB earlier I'd worked with Ron Barassi, and earlier at XY with Jack Dyer, Bob Skilton and Barry Cable. Talk about getting close to the legends.
It was at this time that the most bizarre thing happened which I probably shouldn't even record here, but oh well, here goes. I'd come back into the newsroom late one night, I think it was a Saturday. I was probably editing a footy tape I'd done that afternoon, to be available for the Sunday breakfast. Anyway there were only two people In the place, the duty announcer and me. The jock hit the intercom and said could I take a call on what seemed to be a mysterious matter.
Anyway I picked up the phone and found myself talking to either a young police officer or the head of security at a leading Melbourne hotel. He said he needed to speak to a station executive. I said I was the only one there at that time of night, so he took my name, rank and phone contact.
Then he told me that he was questioning a group of men who had been found running naked through the hallways of the hotel. He had them in a room, apparently in various states of undress, and that several had told him they were from a country radio network, attending a meeting that weekend. He needed to speak to a 3MP official because another one of the men claimed to be one of our executives. He mentioned a name and a rough description and I was able to confirm that yes indeed there was such a person on our executive staff. The officer then thanked me and rang off. I never heard any more of the story and indeed I never mentioned this amazing tale to anybody else, until quite recently when the story surfaced while talking about old times with a former MP colleague. But it was most embarrassing and I wish I hadn't been in the newsroom that night. Funny, huh? Anyway back to the format problems.
I spent a month checking out the situation, only to quickly realize that MP's "something for everyone" policy was being shredded with the arrival of FM radio. I just stood back, listened to the market and looked at the last two surveys and realized MP couldn't survive unless it chose to make some major changes. Ideally, it needed to specialize. But I couldn't see that happening so I wrote a long memo to Norm suggesting that MP go totally mainstream by getting strongly into sport, including VFL broadcasts.
There was still one match per round available and I recommended we immediately negotiate for the spare spot with the VFL and our radio colleagues.
I think my memo came right out of left field for Norm: it was exactly the opposite to what he wanted to hear. He dismissed the whole idea and I think that may have ended his close relationship with me as the station's ND.
Norm and Brian were determined to continue MP's policy and set about cleaning up its on air sound.
Truly, they did this with a vengeance. Brian was there in the trenches, decluttering the on air content and reworking the sound of our local ads and community service input.
By the time he'd finished the station sounded magnificently professional. He did everything anyone could do to give the format a 100% chance of success.
Norm, for his part, ripped into the station's public image. He gave away a house, yes, I said a HOUSE.
He organized a huge bikeathon, picking up the concerns of the community over the abuse of energy, especially the impact of cars.
I came up with this wonderful story of a young lad who'd rescued several people on his surfboard, I think from a shark attack or perhaps a boating crash. Anyway we found out he had lost his parents and was being raised by his Grandmother. Norm opened up a special trust to pay for the rest of his education.
Norm and Brian did everything anyone could ask but the ratings continued to say "no"
It is probably the most demonstrable proof of the adage about radio that YOU CAN RATE DOING THE RIGHT THING BADLY, BUT YOU CAN'T RATE DOING THE WRONG THING WELL.
The whole radio landscape was changing and MP policy mix which had seen them flying high for some years, was now dragging them back to Earth with a thud.
The days of appealing to everyone had gone. Now you had to pick your audience and target them.
We worked our hearts out but to no avail.
This was an absolutely awful experience, particularly as I had to watch a group of really decent, dedicated people pouring everything they had into the place and going backwards.
In the end, the place was taken over by a provincial radio consortium and Norm retired to the farm, to be replaced by Wayne Browne.
I was immediately called into Mr Browne's office and told I was being dismissed. It was slightly unexpected and naturally I asked for a reason. He replied that he thought I'd be leaving anyway.
This left me just as puzzled, although some weeks earlier somebody had planted a nasty little story in one of the Sunday papers, alleging I was in talks with FOX FM. I must say this was news to me, and it must have been news to FOX as well, because we'd never even swapped a phone call.
My dismissal created shock waves in the southern capital.
With 48 hours I was called to a meeting with the Journalists Association in Melbourne. When I walked in the Secretary told me that the Association regarded my sacking as a disgrace and that it was placing a ban on the position of 3MP News Director. The station had tremendous trouble getting anyone to takeover. In the end they had to settle "in house".
Lots of stuff was happening at the time. The Sunday paper which had run the invented story of my talks with FOX then announced that I'd resigned from MP. I rang the reporter and told him it was untrue, I'd been dismissed. Given the boot. The reporter said he thought he was doing me a favour in making it sound as if it was my decision.
I pretty much decided that staying in Melbourne really wasn't an option.
I sucked in my pride and rang Cherie Romaro at 2 DAY FM, asking if she knew of anything going in Sydney and if she'd speak on my behalf. Two hours later she rang back to offer me a job as Breakfast Editor at 2 DAY, to start as early as possible. Warren Burr was the ND and Graeme Virgo his right-hand man.
Mike Jeffreys was taking over the Breakfast show and I was to be part of the team, doing the news and special features.
So I did it again. Twice in a row I broke the cardinal rule of Radio by going back to the place I'd left just a few years earlier. This time, fortunately, the results were significantly better, well for quite a while anyway. Nothing lasts forever in radio, or TV for that matter.
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Frank Avis Continues His Radio Story as Sydney Goes FM In 1980
Posted at: January 13, 2009
Related Topic(s): 1980s 2MMM was centred I think it was the 25th floor of this super high-rise building in Bondi Junction.
Tom O'Donohue, who was the technical consultant at 3MP back in the 70's, was doing the same job at MMM. I remember Frank Mancini was the Chief Engineer. Cherie Romaro, from 6PR, was PD with Tony Hartney assisting, along with Keith (Chooky) Fowler and I'm not sure whether Gerry O'Shea was there. He was definitely at 2DAY FM with Cherie later on. We had my mate Tim Webster on air, along with Bob Hughes, Keith Williams, I think George Moore was there and I’d poached Terry Mabb, as our Chief reader, and Jason Wayne as our "on the road" specialist over from 2GB. Jim Carroll joined us as Terry's back-up in Breakfast.
Rod Muir of course was the charismatic el supremo: he was MMM.
Our newsroom was virtually the end of a passageway which was our main working area. But we did have an excellent newsbooth with direct sight to the studio suite.
I think it was set it up really well and it worked efficiently from day one.
It took some time to get to air and there was a lot of tension in the place, as I recall, but at the same time it was also very aggressive and positive as our rock and roll playlist pounded out around the building.
I've got to say the MMM music was fantastic, especially our main thematic chosen to launch the station.
You'd come out of the lift, up near the top of this high-rise building and the R AND R would be pounding out. There was a lot of pressure on Cherie about the playlist, as I recall, but from my perspective it wasn't the music that held MMM back. It was just history. It took a while for FM to settle-in in Sydney, indeed in most cities, and even longer for the figures to start showing up on the ratings sheets.
And the view was fantastic. I hope my imagination isn't taking over here, but I'm sure Terry Mabb called the start of the Sydney-Hobart yacht race from the newsroom windows and then walked across to the other side of the building to report on the yachts as they zoomed down the coast. Don’t take that as gospel: I could be going senile. But the vista from the MMM building was sensational. Has anyone operated in a more beautiful city?
I wasn't unhappy with our product. We tried to be a bit tongue-in-cheek. I did a deal with one of the Sunday papers for a special 5PM feature on Friday nights, with their social columnist reporting on where all the "beautiful people" would be going on the weekend. We had a lot of fun with that.
I would like to report on another major story we did in that time, describing the unusual technique I used which I felt worked really well. Again, I'm not mentioning this for personal glory. I add my traditional rider that I can really only report the behind-the-scenes stuff of WHAT I DID. I can’t comment on the methodology of others.
Anyway, get on with it.
President Reagan had been wounded in an assassination attempt and we actually had incredibly detailed descriptions of where the bullet had lodged, what sort of bullet it was etc etc as he went into emergency surgery.
I'm always looking for "lateral thinking" in these cases and this time I opted for something rather unusual. I rang a major Sydney hospital and asked if they had a surgeon on duty who might comment publically on the operation. To my surprise I was put through to one of the city’s top cardiac surgeons.
I said to him I was hoping to get his comments on air about the operation. I expected him to tell me to "get lost" but he actually liked the idea. He laughed and said he'd need to get some detailed information and I was able to read him the AAP copy describing exactly where the bullet had lodged.
He then started to put his thoughts together and I could hear him saying, "Oh, they'll have to go in via the (some technical name for a body part) and, gee, they'll have to be really careful there because they can't hit the (another technical name)..." He was rambling on, rehearsing the operation in his head, so he could give me some sort of meaningful analysis of what the surgeons over there were facing.
Suddenly, I'm listening to him and I said, "Do that… Don't give me a summary... Do the operation for us on MMM NEWS... Just simplify for us and tell us what the doctors have to do."
And he did. So, as the doctors operated on President Reagan, MMM NEWS had a leading surgeon describing exactly what they were doing. I read the SMH the following day, which carried a detailed description of the operation, and our surgeon had got it spot on.
I still think this is as good a story as I've ever been involved in. We took the story and transported our audience right into the middle of the drama. This one is up there with the best. (How I wish I'd been programming a News and Information station that day...)
When it went to air, I think Terry Mabb was reading, I sat in the newsroom and waited for someone to run into the newsroom and say, "That was brilliant." And I waited and waited. We hardly got one word of praise from within. I still find that stunning. The only reaction I ever received was a phone call from another Sydney News Director (really nice bloke) who simply laughed and said, "You bastard," and then hung up still laughing.
To be fair, I don't think news was a MMM priority. It was the music so I guess we couldn't expect people to be hanging on our every word. In fact, something very unusual happened just a week or so before we went to air. Rod was taking one of our shareholders, radio celebrity Bob Rogers, on a tour of the building.
He brought him into the little newsroom and said, "And this is our news department," to which Bob responded, "What do we need news for?" and walked off.
So, I think we have to accept that it was the music which was the 1,.2 and number3 priority at MMM.
And I say again, I absolutely loved the playlist. The music was marvelous.
There is one interesting sidelight to the Reagan shooting. The John Lennon assassination was also a huge story during my tenure at MMM. Of course it was much easier to merge our news coverage into the station's programming, because of the stature of the victim in the musical world.
So it should have sounded pretty good, overall. But the truth is our news coverage was absolutely traditional... Dead straight... I just couldn't find any inventive way of doing the story, so we did it just like everybody else, including a couple of the dreaded "voicers" from LA.
When I got home that night I thought, "Boy, that was ordinary... Very, very ordinary."
Imagine how embarrassed I was when I found myself being congratulated by senior management on how we tackled the story. I even got a really nice memo from Rod saying how good it was.
I didn't have the heart to tell them that it was just about the most predictable effort we could have given them: nobody listening in would remember any part of it in six months time. I'll bet a few remembered the Reagan coverage a lot longer than that.
Now for the difficult part. It was becoming increasingly obvious to me that the lifestyles of Frank Avis and MMM were increasingly moving poles apart. I offer no further comment on this issue except to say that I discussed my problem with the news staff and told them I'd decided to get out. Needless to say we had a few intense discussions but in the end I decided to get out as quickly as possible. I'd known Brendan Sheedy since 3AK days and he had now taken over Mike Willesee and Graham Kennedy’s 2 DAY FM at Crows Nest. Brendan needed the newsroom set up and I put my hand up as the man to do it.
There was a difficult period of legal debate as Rod demanded I serve out my full resignation term, and I know Brendan Sheedy was placed under a lot of pressure. But, it was resolved in the end and I was able to make the move to Sydney's other FM'er, 2 DAY FM, situated, was it on the 3rd floor, of a motel-office complex on the Highway at Crows Nest.
I can tell you one thing... The view was a lot different.
At least, we had a hospital next door, in case it all became too much for me.
The 2 DAY FM adventure will be the next chapter of my radio story which will also feature the "worst decision I've ever made" as I break one of the cardinal rules of the industry.
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