Forget all of those predictions of 2025 being a quiet year in RadioLand

Forget all of those predictions of 2025 being a quiet year in RadioLand with the AM King, 2GB, holding off the FM challenge. I'm afraid the horse has already bolted with SMOOTH FM, the quiet assassin, taking over the number one spot overall... 12.3% to GB's 11.6. And this is not a trend peculiar to Sydney with Melbourne's 3AW being toppled in the southern capital this survey. FM continues to pick up audience share, most interestingly in the 55+ and 65+ demographics. GB's Ben Fordham is still the one to beat in breakfast, ahead of KIIS but it's close – 14.7 to 13.9 – While Mark Levy has surrendered to SMOOTH in mornings, again in a close run contest... 13.7 to 13.0. The industry will be looking very closely at survey five and what trade insiders and the number crunchers will be looking at is whether this is just another episode of the snakes-and-ladders game betwen AM and FM or if we are seeing something more permanent, perhaps the handing over of the baton to FM, ending a long 2GB dynasty?

King Island is out there, in wind-swept Bass Strait, off the Tasmanian coast, famous these days for two of the best golf courses on the planet, including Cape Wickham, the number one rated course in Australia. If you happen to be over there on August the 4th I wonder if you'd do me a favour and make your way across to the west coast to join a group of locals who'll be gathering at the Cataraqui Memorial for the 180th anniversary of the worst civilian maritime disaster in Australia? The vessel was on the last leg of its voyage to Melbourne in 1845, carrying 369 passengers and 41 crew, when it ran into a massive Bass Strait storm, driven straight into the Island. Many were drowned in the first hour, while the others were ripped to pieces on the rocks trying to make it ashore. The death toll was 399, most of them women and children sailing to Australia to start a new life here. They were almost within sight of their final port when their world fell apart. You may not know of this tragedy, certainly your children would have never heard of it. We don't mention this stuff in our schools. But it might be nice on August 4 if those of us who actually do care about the Great South Land just pause for a minute to remember the hundreds who died this day, all those years ago, smashed into the wild west coast of King Island.



Australian golf continues to prosper in 2025 with Sydney's Grace Kim winning her first major at Evian, her second victory on the LPGA tour. Four Aussie wins so far on the main tours.

Time to salute a couple of famous Australian lines I remember from back in the 40's. "Don't come the raw prawn with me" and "Stone the Crows". The first line is straight out of the Mo McCackie handbook of humour, meaning, "you don't expect me to believe that one do you?" or, "Go on, now pull the other leg." Mo played the classical Aussie mug lair in the beloved McCackie Mansion series dating back to 2GB in the mid-40's. "Stone the crows/flamin'crows" is an Aussie cry of amazement, made famous in the radio classic "Dad and Dave" from Snake Gully, 1937 to 1953. You can still listen to it today on nostalgic radio outlets.

I have this recurring nightmare where we're getting on to an international airliner and the voice on the PA announces that there'll be no crew in the plane today: instead we'll be piloted by a bank of computers, assisted by AI. And the voice will then add that we won't be using conventional fuel... The airliner is being powered by batteries... LITHIUM batteries! At this point 360 passengers jump out of their seats, racing for the exit screaming, "Let Me Outta here."

Just put our garbage bins out, the red, yellow and now the green one: nobody warned me that one day I'd have to do a Masters in Environmental Science just to take the bins out to the front.

You have to salute a brilliant one-liner, delivered completely out of the blue, in everyday life. We were crossing a busy road, near a suburban police station, heading over to a medical appointment. I was on my walker, not moving with a lot of speed, and got half way, when I realised I wasn't going to make it past a stream of hostile traffic heading my way from the left. A man and a woman who had just crossed over ahead of us realised I was in trouble and walked straight out on to the road, held up all the cars until we got across to safety. I looked up at them and said, "That was so impressive... I think we'd better make you both honorary Police Officers." The lady smiled and said softly, "We are police officers". They were two detectives heading back to the police station after lunch... Brilliant.

OTHELLO by Shakespeare.

"Put out the light and then put out the light.
If I quench thee thou flaming minister I can again thy former light restore".

One of the Bard's most memorable scenes as Othello murders his wife Desdemona, having been convinced, falsely, by the evil Iago that she was unfaithful. Your reporter was in High School when he saw the visiting Stratford Touring Company play. I'm sure it was at the old Tivoli with Anthony Quayle, Barbara Jefford and Leo McKern. It had the most dramatic impact on Yours Truly.