Frank Avis' Memoirs of 42 Years in Radio

Well, she's all over for another year

2020-01-06T12:00:00+10:00

Well, she's all over for another year and the Alan and Ray Show ended the ratings, owning Sydney's overalls, clear of FM challengers, Smooth and Kiis. Good old CH bounced up nearly a point and says goodbye to 2019, rating just under 4.5. I was surprised to hear that Ch. 9 had decided to switch ex-MIX colleague Deborah Knight on to 2GB after the end of her contract with the TODAY show. I'm not sure how often we'll get to see her now on Ch. 9 6 O'Clock news but as she just happens to be one of the top 3 TV news presenters in the nation let's hope she continues her regular work in this high-profile arena. I guess if you are going to radio it's nice to be heading off to the city's No. 1.

The attached photo is courtesy of TV veteran, Bill Lee, aka Unka (for Uncle) or Mr Grumps (er, don't go there) and shows a stack of survivors from TVT 6, HOBART in a recent reunion shot.

I joined TVT/7HO in the late '50s which is where I met up with Bill. I did quite a few booth shifts, read a bit of news and actually pioneered the first IN HOBART TONIGHT with Tom Warne, Graeme Smith and Bill as Director. I think we all have affectionate memories of those early days.

Sadly I really don't remember a lot of people in this photo -- my fault, not theirs -- but I do recall several colleagues -- Tony Kingston, Tony Kendrick, Lyndon Michell, Jan Gough, Stan Draper and Winston Henry. I salute you all.

Yes, I was wired on to the lounge during the recent British Brexit Election. I think I spent up to 8 hours on Sky News UK following the astonishing drama as BoJo wiped out Jeremy and his bizarre manifesto which promised everything to everybody while he went after business and the wealthy with a political cosh. Oh yes, and then we had the spectre of nationalisation and his "should we... shouldn't we... oh don't look at me, I haven't got a clue" policy for Brexit. It was a disaster for Labour as its old heartland cried "enough! I'm getting outta here". And boy, they did.

The whole Brexit saga was incredible really as I've argued for years. We even had one major party campaigning openly on the basis of refusing to accept the recent Brexit vote, and telling The Brits they'd have to vote again, presumably until they voted to stay IN the European Union. These people actually refused to accept a national plebiscite which voted to leave. I don't get that. Needless to say, that party did not have a good night at the ballot boxes. These remainers had spent every day since the nationwide vote moaning about the decision. Commentator JANET ALBRECHTSEN -- writing in the Weekend Australian -- labelled them the "remoaners"...

We had one of those iconic moments you hang on to this week when we saw a Willie Wagtail in our yard. Haven't seen one for ages. Haven't seen any Blue Wrens, Swallows or sparrows either. They've all been hunted out of our suburbs by a combination of aggressive imported species and marauding cats allowed to roam and hunt through the night. Maybe, the return of the Wagtail marks a new era... We might even get to see the occasional Kookaburra?

If you want to know what happens when Big Business falls into the hands of bureaucrats here is an alarming story. A young High School student turned up for his casual shift at a local Supermarket... Won't go into names but this is one of the biggest names in the country... and he saw a lady looking a bit lost. So he approached the customer and was able to direct her to the appropriate aisle. The two had a brief chat and the happy customer departed feeling a lot better for the experience of talking face-to-face with a human. Shortly afterwards the young worker was pulled aside by his supervisor, who was clearly irate. "What are you doing?" she demanded to know. "You broke one of our main protocols. You never INITIATE contact with a customer: you respond to any questions and move on as quickly as possible. Oh yes, and your exchange with that lady lasted longer than one minute... also breaking another one of our key customer protocols". The worker stood there for a while and then looked the Supervisor in the eye, responding... "You've got to be kidding me?" To this she replied angrily... "One more outburst like that and you'll be facing the Manager on a charge of insubordination". I think that might be from episode 3 of Faulty Towers... No hang on... I've just found it on page 10 of Jeremy Corbyn's Manifesto.

You all know of my unrelenting search for a decent crime drama on TV. Well, I recently rediscovered the original "pilot" episode of the British masterpiece Waking the Dead. I'd forgotten how brilliant it was... the script, the direction and the wonderful ensemble cast. A couple of weeks back we sat down to watch a promising detective series from Wales.

Sadly, we could hardly understand anything they said so -- without the aid of sub-titles -- we just had to pull the plug after half an hour and give up. It looked good but we had no idea what the characters were saying. How politically incorrect is that?

Have a good 2020.

Are we watching the death of a Sydney radio giant?

2019-12-02T12:00:00+10:00

Are we watching the death of a Sydney radio giant with the announcement that the experiment with Macquarie Sports on the old 2UE is over? The owners have pulled the plug but what does that mean? Will the Programmers simply use the signal to rebroadcast product from somewhere else – say 3AW – or are they just turning off the transmitter and euthanising one of the original superstations? In the end I had to call in my undercover contact – affectionately code-named "Deep Throat" – to get the latest scuttlebutt in the industry. We met in a dimly-lit car park in the early hours and his response was astonishing. 2UE apparently could be taken over by the Chinese who would set it up to broadcast Chinese programmes. After all, as my contact argues, if the Greeks can buy out 3XY then why not China and 2UE? I'm trying to imagine Mark Collier, Greg Grainger and Vincent Smith working in Mandarin.

Sadly the latest survey hardly bolsters 2UE's argument for survival with the wounded "old soldier" not even managing 1%, while the superpower 2GB continues to dominate the overalls, ahead of Smooth and KIIS.

I’m indebted to veteran Graeme Turpie for a bit of delightful memorabilia from our days at 3BO back in the 50s, a programme showing "yours truly" playing for a Bendigo 18 in an Aussie rules clash against the best from 3SR, Shepparton. I actually remember this pretty well because the opening match was in Bendigo and we played a re-match in Shepparton. I was reasonably buoyant about the game because I'd played at a reasonable level back in Sydney, representing NSW in the U-19's against the VICs at historic Trumper Park. Everyone was at the game, including my father-in law who played top grade footy in earlier days in the local district. So I thought I might do a bit of showing off in the opening game, forgetting that I hadn't actually kicked a footy in anger for 5 years. I got on to a punt in the opening quarter, did a groin and limped pathetically through the rest of the game. IronicaIly, I had a belter in the second clash in Shepparton but no one was there to see it.

I got a bit excited recently when the Morrison Government announced a big deal, essentially with NSW, to start building more dams. However, on further inspection this doesn't appear to be connected with the aggressive plan to bring water in from the monsoonal north. From what I can see, the programme aims at putting a second dam in areas which are suffering massive droughts. The idea is that when it does rain again the locals will have two dams, full of water, rather than one. But what if it doesn’t rain again? Or what if it doesn’t rain for another 25 years? I've got to tell you when it comes to surviving in the harshest continent on Earth I'd be sticking to the most obvious piece of logic I’ve heard on this contentious issue... GO CHASE THE WATER... DON'T EXPECT IT TO COME CHASING YOU.

I can’t believe what I'm seeing in US politics as the Democrats are now pressing on with their policy of trying to impeach President Trump over – well – anything really... Ukraine, Russian interference chasing after anything with a skirt... You name it, the Democrats will grab whatever you’ve got.

Impeaching the President is not an election policy. Take all that anger and all those resources and channel them into the coming Primaries and Presidential election. All you are doing is reinforcing the general belief in the electorate that politicians are only interested in themselves. I can't believe the Democrats have fallen for this negative "let’s bury the President" routine when they should be throwing everything they've got convincing the voters that they have the answers for 2020. I see now even Hillary Clinton is talking publically about standing again. What sort of message does that send out to voters about their current candidates?

I was lucky to be living in Sydney during the 50s as the city produced an astonishing artistic burst following WW2. Suddenly Australia aspired to have its own "artistic identity". You could drop into the Mars Coffee Bar in the city and meet leading painters, actors and writers – sipping their coffee and hacking into a trendy pizza (which was to die for). Our Little Theatre was suddenly on fire, with revues like "Around the Loop" and "A Cuppa tea, a Bex and a Good Lie down" playing to packed houses at the Phillip Street Theatre. People everywhere were pushing the envelope. I remember having coffee with a fellow actor in the City one afternoon when he announced that a family friend was going to drop in and give him a document for his father. This quiet and kindly gentleman came in, passed on the paperwork to my mate, shook hands and headed off. It was only in later years when I saw a photo in the paper that I realised I'm pretty sure I was in the presence of one of our great painters, Arthur Boyd. I didn’t have a clue. That’s how it was in those days... You could meet anyone on a street in Sydney. Anyway, the leader of this artistic pack was an iconic figure of the day, poet Harry Hooton. No one had a soiree in the 50s without Harry. So it is only fitting that I include a couple of lines from the master, courtesy an extremely rare copy of the magazine "21st Century".

"Oh manity of manity to manity.
All the rivers run into the sea,
Yet man is so dull."

(Oh Manity Of Manity. Harry Hooton. "21st Century". No.2)

Published by the 21st Century Art Group. Sydney. August 1957.

I see that Alan Jones continues to defy the "great sock crisis"...

2019-10-23T12:00:00+10:00

I see that Alan Jones continues to defy the "great sock crisis" leading 2GB to another blockbuster result ahead of the FM brigade — KIIS, Smooth and WS FM. Which leads GB (now owned by Ch 9) to a massive decision... What will they do when Jones retires at the end of his latest 2-year contract? This has always been the great issue when you base a station policy around a superstar. The easiest answer I guess is to replace from within which is what GB is apparently planning to do. The history here is not good especially if you're talking about replacing Breakfast. The records show over and over again that a good ratings record in one shift doesn't necessarily transfer to another time of day — especially if you're dealing with the critical area 5-9 AM. The other route is to employ another superstar... But first you have to find one willing to get up at 3 in the morning. And radio superstars are a bit thin on the ground these days.

The big headline from this survey period is the "What! Are you kidding me?" record-setting $40M contract which KIIS has signed with Kyle and Jackie O, paying them about $8M a year — EACH! The other development is that the ABC has apparently done a survey to find out what people want — wow there's a breakthrough — and has learned that average listeners have little interest in politics. Gee... If only Ita Buttrose had called me I could have saved her thousands. I've been surveying people about this since the '70s and the result has always been the same. NORMAL, BASIC, ORDINARY AUSTRALIANS DON'T WANT TO KNOW ABOUT POLITICS. "Just tell me what I need to know," they keep saying in focus groups, "Just tell me what is pertinent to my life." Delete the rest. Politics is only of deep abiding interest to those in the bubble... The pollies, their hangers-on, journos with a vested interest in keeping politics on the front page and academics and other special interest groups. But out there in "real land" — right across the civilised world, normal people don't give a stuff.

Allow me now if you will to take you back — way back — to the Golden Age of Radio, introducing a couple of veterans — Graeme Turpie and Ian Nicholls — who started their careers back in the 50's, a time when Giants ruled the airwaves and we boasted a vibrant Provincial broadcasting system from one end of the country to the other.

Graeme Turpie, "Turps", started off as a young journo at 3BO Bendigo (where I first met him) and worked his way around via Radio Australia, 3DB-HSV 7, Bendigo Advertiser as Ch of Staff and News Ed.

Ian Nicholls — "Nicko on the bizzo" — kicked off at 2LF, Young (where we first met up) and then proceeded to sample UZ, DB, XY, HT (Hobart), MP, GL, KROCK, BAY FM and 2LM Lismore.

Finally — around 65 years later — these "old stagers" have settled down and it seems fitting that they're both working together at the end of their careers on Seniors Citizens Radio, KLFM in Bendigo.

All I can do is salute a couple of the originals who at the age of 80 are still pulling a shift on radio.

Can't help you on the Brexit front, I'm afraid, even as we approach the final days of October when the UK has to leave with or without agreement. The complication now is that the British Court system has apparently decided to supersede Democracy, imposing ITS will on the Parliament. Good luck with figuring that out.

Now that Richmond has won the 2019 AFL title — and could win a few more over the next 5 years by the way — it's perfect timing to reflect on the greatest Tiger of them all, Captain Blood Jack Dyer. I didn't know what charisma was 'til I worked with Jack. I was lucky to spend a year or two with the Living Legend at the old 3XY. One day I'm driving in Melbourne, a car pulls alongside and Jack Dyer yells out to me "Frankie"... We have a brief chat before the lights turn green and Jack drives off. I get this feeling that maybe that's the last time I might get to see him so I yell out, "I love ya, Jack." Couldn't help myself.

Not much to report on the TV front where we're alarmingly short of intelligent, well-made crime thrillers, thus forcing me into watching re-runs of Lewis and Vera. Still, better that than having to sit through Murder She Wrote and Murdoch Mysteries (a stilted production with all the panache of a well-meaning amateur theatrical). Should mention that I have seen a decent series in recent weeks, a French production called "The Crimson Rivers", a quality piece with very intelligent/complex scripts. So, I guess I can't go crook really. I just have to get used to reading subtitles.

I do have a new commercial which has been grabbing my attention. The latest Jim Beam does a very nice line in humour paying tribute to Spartacus, the old movie. This time a really threatening guy walks into a bar and asks for Eugene. Eventually, everybody in the bar fronts up and announces himself as Eugene. So the big threatening guy then announces that the real Eugene has left his wallet somewhere and he just wants to return it. Cheeky.

We lost another famous name in the industry recently

2019-09-13T12:00:00+10:00

We lost another famous name in the industry recently with the death of Malcolm T Elliott at the age of 73. His career is almost classically Australian radio... kicking off in the mid-'60s at 3NE Wangaratta and moving on through SR, Shepparton and UL, Warragul before trying his hand in the larger markets, 2KO and 2HD, Newcastle and 2SM, 3AK and 5AD. This includes his famous era - with a series of no. 1 Breakfast survey victories - at 2UW through the '70s. He even found time in the '80s to do a bit of academic work, with a Business Degree at the Uni of NSW. Everyone in the trade knew Malcolm T Elliott. We all mourn the loss of another link in our history.

As for the Sydney market, it's good old 2GB still setting a hot pace ahead of SMOOTH and KIIS, although there is one really interesting trend with ABC RADIO "shoving it right up" critics like yours truly, with a strong improvement to around 9 and a half points. But as we've discussed so many times there are ABC Listeners/viewers and the rest. The ABC followers stay there forever and - this is probably the most important part - are completely happy with what they get.

One little glimmer of hope emerged this survey with the old UE/now Sports cracking the 1% barrier.

GB lost half a point overall and there's a lot of talk that Alan Jones lost a few listeners with his public opinion that our Prime Minister should stick a sock down the throat of NZ leader Jacinda Ardern over her critical comments about our Climate Change policies. I'm still trying to figure out how the oh so precious NZ leader found that so offensive. So, just in case she happens to read this... here's the story Jacinda. Mr Jones was referencing one of the most famous sayings from the old days Downunder... "Put a sock in it" which basically means "shut up", "mind your own business" or "give it a rest will ya?" It's a famous Aussie saying, Jacinda. Anyone who thinks Alan Jones was actually suggesting Scott Morrison take half a dozen socks and shove 'em down your throat should apply to me immediately for urgent counselling. Oh and just to make my position clear and to run the risk of being declared a "non-person" by the UN may I join Mr Jones in issuing a public entreaty to the NZ leader to "put a sock in it". Thank you.

You'll see a couple of veterans in the attached pic with Your Reporter reuniting with another veteran Brendan Sheedy, for a wonderful lunch in The Rocks recently (have a look at the Bridge in the background... apparently it's quite famous).

Brendan goes back to channel 9 Melbourne in the ’60s and the two of us got to know each other in the ’70s at 3AK, where Brendan was 2IC to PD Rhett Walker - one of the most charismatic figures in the industry in that era. Anyway, George Chapman enticed Sheeds into moving across to 6PM Perth to takeover the PD chair. He told me a lovely story, a classic piece of radio folklore, how Martin and Watts got together into one of the most famous Partnerships in Radio, rewriting the format for Breakfast. Brendan had only just arrived when he got the bad news that his Breakfast Announcer was retiring, leaving the new PD with a hell of a dilemma. As fate would have it Brendan had been talking to a well know figure in the trade, Barry Martin, and the two arranged to have a beer together at a local watering hole that afternoon. They're talking away when the famous John K Watts arrived and immediately spotted his mate, Barry, having a drink. Brendan sat there entranced through the afternoon while the two sent each other up something awful, lampooned everyone else in sight and traded hysterical insults. Brendan got more and more excited and eventually, he said to the two of them "have you ever thought of doing this stuff for a living?" One quick call to GM George Chapman and the two were soon doing it on 6PM and making one heck of a living.

At one stage they had over 50% of the available Breakfast audience... a survey level I've only encountered once before with John Loughlin at 7H0, Hobart.

Still looking for a sign that Boris and Europe will find some area of negotiation as Britain gets closer and closer to Brexit... but I don't think they're going to do much talking. The truth is Europe would probably prefer to see the UK totally fail in its bid to go it alone. There indeed would be the ultimate punishment for its treason. Imagine how Brussels would rejoice if a battered and bruised Britain had to return, cap in hand, to beg to be allowed back in? Oh, the bureaucrats would just love that.

Finally, is this the era we live in or what? Families were out walking in a park in Rushcutters Bay recently when they viewed something quite extraordinary. An elderly dog owner was taking his pooch for a walk when nature called and the dog did what dog's do. The man then picked up the animal, carried it to a water bubbler and proceeded to wash the dog's backside in it.

Several people actually intervened and told him that this wasn't on but the dogman simply waved them away and proceeded to clean his dog's rear end. He finally made his exit, delivering a final, withering stare to the astonished onlookers.

Sanity returned to the radio market this winter

2019-08-02T12:00:00+10:00

Sanity returned to the radio market this winter, something the industry isn't exactly famous for I'm thinking, with 2GB finalising a 2-year deal with the King of Brekkie, Alan Jones. The two parties celebrated with another massive win in the Sydney ratings. Jones hit 17.6 in Breakfast while GB went to 14.4 overall, ahead of SMOOTH, KIIS and WS FM. A couple of old stagers are hanging in there, with 2CH at 3.4 and UE/Sports still desperate to crack the 1% barrier. Just when I was silly enough to mention "sanity" in the industry, normal service was immediately resumed with Chris Smith walking out of 2GB after the station's decision to do some major changes as part of a cost-cutting exercise. Chris was going to shift into nights with his afternoon show replaced by a syndicated show out of Melbourne, as I understand it. Very interested to see how that works out. Syndication doesn't have a good track record in Australia, especially when it involves Sydney and Melbourne. They really are different markets and you definitely need to speak the patois to win over an audience in Sydney.

The federal election followed the trend of the NSW poll earlier on with voters opting for solid economic management along with a personable party leader. The victory by ScoMo should actually be a major watershed for the defeated Labor Party if they choose to analyse the unexpected result. What Labor, the Unions, GetUp and all of the left-leaning morons who frequent the political periphery need to understand is that 2019 marks the end of the old "class warfare" campaign. There is no longer the battle between THEM and US because most of the US have now become THEMS. Average workers are building up a superannuation retirement package of $250,000 to $450,000 - often even more. Your Jo Blow tradie is no longer oppressed by the top end of town. He's going to retire with a nice little bank balance, thanks very much, as well as paying the mortgage on a house worth $750,000 and running a two-car household. So, don't tell your average family that you're going to start taxing the well-off to redistribute the money to those down the bottom of the ladder. Because a lot of your old labor voters are now sitting happily well up the ladder and really not interested in having to pay higher tax. As ScoMo kept repeating over and over again - Australians just want to get their hands on more of their own money to do with it what they will.

There was also a lot of chat about the opinion polls and how they didn't get it right. Actually, they did. You just needed to read the polls properly. The overall polling, giving Labor a slight lead, was seriously inflated by one of the more baffling election trends. This is what happened. There was an anti-coalition protest vote in – of all places - several of the LNP's strong electorates. So, an electorate with a 12% buffer showed a swing of 8%, which inflated the ALP's overall result. But that swing didn't transfer to areas where the Coalition was defending a tighter lead. The election smarties just threw the overall polling in the bin and concentrated on 12 to 15 swinging seats and when they dissected those the result was showing a narrow LNP victory. The experts at Coalition Campaign HQ started to make positive predictions a week out from the vote, suggesting they could get up as a Minority Government. I'm told that, by Wednesday night, just before the election, the numbers crunchers were actually hinting that Morrison could be returned in his own right if the cards happened to fall the right way. I went to bed around 10 pm on election night when the result looked pretty much decided and as I drifted off to sleep I thought I'd give the ABC radio coverage a go for half an hour or so. The minute I tuned in they were interviewing Dr Kerryn Phelps, the Independent who'd taken Wentworth from the Government at the last federal vote. All the interviewers wanted to know was whether Phelps would support a new Morrison government, assuming she would have the balance of power. Would she bring ScoMo down? "Hang on," I'm thinking, "Wentworth is really close and I'm not sure Dr Phelps is going to make it this time round." Sure enough, the late votes turned against her and she didn't survive. I think there were a few ABC experts who were shattered by Sunday morning. The only joy amongst the lefties was the defeat of an ex-PM Tony Abbott who went down in Warringah after one of the most vile campaigns in recent memory. How would you like to wake up on Sunday morning as the new member for Warringah knowing part of your campaign was to mail dog shit to the home address of your opponent?

Just read a letter to the Editor this week where the writer suggested the ABC, as we know it, be shut down and redesigned. The main ABC responsibility as the writer saw it would be in the provincial regions while the city stations would cease to be publically funded, being re-established to operate as per PBS in the USA. If there are so many people who think the ABC is wonderful then they can pay their hard-earned cash to keep Aunty afloat.

Overseas, it's official with Boris Johnson replacing Theresa May as the UK Prime Minister, challenged with negotiating Brexit. And I'm completely lost on how this will facilitate Britain's departure. Boris will enter the fray telling the world that the UK will leave in October with or without an agreement with the EU. Parliament will respond by repeating its earlier vote making it clear Britain will not be allowed to leave unless Johnson secures a satisfactory deal with the Europeans. Which is where Theresa May came in. The political merry-go-round will just start up again.

We're getting nowhere! Professor John Carroll of La Trobe University reminds us how the UK has managed to survive various crises through history - The Spanish Armada, Napoleon, Battle of Britain and Dunkirk amongst them – but wonders if the Brits can keep this record intact.

"The success of the Brexit gamble depends on the vitality of whatever national resources endure."

And one of my favourite TV quotes of the day comes from Line of Duty, the British police drama.

"That's the problem with corruption enquiries. There's always the danger you'll find some."

Radio ratings, elections, Brexit and golf

2019-05-08T12:00:00+10:00

There's continuing drama at 2GB with Alan Jones still unsigned to a new contract. This absolutely stuns me. Apparently, the central issue is that Jones wants a 2-year contract but GB is said to be only offering 1 year. This guy is No. 1 in Breakfast... What are they doing? I'm equally stunned by recent figures for Ch 9's revamped Today Show which has it now trailing ABC TV's News Breakfast. My brain is simply refusing to accept this information. I predict 9 will bounce back this winter with its new, blockbuster series "Divorced at First Sight". My brain is also having a bit of difficulty dealing with the latest news that over a million viewers have been watching a show about Lego.

Just updating the latest figures in Sydney radio showing GB up over a point with Jones and Hadley owning Breakfast/mornings... SMOOTH holding a slight lead over KIIS in the FM arena and Beautiful Music's 2CH losing a point, down to 3.5. Keeping an eye on the old 2UE, now a Sports Format which has remained in disaster territory on .5. This troubles me a little at the personal level because the station has been doing most of the big AFL games, something that greatly assists this geriatric who can watch the first three-quarters of the major night game on TV and then settle back in bed for the final quarter, courtesy Macquarie Sports.

Had a good old talk to a former colleague of mine, Brendan Sheedy (3AK, 3DB, 2DAY FM and Sky Radio) recently, about the state of the industry. We plan to meet up over the next month or two and continue the discussion. If we ever get the chance to talk to Brendan ask about his time as the boss of 2DAY FM when he set about sophisticating the station (successfully too, actually).

He'll have you rolling in the aisles. As Bulletin magazine discovered many years ago: sometimes you've just got to laugh.

The NSW election ended up pretty much as I suggested -- a closely run race with victory to Premier Gladys at the end. It seems only fitting that the Coalition should be in power to see the fruition of a series of major infrastructure projects. We wait on the new, driverless rail link out to the northwest, WestConnex, NorthConnex and the new international Airport at Badgerys Creek with all of its associated rail and road upgrades.

Now to the federal election which is anybody's guess. I'm out there smelling the political winds as they blow this way and that. My initial feeling is that ScoMo will squeak in with a majority of voters preferring to bypass a Shorten Government which would have to spend much of its time trying to appease Labor's Left Wing and the crazies in the Greens. The great unknowns are the Nationals who seem to have mapped out a plan to commit political suicide. And we don't know what impact Pauline's One Nation will have with their vital preferences especially in Queensland and the NSW Country. They're currently running around bashing up each other or flying off to do illegal $20 million deals with the National Rifle Assoc in the US. I have no idea what's going on here and simply can't predict the flow of preferences from One Nation and Clive's United Party. Haven't got a clue. This will be a good, old fashioned cliff hanger. The arithmetic is simple in the end: can ScoMo get enough preferences from One Nation, United Australia and the Australian Conservatives to sneak past Bill, The Greens and the Shooters and Whatever? Some of these seats could be decided by less than 50 votes.

I think all of these elections are having a serious psychological impact on your reporter who has developed this recurring nightmare in recent weeks, where I wake up dreaming it's the Sunday morning after the federal poll and Pauline's One Nation has done a deal with the Greens and the United Australia Party to form a Coalition Government with Clive Palmer as the new Prime Minister. And you thought Julia Gillard was a worry?

Brexit, as we feared, is now an international farce. The great mistake was giving the British Parliament the final vote on the deal. PM Theresa May's Brexit withdrawal plan has been totally rejected. The trouble is they've put half a dozen other proposals to Parliament and they've been rejected as well. Parliament apparently won't vote for anything to do with Brexit. We are where we were with the original vote. It's virtually 50-50 and compromise is impossible. Good luck with that lot Theresa.

Just had a chat with our local golf pro, veteran Terry Ryan, who has a wonderful story from the Australian tour back in earlier days. Terry was playing in the Australian Masters at the stunning Huntingdale course and had booked the final tee time for his Wednesday Practice round.

Just as he was preparing to hit off he heard this foreign sounding gentleman say, "Excuse me, I didn't get a booking in today.... Would you mind if I join you?" Terry turned towards the speaker and promptly nearly fainted. The man was Seve Ballesteros and yes, you bet Terry could manage to fit him in to his busy schedule. He played 9 holes with one of the legends of world golf.

Heading into 2019... And Don't Spare the Horses

2019-03-22T12:00:00+10:00

Recently involved in a Skype interview with a couple of radio men from the old days – Ray Kelly and Doc Livingstone – for a 3MP reunion event. Just a delight to re-live those wonderful moments in the 70s when we put a new radio station to air. I think the first thing I said to Ray and Doc was that it was such a pleasure to talk to a couple of veterans who were still alive. We went way back to the 60s amid much laughing remembering so many names from that exciting period in the trade – Dick Heming, Ric Melbourne, Wally Chamberlain (perhaps the most celebrated Chief Engineer in the history of Radio), Ken Hibbins, Alf Minster, Barry Seeber, Mike Walsh, Bert Newton, Clive Waters, Murray Korff, on and on it went – triggering much humour, especially when we got on to the subject of Wally Chamberlain at 3XY. Back in the days of the old Mike Walsh Show Barry, Mike and your reporter used to "accidentally" leave the studio door open just as Wally was arriving for the day. Some of the actuality was priceless and usually got us into serious trouble with Manager Bob Baeck and his assistant Ray Woods. Sadly I couldn't get down to Melbourne for the 3MP day but a couple of "originals" in Geoff Brown and Dean Matters drove to Sydney from North and South for a mini-reunion at the Macquarie Centre recently. And again there was a hell of a lot of laughing, bit of sadness here and there, but mainly lots of hilarity. The trio is shown in the attached photo. Your reporter wishes he had some of the "get up and go" shown by his two colleagues.

The new radio year has kicked off in "the big smoke" with a heavily-circulated rumour that Alan Jones will part company with 2GB. An amazing prospect given that Jones is still the "King of Breakfast" and 2GB retains its overall leadership in the opening survey of 2019. One of the stories goes that Jones will move from GB across to 2SM – which may be one of the most bizarre rumours I've ever encountered in our industry. Incidentally, the latest survey shows SMOOTH continuing its strong run in the FM band ahead of WS and KIIS. 2CH is a bit of a bolter in Survey 1, lifting 1.5 up to 4.5% but the old 2UE, now Sports, has crashed to .6, close to the edge.

I don't know whether you caught up with some of the most bizarre TV programming ever produced last year when SBS stuck a camera on the Ghan train and let it run for the entire trip. No narrator... just the occasional line or two up on the screen telling you where you were (if you were lucky). Thousands of people fell out of their lounge room chairs, laughing hysterically. There were lots of letters to the Editor wondering had the producers been checked mentally before they put the documentary to air. Anyway for some reason, SBS took all of this comment as a good thing and apparently did an identical production on the Indian Pacific. I can't say I watched it... I mean who would?.. but I'm told it actually went to air. Recently I recorded another documentary, this time promising us a voyage along the Kimberley coast, Broome to Darwin. God help me, I think it's the same people. They've stuck a camera on a ship and just let it run. No voice over, just the odd typed message telling us what we're passing off the coast. Not that I saw anything. Just water... Unrelenting water. About 30 minutes in – just before I gave up and admitted defeat – I had this "Eureka moment", when I realised I was watching SBS's future. This was the ultimate programming for SBS, if only they'd thought of it in 1977. Can you imagine them doing a deal with NASA at the launch of Voyager 1? Just stick a camera on the nose and run it 24/7 for 41 years and 18 billion kilometres? Millions of SBS viewers would settle into their lounge chairs, armed with their pre-packed TV dinners, and sit there entranced through hours, weeks, months, years and decades watching the blackness. Just occasionally you'd see the odd bright light ahead and maybe in 10-12 years time Voyager would fly by this space rock, say Neptune or Saturn, bringing the audience this one piece of space drama to keep them on edge for the next 10 years, or death, whichever came first. (Imagine the ratings when Voyager 1 flies beyond our solar system and arrives at the neighbouring star, AC+793885? Mind you, that doesn’t happen for another 40,000 years.)

But for most of us, we'd just sit there entranced by the blackness. Fixated on the purity of blackness. No news updates, no weather, no AFL, no Brexit. Forget the markets... Just this camera sending these hypnotic pictures back to Earth of unending blackness.

The political class has just made a stunning discovery... That we're stuck in a monumental drought. The rivers – even the mighty Darling – are reduced to a trickle, threatening the townships along the way and the associated industries that keep them going. There's not enough water getting into these inland waterways and too much demand, especially from the cotton farms in NSW. So, here we go again, for about the 20th time in the last two decades – please somebody listen to the John Bradfield plan proposed nearly 100 years ago. Here's what I'm saying: cancel all overseas aid for the next two budgets and put the lot, guessing around $8 billion, into one of the biggest enterprises in our history... Building a dam and pipeline network to harvest all of the tropical rain in our far north and move it through central Queensland and Northern NSW where it will support all of the farming/industrial projects and the population along the way. Every year we get massive rain in the area and all we have to do it is trap it and release it into our rivers, as required. Do this and the mighty Darling River will flow forever. At the moment NSW is launching one of the biggest infrastructure programmes I've ever seen in this country, including the Federal State project to build Badgerys Creek Airport. All we have to do is build on this concept. What do they say in the BHP ad? THINK BIG.

We have federal and NSW elections coming up over the next few months and I'm thinking both will be extremely close-fought affairs. Premier Gladys has massive underbubbling goodwill and has undertaken a series of monumental infrastructure projects which will have an astonishing impact on Sydney over the next 100 years. But there's a lot of discontent and you never know what voters will do when they get that pencil in their hands. I'm writing this two days out from the vote and predicting a narrow win to Gladys. Federally Prime Minister ScoMo is very sellable out there in the marketplace. Certainly there's little voter love for Bill Shorten. Nonetheless, it's a cliff hanger ladies and gentlemen and Yours Truly will be fixated on the TV in March and May watching the votes fall where they may. I was surprised to hear Julie Bishop say that she should have been elected PM after Malcolm Trumble bit the dust. In her parting comments she said she had the vote won but was assassinated by the "numbers men" at the last minute. Julie was a really, REALLY good Foreign Minister but she would never have led the LNP to an election win. And you want to know why? Because WOMEN WOULDN'T VOTE FOR HER. This is one of the delights of market research. You research women using a simple YES/NO questionnaire and they'll give Julie 80% support. But get down at street level, get down into political workshops, into focus groups and the women desert Julie in droves. Because they don't LIKE her. They don't TRUST her. She walks across their TV screens looking like a million dollars... But when you get down to the nitty-gritty, Australian female voters don't go for Julie Bishop because – one of the classical lines in the focus groups – "she's not one of us".

I knew that there'd been a massive shift in our social tectonic plates when I spoke to a golfing mate about a dozen years back. He'd just taken early retirement and told me he'd embarked on a new career... Walking dogs. I'm not talking here about helping out the old lady down the road by taking her poodle for an occasional walk... I'm talking about making a very healthy living by taken people's dogs out for their daily walk. And then I realised it wasn't just walking dogs. There were specialists popping up everywhere: they'd wash your dog, feed your dog, look after doggy if you went on holidays and just sit with your dog, making sure it was ok if you were delayed getting home.

And there it is – standing right in front of me – this giant sign which reads, "IF YOU CAN'T WALK YOUR DOG AND YOU CAN'T WASH YOUR DOG... WHAT IN GOD'S NAME HAVE YOU GOT A DOG FOR?"

And this goes a lot further than dogs. Women now have babies and hand them immediately on to a nanny. The little kids head off to pre-school as quickly as possible and wait outside the school gates in the afternoon to be collected by the baby sitter who prepares the evening meal. My favourite story concerns a couple of high flyers from New York who take their annual holiday in Paris, both flying First Class, with the Nanny and THEIR CHILD travelling Economy. Boy is that symbolic!

And look there's that big sign again. This time it reads, "IF YOU DON'T WANT TO LOOK AFTER THEM... WHY ARE YOU HAVING THEM?"

Mothers don't clean the house anymore. They have a cleaner. They don't cook anymore... It arrives by Uber. I don't think anybody irons clothes anymore... If it absolutely has to be ironed you get someone in to do the ironing. For everything families used to do including even mowing the front lawn, there is somebody else just waiting to it – at the right price of course.

This is a new social landscape... We're definitely no longer in Kansas.

Farewell to '18

2019-01-09T12:00:00+10:00

As I go to print, we've just lost one of the superstars of the entertainment world, Jimmy Hannan. He was a singer and TV host from the original days of television, passing on at the age of 84. He won the Gold Logie in 1965 as Most Popular TV Personality.

But don't forget he also boasted a number-one radio show on the mighty 3UZ and, if my memory is working properly, also had a stint doing the morning show at 2GB in '79.

Survey 8 in the Big Smoke didn't offer any dramatic re-directing of audiences with Jones and Hadley dominating the AM band to give GB 13.9 overall. Kyle and Jackie O took FM Breakfast from Jonesy and Amanda while SMOOTH continued an excellent year at just over 9%.

Looking at our two troubled veterans – 2CH lost around a third of its audience, down to 3 points, but UE/SPORTS nearly doubled its tally to 1.1.

Make of that what you will.

A bit of ancient, and probably unimportant history, dating back a few years – possibly the late 80's. I sent a proposal to a former colleague of mine who was working as a Programming Advisor at a major TV network. My plan was to do a semi-documentary series, based on famous/infamous Australian crimes. We'd have a team of actors playing detectives re-examining cases from the past. The hook was that we'd have reality input, utilising genuine detectives and witnesses from the original cases. My proposal suggested a 6 part series including famous incidents like the Beaumonts and the Eloise Worledge mystery but the key case, and my suggestion for the pilot, was the most famous of them all – the disappearance of baby Azaria.

My mate loved the concept but wanted to present it as a package which would include the original script for the pilot and plot-details for at least two other episodes and a 15 minute demo of how it would look on the TV screen. He didn't think the network would be interested in putting any seeding capital into the project which left it up to me to find enough money for the demo. So it lapsed. But imagine how I feel these days when I see all of these semi-documentary style crime dramas featuring actors and real life contributors from the original case. I love watching these shows from North America and Britain (I'm addicted to Lt. Joe Kenda as the "Homicide Hunter") but it gets me a bit revved up knowing I could have maybe been there at the coal face, back in those early days. And it's a lesson: if you think it's a good idea, if you think you have a ratings goer, get in there and have a shot. Should have done it myself. I wrote a really good pilot for "Baby Azaria". Oh well.

The attached photo is a memento of Wimbledon back in the 80's courtesy international tennis reporter/media manager Craig Gabriel. His story is a classic about someone who has the desire to do something and doesn't settle for anything less. Over 30 years ago Craig came to 2DAY FM with a far-out scheme where he would travel the world for us – covering the tennis Grand Slams and the Golfing majors – providing reports and actuality. Now I was really strong on tennis at the time, believing it would become a massive audience winner through the 80's and 90's and Greg Norman was starting to make waves internationally so the combination was too good to resist. So Craig took off. I don't know how he managed it financially but he kept the enterprise afloat and eventually set up an excellent operation where he provided media expertise for the tournaments and picked up a bit of pocket money from 2DAY FM and our affiliates around the country. He even had tennis greats doing promos pointing to 2DAY FM's coverage. I need to meet up with Craig to find out just how he managed to survive on what has to have been one of the toughest circuits in world sport.

Two things I warned us to keep an eye on through the year... Brexit, which is even a bigger disaster than I thought originally and still hasn't been settled as we head into the final days of 2018. Prime Minister May, I suspect, is working up a head of steam trying to extricate Britain from the EU as softly as possibly while hanging on to their close ties in Trade, Finance and Defence. I know it looks bad at the moment as we enter 2019 but I have a suspicion that it wouldn't take a lot of manoeuvring from Europe to sneak the vote in Parliament over the line.

And a new housing crisis which could be triggered by the massive mortgage debt across the country especially in Sydney. They tell me there are 800,000 families on the brink at the moment with the value of the house having fallen below the amount borrowed. The key to 2019 is in the hands of the banks. Have they learned the lesson from the GFC? Or will they start demanding these customers lift their monthly payments and if they can't will they commit the ultimate stupidity and start re-possessing the properties, thus triggering a second Financial Crisis? Hold your fire Big Banks... Don't pull the rug out from the economy.

And so our year ends with the continuing mystery of the disappearing Malaysian Airliner. Remember, this is the civilisation with the technology to put a man on the moon. Can someone explain how we can lose a large, international airliner – full of people – in the middle of our planet?

And when you've done that can you tell me how a lone boofhead – armed with a drone – can bring an entire British airport to a standstill for 24 hours? They had police out there at Gatwick, armed soldiers and members of the crack Anti-Terrorist Squad and nobody, like nobody, could stop this drone flying around the airport. This is a hell of a worry.

But let us end our year on a more upbeat note by confirming that it's been a couple of months now and we haven't had to replace a Prime Minister. That's got to be positive!

Spring of 2018

2018-11-27T12:00:00+10:00

I've gone to radio heaven this month bathing myself in a book about the classical period downunder through the 30s, 40s and 50s. Son John and Daughter–in-Law Jo were thumbing their way through a second hand bookstore in the Blue Mountains when they happened upon Patti Crocker's "Radio Days", published in 1989. Patti was an actress smack in the middle of the Golden Age as we transitioned out of being a re-broadcast service for America and Britain and started switching to our home grown product. This is pure Australiana. The pages contain one iconic name after another. Patti worked with them all. Lyndall Barbour, Dinah Shearing, Lou Vernon, George Edwards, Ron Randell, Walter Pym, Joy Nichols... We've got to remember all of these people... they're radio royalty. Patti herself went from the ABC's "The Youth Show" to play Queenie Ashton's daughter Mandy in the most revered show of them all "Blue Hills".

My favourite story is from the 1930s when 2KY found out at a moment's notice that its supply of overseas transcriptions was about to come to a sudden stop. What were they going to do? They had a major sponsor waiting to spend money but no more serials to put to air. As Patti recounts it, Advertising Manager Harry Hungerford took his problem to script writer Hal Saunders who said, "No worries... I'll write one myself." Trouble is the sponsor was coming to 2KY on Monday morning to hear what his new serial would sound like. So Hal spent the weekend writing what was to become one of the first locally scripted radio serials, "The Black Spider", set on the streets of Sydney. "The Black Spider"... It is SO SYDNEY RADIO of the 30s and 40s! Is there an old copy somewhere? Anywhere?

The other thing I've just learned is that I was wrong in attributing the famous narration from "When a Girl Marries" to an early Brian Henderson (you can understand my error because that famous opening sounds so much like the beloved Hendo). But Patti maintains the voice-over men used on "When a Girl" were definitely Leonard Teale and Ron Roberts.

Oh, and Darleen happened to find my old News Editor sign which I used to bring out occasionally in the 2DAY-FM newsroom, to much merriment, and so here I am in this picture in front of the sign and wearing my MIX 106.5 cap from the day 2UW vanished, to be replaced by its FM successor. Er... make that successors... plural... MIX 106.5 and KIIS-FM.

The local radio scene features Kyle and Jackie O back up on top of the FM band in the breakfast slot with WSFM suffering a surprise 1.8% decline overall to drop behind KIIS and SMOOTH FM. 2GB of course is like the mighty Winx... Just galloping away with the overall category, dominating Breakfast and Mornings. 2DAY FM is up slightly, at 5.5, while we continue to monitor our "watch list" with the old UE, now on sports format, at .6 and Old Faithful, 2CH, hanging around the 4.1 level.

The King of GB, Alan Jones – the most influential broadcaster of the generation – threw a scare into the market with a new back ailment sending him to hospital, but the latest news suggests this will not be a long term issue.

I guess the biggest news of the day is the retirement of Bob Rogers, at the age of 91, after 74 years in the broadcasting trade. He transcended formats, pioneering Top 40 at UE and SM and going on to the other end of the spectrum, Beautiful Music, at 2CH from the mid 90s. The plan, as I remember it, was for Bob to keep going till his 100th birthday but a stroke recently put an end to that dream. I remember Bob Rogers mainly for his incredibly seamless Morning Show on 2UE in the 80s.

I always marvelled at how his programme ran so effortlessly and learned in later years from the boys in the UE newsroom that one of his secrets was to pre-record a lot of his interview material, allowing editing time to ensure top-end quality control.

I think we have to agree Bob Rogers is one of the most illustrious radio contributors of the post Golden Age, from the mid-50s through to 2018.

And my latest "favourite TV commercial" of the moment is the film noir classic from Budget Direct, where two detectives, a male lead investigator and his female 2IC, are on the scene of a crime, going through the room with their forensic team. As they examine the room the woman detective is buzzed by what looks alarmingly like a pterodactyl... "What the..?" she exclaims as this thing flies over her head. Meantime the forensic teams are battling large green balls which keep spitting out streams of green slime, which can't possibly be good. But none of this fazes our good old lead detective who keeps going through all the documents in the place trying to figure out why the resident kept paying so much for his insurance when he could have got it a lot cheaper with Budget Direct. I know I keep going crook about the number of commercials on our TV screens these days but really, sometimes the commercials are better than the shows.

We gathered for another reunion at Pymble recently but sadly lost quite a few of our regulars at the last moment when other stuff came up. Still I managed to pass on a couple of historical albums to our resident historian, Andrew.

1: The Past is Prologue, a collection of famous historical moments captured on radio along with extracts from all of the classical shows of Australia's Golden Era. You can listen to Jack Davey, Bob Dyer, Mo McCackie, Blue Hills, Dad and Dave etc etc. It's magic.

2: Was the album given by Rod Muir to all staff who were at MMM-FM on day one when it went to air in 1980. What makes it so enticing is the signatures of the original staff on the cover. They're all there... including Rod, Cherie Romaro, Tony Hartney, Bob Hughes, Frank Mancini and Yours Truly along with so many others.

And am I the only commentator to have noticed that in July this year, thousands of rescuers, from all corners of the globe, gathered in Thailand to save the lives of 12 young soccer players, and their coach, trapped deep inside a flooded cave. The rescue watched by millions around the world remains one of the most heart warming stories of the decade. But, in an overwhelmingly sad commentary on life on our planet, at the same time an Islamic suicide bomber chose to explode a device in Jalalabad, Afghanistan – killing himself and 20 innocent victims. In these events we see the massive gulf separating the two dominant cultures of the 21st Century... One treasures life, the other seems to treasure death.

More goodbyes my friends

2018-09-26T12:00:00+10:00

More goodbyes my friends – it just goes on – with the deaths of a famous name in Melbourne radio, John Worthy (did he have the deepest voice you've ever heard?) and that of Ray Bean, ex-2UW PD and the GM who put 3MP on air in 1976.

Wonderful bit of news from the past, finally catching up with TV presenter/programmer Tom Warne. Tom and I go back to Hobart in the 60s when he joined fellow TV identity Graeme Smith (no longer with us I'm sorry to report) in launching the first ever IN HOBART TONIGHT on TVT6, signing up Yours Truly to write and present the comedy.

It's hard to judge these things when you're in the middle of it all but honestly I thought we did a pretty decent job overall. Tom and Graeme were certainly operating in uncharted waters back in those days and I think they were tremendous getting it all together. Tom has provided me with a bit of Hobart nostalgia with a couple of photos from those times. All I can say is would you put your health in the hands of Dr. Warne? I think the skeleton was a previous patient.

It's been a bit of ducks and drakes in the latest Sydney survey although no changes to good old 2GB which continues Winx-like to lead the field, ahead of WSFM and Smooth. There's some interesting movement in the FM band with WS unseating Kyle and Jackie at Kiis in the key breakfast slot.

2CH is hanging on to 4.2%, alongside 2DAY FM (can you believe that?) while the former 2UE now doing a Sports format is down to .6 — about as low as you can go without disappearing.

And your reporter is getting even more confused about the TV industry with word that the 7 Network has lost the Melbourne Cup, outbid by Ch. 10, which used to do the Cup back in the 70s if memory serves me correctly.

One of the issues we've been addressing in recent times is the future(?) of "Australia's own", the iconic Holden car, once it ceased local-production and became just another import. I must say my initial reaction wasn't positive and the figures so far in 2018 are perhaps even worse than expected.

Holden sales have dropped 25% over the past year. The once famous home-grown product now boasts 5.3% market share, compared to its halcyon days of 2002 when Holden owned 21% of local sales.

The other extraordinary story of the last 4 years is the disappearance of Malaysia's Flight MH 370 which vanished in March 2014 with 227 passengers and 12 crew. Several pieces have wreckage have been recovered confirming the theory that the airliner went down somewhere in the Southern Indian Ocean, off West Australia. The thing is that the latest report by Malaysian investigators, endorsed by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, is regarded as a bit of a worry. I've read a few expert offerings on this amazing incident (MH370: Mystery Solved by Larry Vance, and the contributions of Mike Keane, ex-fighter pilot and former Chief Pilot for Britain's easyJet airline, and these people can't believe the official findings, delivered recently. One critic regards the report virtually as the sophisticated work of Malaysian spin-doctors.

Basically, the plane was in excellent working order when it suddenly cut all communications and veered dramatically off course, heading south-west and then further south into the Indian Ocean.

The whole premise of the report is that this was a "ghost flight", with no one at the controls as it flew towards is final fate. Nearly everybody I read is convinced the plane was under control when it disappeared. Now, I'm not a scientist, I'm just a researcher who looks at as much information as he can get and then connects the dots. Something, it seems in this latest report, has happened to the dots. The investigators say "the possibility of intervention by a third party cannot be excluded" but the expert view is that this would have been impossible. This "third party" would have had to bypass the cabin crew, break into the sealed cockpit, overcome the captain and co-pilot, and disable the electronic equipment. ALL OF THIS HAD TO BE DONE WITHIN 2 MINUTES before starting the complex steering manoeuvre to the south-west. Oh yes and this remarkable person had to be trained to operate a Boeing 777... er... I don't think so.

Not a word about the pilot, Zaharie Ahmad Shah, the man in charge of 370. His involvement is not even considered. So who was in the cockpit when the plane rendered itself invisible and turned to the south? Well, the last voice heard by HoChi Minh Air Traffic Control just before the plane disappeared is the pilot saying, "Goodnight. Malaysian 3-seven-zero." That voice was that of Zaharie. He is confirmed at the controls, in the cockpit, just before the Airliner, with 239 on board, vanishes into the night.

We're living through another horrific drought here in NSW and experts are having their say on how to solve this repeating crisis. In the first half of the last century, John Bradfield – "father" of the Sydney Harbour Bridge – tried desperately to convince the Federal Government, along with Queensland and NSW, to set up a complex system of dams to harvest the huge rainfall in our far north every summer. The monsoonal rains sweep in annually but 90% of the rain disappears into the ocean. Bradfield wanted to build a series of dams to harness the flood waters, diverting into the inland river systems of Queensland and NSW. My theory is that the Bradfield scheme would work fundamentally with one significant change. Build the dams yes... but connect them with a massive system of water pipes. Run these pipes from dam to dam, connecting Central Queensland to the NSW mid-west, where the water can be used directly from the dam to farms or get channelled into our river system, where it could be carried out to the west and south-west.

Engineers could even build hydro plants at the dams along the way, producing critical electricity for the local community. Critics will call us "the water dreamers", which is what they labelled Bradfield and his supporters. They'll say the idea of connecting dams with thousands of kilometers of water pipe is ludicrous. All I can say is that if the North Americans can run an oil pipeline over 4,000 kms then we can use similar technology to take advantage of our annual "big wet". I also point out the overwhelming logic that oil is a finite resource: it runs out eventually. In the case of the water dumped in Australia's north every year... it will last forever.

And finally, at long last, our Federal Parliament has been cleansed with the exit of the two great political connivers, Julia Gillard and Malcolm Turnbull. Gillard is hardly mentioned in ALP circles after her manoeuvrings to unseat a sitting PM while Turnbull has been one of the most despised names in the nation since he submarined Tony Abbott. Both are now consigned to the rubbish bins of political history. Let them meddle elsewhere.

"The era of the political assassin is over... the former PM (Turnbull) will be remembered mostly for the way he got into office and the way he got out of office" – Tony Abbott, 2018.

Midwinter 2018

2018-08-08T12:00:00+10:00

Sadly I have to report the passing of Jeff Sunderland, one of the longest serving radio presenters in our industry. Nicknamed "Jeff Thunderpants" by Yours Truly back in the 60s at 3XY, Jeff was on air for over 50 years... an incredible history in the trade. He was one of the most professional operators of the era and responsible, with Bruce Mansfield, for some of the funniest routines on radio back in the 60s. He died as he would have wanted, in the studio, having just finished his shift at 5MU.

This raises memories of Gary Meadows, another treasured name from the 60s, who died on air at the old 3DB in 1982. So my apologies to you "Thunders". My last email to you said how we had to get together one last time, possibly at a half way point, where we could have a coffee somewhere in Western Victoria. We never made it. My fault. Should have tried harder.

I must also report the death of one of my best mates, author and TV Programmer, Ian Woodward, who passed on recently. We met at 7HO-TVT6 in Hobart in the late 50s and were buddies almost immediately with a shared passion for cricket and our beloved Sandy Bay Football Club. So sorry we didn't get to meet in recent years mate. I owe you big time.

We're half way through the year and 2GB continues to ride the news-info jetstream, up to 14%, in the Sydney radio market with WSFM leading the FM challengers fairly convincingly, ahead of Smooth and Kiis. There's a bit of an alert out for 2DAYFM, which has slipped under 5% in the latest ratings.

One of the old stagers 2CH just keeps hanging in there, sneaking up to 4.5 but the one-time giant of the market, the former2UE which has moved from LIFESTYLE to SPORT in recent times is now in serious distress. We've already lost one icon, 2SM, from the mainstream market. Now another famous name 2UE is fighting for its life, surrendering another point to crash down to 0.8%, virtually disappearing from the Sydney radar. I'm not sure how you justify maintaining a city licence when your audience has plummeted to under 1%. You know you're in trouble when your ratings are lower than the statistical error rate. I don't know what we'll be reporting on its fate at the end of '18.

And late mail readers, just arriving in our "In" tray is word of a mega deal in our industry with Ch 9 "merging" with Fairfax media to create a $3b giant covering TV, newspaper-magazine publications and the radio assets of Macquarie Media. The fear is that we're watching the disappearance of the iconic Fairfax brand from our history.

One of the serious social/political discussions here and all over the world in the last couple of years is the disconnection between ordinary, average citizens and the pampered elite members of Western Society. These are the "educated" classes who live a protected life, insulated from the real world, the people targeted by Donald Trump in his Presidential election campaign where he called on voters to send him to Washington where they could work together to "drain the swamp". Well, we've got a bit of draining to do over here Donald, let me give you the drum. We have a section of our population who are embarrassed to be a product of Western civilisation and who are determined to rebel and rail against it. You're looking at a complex and varied bureaucratic collection including Federal Public Servants, Teachers, Uni academics, the Greens, ABC and of course a range of bizarre characters who frequent the Loony left. The great issue of concern is that so many of these showponies are tasked with educating our children from Primary all the way to the Tertiary level.

Hardly anybody it seems is being taught our nation's history. Is anyone reading our great Literature anymore... debating our great thinkers? I believe if anyone suggested starting a school day saluting the flag or singing the national anthem, vast numbers of academics would become apoplectic.

All the things we treasure... the stuff that holds us together... is now openly derided by this chattering class of malcontents. These people are desperate for the West to fail.

Greg Sheridan, often quoted in my writings, says, "the educational left is also the politically left." He notes a recent column in The Economist which argues that an Oxford-Cambridge education "disposed people to despise their own country". Historian Niall Ferguson sadly recorded the success of this left-wing stream moving through mainstream western universities... "they are ruthless about appointing like-minded people who sign up to broadly sympathetic ideological approaches".

None of this is new to our history. Through the 30s and 40s and into the Cold War, when Winston Churchill's "iron curtain" descended on millions of people in Europe, these academic fellow-travellers continued to operate like 5th Columnists, undermining the society that fed and housed them. This was particularly obvious in elite Universities of the UK and USA where these people were virtually openly hostile to the West, aiding and abetting the enemy.

Noone understands this phenomenon. It just is.

And they said poetry was dead.

I offer you this mini-masterpiece.

"Got dad's car and chauffeur,
But that's no good with half a pair.
Gee but it's lonely being alone,
May as well go home."

(Everly Bros, 1958)

What's happening out there?

2018-06-20T12:00:00+10:00

And so the 2GB radio train keeps full steam ahead, continuing to dominate the latest ratings here in Sydney while the most significant move elsewhere is by WS FM which takes over as the number 1 operator on the FM band. No one has really thrown a hand grenade into the market so far in 2018 so it's still a case of "wait and see" as to how the industry is going to shake-out for the year. 2CH has sneaked back over the 4% level but the bottom line for the old 2UE - which has now shifted from Lifestyle to Sports 954 - has crashed to 1.9%, threatening to disappear off the radio radar.

On the other side of the electronic fence, the big news in the first half of the year is a complete about-turn in TV.

Ch 7 has lost the Australian Open Tennis to Ch 9 but in turn 7 has joined Foxtel to sneak off with the summer's cricket, ending an iconic period in Australian sport which dates back to the 70's.

It's dramatic stuff really. But I'm not complaining. Your reporter is a complete Foxtel fanatic, glued to the news, documentaries, crime shows and of course Fox Sport. I've got my AFL channel, Golf, Soccer, NFL and now a channel of wall-to-wall cricket. This is like going to heaven. My favourite Fox Channel is the Sports Update - 500 - with a group of absolutely wonderful presenters. They LOVE their sport and do their job with marvelous enthusiasm and camaraderie.

But I have one increasingly concern. A few weeks back I tuned in to Ch 500 and they announced that they were about to review the weekend round of AFL. When the segment arrived it was hosted by a former footballer, now employed by a bookmaker. And this was all about the bookies, trust me. Every second sentence was about the odds and the special deals gamblers could get if they jumped on board immediately. It was totally crass. I was surprised at Fox Sports allowing the technique to be used but even more surprised at how flagrant it was. Nobody made any attempt to disguise it. A week later I tuned in for a panel discussion on the weekend sports results and lo and behold there, smiling like a professional con man, was another bookie mouthpiece and once again we went through the whole charade of how he pretended to comment on the matters of the day while working his backside off to promote as many gambling deals as possible.

I know the money must be good but I'm afraid Foxtel is going to have to bite the bullet... Either put an end to this nonsense itself or face somebody higher up the food chain stepping in and doing it for them. As far as I'm concerned if the bookmakers want to pass on their message let them buy advertising time just like everybody else.

Here's another intriguing bit of sports marketing, rather like my soccer queries in earlier blogs. Australian Basketball has just signed one of our biggest exports, Andrew Bogut, to return downunder, playing with the Sydney Kings next season. This is being hailed as a masterstroke. Supporters argue it will lift the sport's profile, sending attendance figures and TV ratings up to the ceiling. I don't think it will. My interpretation is that basketball – which is absolutely adored in America – will remain a relatively minor sport downunder, whoever plays it.

The other "Avis whinge" that I return to this time is the amazing decision of the AFL to fragment the Sydney market by trying to create a completely new franchise, GWS, in the Harbour City.

I've criticised this for years. I'd describe the move as similar to Woolworths taking on Bunnings by switching to the Hardware market (Boy... Did THAT go well !)

According to my maths in recent weeks, GWS is turning into a major flop and it doesn't seem to have anything to do with its on field performance, which has been admittedly fairly volatile since its inception. But take a look at crowd figures if you will... GWS is drawing an average home attendance of 10,380... Its' lowest level in 4 years. You can't just INVENT a footy club. Maybe the Americans can do it but here in Australia you need a bit more history - you need long term fan attachment. I can tell the AFL what to do. Forget the "franchise fantasies" and scrub both GWS and the Gold Coast Suns. Put the $50m saved into resources for the Sydney Swans and the Brisbane Lions ensuring they cement Aussie Rules in Rugby League heartland over the next 50 years.

Or, if you have all of this money to spare try uniting the three warring footy factions in Tasmania and operating a franchise in the Apple Isle. You don't have to win anybody over down there... This is an island full of total footy fanatics. And oh yes... It happens to have produced some of the greatest players we've seen in the VFL/AFL.

Finally caught up with an old colleague (like we haven't had contact in 45 years!) when I managed to get to phone Paul Konik – ("the Laconic Mr Konik"/"Konk") - ex PD at the old 3XY. A few years back I found out Konk was still on air, I think he was actually doing breakfast?, in Wangaratta. I immediately messaged him advising him to retire as a matter of urgency and take up bowls or growing roses. I found out this week that he gave it up a couple of years ago and that he had tried running his own cafe and raising Arabian Horses but would never descend to rose growing.

One of the intriguing issues of this era is the election of Donald Trump to the White House and its impact on politics. It's clear the The Donald is extremely unusual and absolutely certainly a total showpony, who seeks to employ essentially "yes men/women". But are there any positives to emerge from the initial period in office? I think the first thing to acknowledge is the emergence of two key issues, often discussed out in the electorate, but now being openly debated at the elite level of politics in Washington. 1) The issue of America's right to choose who comes across its borders, the right to say who will be allowed into the USA; and 2) the protection of America's "blue collar workforce". The politically correct argument is that free trade works in allowing third world countries to use their advantages, in cheap labour, to gain access to western markets. But Trump is asking who is protecting the American worker, the bloke who grabs a shovel or a pick and goes out to do a hard day's work to put food on the family table and pay the mortgage? Who speaks for the worker who isn't gifted enough to go to Stanford or do an IT degree at UCA?

Who speaks for the man who used to be the backbone of US industry... The labourer who took pride in working with his hands? Economic philosophers call this "the dignity of work". Trump wants to know why the US is telling these men that their jobs have gone and are instead being transferred to Vietnam, India and Mexico. Who is Trump responsible for... The voters in America or the poor from the third world?

We had another interesting clash in recent times when the Great Leader from North Korea warned Washington that he was ready to press his RED button and launch all out war. President Trump responded that he was ready to do the same, reminding the North that he too had a red button but that his was "a lot bigger". Millions of men across the Globe nodded and thought, "God, I wish I'd had the guts to say that!" I pay tribute today to Greg Sheridan, Foreign Editor in the Weekend Australian for the following wonderful quote... "He (Kim) runs his regime like a Shakespearean royal murder play without the poetry."

I keep hoping Trump will go to the UN one day and say to the assembled bureaucrats, "Well team... You've had a wonderful time here in New York since the 40's, but now it's time to say farewell to the great junket. We're ceasing to host the UN in ten years time, so you're going to have to find another home... Hey, how about Moscow, Brussels or Tehran? Oh and by the way, we won't be paying 25-30% of your costs anymore... It'll more likely be around 15%. So, good luck with that. "Oh man... I would so love to see that.

Welcome to another year of radio ravings and other stuff

2018-04-09T12:00:00+10:00

2018 kicks off with Jones and Hads giving everybody else a hammering in the AM sector with GB nudging the 12% level and WS, SMOOTH AND KIIS battling it out on the FM band. There is some anxiety at KIIS with the significant decline of breakfast numbers for Kyle and Jackie and media analysts wondering whether WS can put the cleaners through the media giants over the rest of the year. I just keep telling people FM is like having a hair salon or a cafe in the Eastern Suburbs. It's very volatile. One minute they're lining up at the door, next day there's nobody there. They've all headed off to the new trendy outlet, a renovated brick kiln in Clovelly. Just one hint to the Showponies that they've missed the trend and they're outta there.

I don't watch free-to-air TV except for Channel 9's 2-hour block, 5-7 pm, featuring Eddie's "Hot Seat" and "Overs" heading the Newshour. 9 still runs the most sophisticated news in the business with their on-site reporters clearly superior to their competition. Added to that they now have a top quality Sports Presenter at the desk in Cameron Williams, the best since the beloved Gibbo. But, with apologies to 9, let me say this: I WILL NEVER WATCH "MARRIED AT FIRST SIGHT"... Never... EVER. This public stance has developed after watching incessant, inane promos for the show. Month after month. I've never seen one episode of Married AFS but if it's anything like the promos it has to be utterly awful. My friends in the trade tell me that it's a ratings blockbuster... With a massive following from the female audience. Give me a little bit of time to deal with that if you don't mind? Thanks.

Oh, and I was in a doctor's waiting room last week, forced to watch a morning show on the Ten Network... I think it was "Studio Ten". Anyway, it become clear after about half an hour that I was not handling it at all well so the nursing staff intervened, took me to a quiet room next door and settled me down with some crayons and a colouring book.

A bit of insider history now people. Many years ago as ND at MIX (now re-titled KIIS I think... Sorry but I get confused these days) I hired a young Wagga Wagga journo called Deborah Knight. Her audition was super and she presented really well as a future top-line leader. Sadly, she departed after a brief time with us. I never understood why but it happens in our business. We were really moving into conversational news at the time and maybe this played a role in her decision. Anyway we lost another top presenter around the same time when Toni Anne Mathews departed. So it was a disaster really.

I didn't hear a whisper about Deborah for some time but then she bobbed up on TV... I'm pretty sure it was the Ten Network. In recent years she switched to Ch 9 and I started to sit up and take notice.

I've now seen Deb read some 20 peak hour bulletins on 9 and I just wanted to say publically that she may be the best female TV news presenter I've seen. Deborah is in total command of the studio and has "done a Hendo" on us: she doesn't just read the news, she talks to us as if we're in the same room, sitting in a chair having a chat about the state of the world. She has that elusive quality... A human delivery without losing authority. I'm hoping we run into each other one day when I'll happily tell her, face to face, that she is VERY, VERY GOOD.

I'm ready for the golf world through the rest of 2018. All the planets have aligned for golf fans. Tiger is back challenging for the big titles... "Lefty" Phil is back in winning form and we've had victories so far this season to Rory McIlroy, Justin Thomas, Jason Day, Dustin Johnson and Bubba Watson. All this and it's just a couple of days away 'til the Masters. The smell of magnolia is in the air. This is heaven!

I'm afraid it's time we had a good talk about... TRUCKS.

Because they are mobile time-bombs in our cities and on our motorways. The number of deaths directly caused by trucks is rising dramatically and in that famous Al Jolson quote "You ain't heard nothin' yet". The final figure, if we let this continue, will eventually be measured in astronomical units. We have to cut the number of trucks on our roads by 40-50% over the next 10-to-15 years. And we will have to legislate to curtail their size. I see these things driving around the suburbs... A truck with a trailer or jinker – a B-Double I think it's now called... And most of them can't make it through a roundabout without using two lanes. They can't make a turn without endangering half a dozen cars on the other side of the road. And when a truck makes a mistake out there, we're not talking about a bit of minor damage, we're talking about human carnage. Massive tragedy. Have a look at the road stats for 2017. I know there'll be an immense campaign to stop any such legislation. The trucking industry is extremely well organised and well funded. But Australia... You have to bite the bullet and restore sanity to our nation's roads. I'm in full knowledge of the economic prerogatives involved here. Clearly, there is a huge advantage in point-to-point transport and an even bigger advantage if you can double the size of the load on those trips. But the cost is already too high and the physical impact on our road system out of control. So, return cargo to the Railways and not the Highways. Get more material on our trains. And clear out the trucking tsunami from our city and suburban areas. There must be an answer: we must have enough elite planners who can re-engineer our delivery systems.

The worry with truckies and indeed the majority of "professional" drivers is their attitude. You only have to drive 20 minutes down the street to get the message from a truck driver or a tradie in his ute or van that you are "in their road". "Get out of the way," they're saying constantly. "You're holding me up... You're costing me money." "This is my road..."

The first thing you realise if you're at all observant is that all of these professional drivers want to average around 5-10m k's above the limit. If you're doing 60 in a 60-zone you are their enemy. Just look at the economics. If a truck driver can average 10 k's higher than the general traffic over a 10 hour day he's gained 100 k's on everyone else. Maybe that means an extra job... An extra profit of $300 that day. Imagine if he can do that right through the week, gaining 500 k's on the average. What's that... $1500 extra at the end of the week? That's paying off his truck or his mortgage in half the time. Or sending his kids to private school. Or taking the family overseas next holidays.

That's why you're in his way, folks. That's why he wants you to GET OFF THE ROAD!

Many years ago I recoiled in horror on learning that The Bank Of NSW was going to become Westpac. That's a bit of history going down the gurgler there let me tell you.

Recently I found a kindred spirit in a book about Australian History.

"1817: Lachlan Macquarie's attempts to stabilise the currency of New South Wales reached a vital point in 1817 when he paved the way for the establishment of the Bank of New South Wales by a group of colonial merchants. In recent years the name of the bank was changed from the Bank of New South Wales to Westpac in one of the worst cases of corporate vandalism in Australia's history."

-AUSTRALIA YEAR BY YEAR, by Michael Andrews.

Reference to my recent stunned comments about America's Right To Bear Arms. Yes, we've had yet another disaster and again it's in a School, costing the precious lives of students and teachers. President Trump's answer is so staggering that I'm embarrassed to repeat it on these pages. The solutions he says is TO ARM ALL THE TEACHERS. He said this with a perfectly straight face. Now had a leader in virtually in other place on Earth made this statement... In Australia, the UK, Europe... He would have been laughed out of office as a complete moron.

No one is laughing about it in America. And this is what those of us on the outside looking in simply can't understand. Most Americans sincerely, genuinely, definitely believe they have the right to strap on their six-shooter and walk down the street waiting for the bad guys to get off the train at High Noon. There is nothing anybody can say or do about this.

A recent Letter to the Editor wondered what would happen if gunmen started opening up inside hospitals, killing staff and patients. Go to it Donald... You've already got the answer. Hey... We'll arm the doctors and the nurses. Oh to hell with it... We'll even arm the hospital cleaners. I mean... You can never be too careful.

"Shane... Come back Shane... Shaaaaaaaane!"

Summertime, and the Livin' is Easy

2018-01-15T12:00:00+10:00

And so we say farewell to another year of radio ratings.

Careers are made: careers are lost. But good old 2GB just keeps rolling along at no. 1 with Jones and Hads continuing to occupy the high ground ahead of KIIS FM and WSFM. Smooth ended the year just below 9%. 2CH is hanging on to 4%, while 2DAYFM - once a giant - is slightly below that level and UE LIFESTYLE - also once a giant - battles away at 3.5. There are, I fear, monumental changes in the offing. Rumours abound of some "rebrandings" in 2018.

Recently caught up with Carole Miller - former colleague at 2GB and the teller of many wonderful stories from when she worked with pirate radio in the UK. Carole is researching the whole very complex issue of the future of provincial radio. We had long discussions on local ownership and local content along with the thorny matter of increasing national networking. Both of us are products of the same golden era when the local radio station was central to country life downunder. Also recently made email contact with a 1960's colleague at 3XY, Peter Leslie. So nice to resume long-lost contact. I know I say some harsh things about the ABC from time to time but in my defence allow me to argue that the ABC is the only radio I listen to, really. I still love my ABC SPORT - test cricket and the AFL - and enjoy PM and NewsRadio at night. So I'm allowed a bit of a whinge from time to time. Let me set the stage by telling you about AFL night games and the ABC. What I do - which is something I imagine a lot of other AFL fans do - is watch the big night game on TV and then as I'm settling into bed, enjoy listening to the ABC post-game summary which can run for another 30 mins, sometimes longer. So, I'm like a huge number of sports fans recently watching the Socceroos play their "death or glory" game against Honduras for a spot in the World Cup. Now Soccer may not be the biggest sport in Australia but when you're talking about the World Cup you're talking about either the biggest or the second biggest sports event on the planet. So there is a massive audience watching the Aussies fight their way into the 2018 Finals in Russia. And what do we do after watching the game on TV? As we're settling down for the night we switch on the trusty ABC radio sports channel just in time to hear them say "goodnight". Ok, they've broadcast the game... It's over… We won and they've done their job. This is the disconnect I keep seeing between the ABC and their potential audience. There are almost certainly 1000's and 1000's of sports fans who are doing exactly what I'm doing... Putting on our PJ's and going to bed, sticking the radio on to drift into sleep listening to the commentators reinforce our victory and passage to the World Cup in 2018. Give me more analysis... Who dominated… Where can we improve… Will Ange stay on in Russia? Just go on and on about it... I will revel in our victory. Here you have it all ABC: a totally captive audience just begging to hear how we did it. The commentators and the experts are all there waiting... You've got the channel... You've got the audience... You can go on for another hour if you want to... But all we hear is "goodnight". I don't know... Maybe I was on the wrong station? Jeez… I'm hard to please. One of the tenets of broadcasting, which I constantly reminded my students at AFTRS about, was that the Audience is God. If you don't have an audience don't bother switching on the transmitter.

Never apologise for following your audience.

Which takes me to another intriguing area, involving audiences, the future of soccer downunder. I am constantly amazed when I look at the amount of sponsorship invested in the game and the amount of media coverage it receives. So I am always really interested in its audience figures... Attendances and TV ratings.

Just looked at them and I am still amazed. Remember this is a very high profile year for the sport in Australia. Tim Cahill is back in the A LEAGUE (well for a short spell anyway), the Socceroos are fighting tooth and nail to get into the World Cup again and coach Ange Postegoglou is hinting that he might resign after getting the Socceroos to Russia (incidentally he did resign in what must be one of the most bizarre incidents in Australian sport). Anyway, soccer certainly wasn't short of drama and publicity through 2017. So how do you make sense of the stats so far this season which shows TV audiences down by just under 20 percent for free-to-air and Cable? And what do we say about A LEAGUE attendance dipping 12% with the average crowd now around 11,900.

It is difficult to interpret these figures. I mean an average crowd of 11,900 would send an AFL club into receivership. Rugby League might survive but only if the TV audience was worthwhile.

I follow soccer. Love our Socceroos, avidly follow Man U and Leeds and have more than a passing interest in SYDNEY FC, who are in brilliant form. But look at those numbers will you and tell me what it means? Just imagine you're a Financial Officer with a medium-sized company that is seeking to invest $500,000 into sports sponsorship to lift its national identity. Now, would you recommend putting that money into the A LEAGUE, with TV audiences DOWN 20% or to TEN'S BIG BASH Cricket which is boasting an audience increase of 14% so far this summer.

I find the outlook for soccer in this country very intriguing and one of the great question-marks as we go into 2018. The other question mark relates to our economy and whether the real estate market is heading for a major correction (you can interpret that as "crash"... There, I've brought that dreaded word out into the open).

Federal authorities recently issued another warning about people who take out "interest only loans" on their new home. We're still looking at a figure of around 15% of owner-occupiers who are only able to pay the interest... Nothing off the loan itself. Will they survive through 2018? This is seriously interesting stuff for an observer like your reporter. I hate leaving you with even more homework in the new year but keep an eye on Brexit and tell me what is going to happen to two critical British industries - International Finance and Car manufacture? Because I've got to tell you they both look very shaky to me in the post-Brexit era.

Everyone who reads my mutterings will know I'm a history fanatic. Remember, I wrote the original Historical Notes for Dick Smith's iconic first-ever edition of the Australian Geographic calender in 1980, now a collectors' Item (yes I DO have one in my library - give me a call if you want to have a look). One of the great mysteries I have from our early colonial history is how could the Colony possible have nearly starved to death in first years in Sydney Town. I can appreciate that we were desperately short of fruit and vegetables... I know scurvy would have been a major threat… But STARVATION ? I just don't get it. Here they are living alongside Sydney Harbour with the mighty Pacific down the road and I keep hearing repeatedly how we were lucky to survive.

I understand that you'd get sick and tired of eating fish, but hell if it kept you alive, I'd be inclined to keep eating it. Wouldn't you?

So I went back to the original logs of 1788 to see if there was any explanation.

Again, as I re-read these historical notes, the mystery tends to remain.

"We found fish aplenty, although the harbour is full of sharks... Oysters very large."
Lt. Bradley, February 5, 1788

"Shot a kangaroo... It is nearly the equal in goodness to venison."
Cpt. Phillip, February 12, 1788

"Shot a remarkably large bird today… An Emew... It's flesh proved very good eating."
Cpt. Phillip, March 3, 1788

"Anything shot went into the pot... An emu 7 feet 2 inches 2 was served at my vice-regal table... Young kangaroos eat tender with good flavour... Even crows stew well."
Cpt. Phillip, July 20, 1788

"Kangaroo rats are like mutton... A kind of chickweed tastes like spinach… Ground ivy is used for tea."
Unnamed Woman convict, November 25, 1788

So how close did we come to disaster in those first years? And why?

I need to keep researching.

And I am indebted to Benny Anderson (of Abba fame) for the following quote which is excellent:
"Getting old is not so bad. The problem is that you are going to die soon. The trick is not to think about that too much. It is the same for all of us; death is very democratic."

The Spring of '17

2017-11-17T12:00:00+10:00

I don't think we need to take up too much of your valuable time with the latest Sydney radio ratings. Enough for you to know that 2GB is obliterating everything else in the AM band with Jones and Hadley owning the 5:30 to noon arena — and quite a few other areas to be honest. KIIS is battling it out with WS FM and SMOOTH for control of the FM sector.

2DAY FM has slipped below the dreaded 4% dividing line while the old UE remains in distress at 3.3. On the other hand our old friend CH picked up a full % to climb up over 4.

It's been a good couple of years for the News/Talk giant 2GB. Every time something goes haywire in the world — every time things change dramatically — the audiences gravitate to the purveyors of news to find out what's going on. We've had Brexit, Trump, Islamic Terror, Immigration and the second coming of Pauline Hanson, the Abbott axing and now North Korea and its nuclear posturing. The 2GB sales staff have to love these crises, as the ratings never move off automatic pilot. This year North Korea's Great and Fearless leader, Chairman So Long Oo Long How Long You Gonna Be Gone Please Don't Be Too Long Oo Long, So Long, Hurry Back Home, has been busily firing off missiles out across Japan into the Pacific, promising he'll have a long-range weapon ready shortly to go all the way to the US even down to Australia. This sort of tension is just made for the News/Talk specialists. And Oo Long the Great may well carry out his threats. The last report I had was that his IQ rating was round about the same as a kilo of tin foil.

The big showbiz story up here lately has been Lisa Wilkinson's defection from Channel 9 after a big money offer from the 10 Network. This triggered a lot of meaningful looks from many of us who were seen muttering about "the Mike Gibson syndrome". Gibson was a superstar at the 9 network in the 80's including his classic sports reports with Brian Henderson on 9's prime-time news. The two legends had this astonishing chemistry — they clearly loved working together — and it was a major shock to the system when 10 waved a large cheque book in front of Gibbo in 1988, ending one of the most endearing TV partnerships of the era. Mike continued as a major figure in the industry but, sadly, that halcyon period was over — Gibbo and Hendo had parted ways. The magic was gone. Every time anyone flees 9 and heads for 10 these days we all look at each other knowingly and start long conversations about "the Mike Gibson syndrome".

I've recently touched base again with several colleagues from the past: Chris Lewis, from the old days at 3DB (I have no idea what it's called nowdays); Dean Matters, 6PR, 3MP, 2DAY FM (lots of wonderful memories there); Jeff Sunderland, of 3XY (his banter with Bruce Mansfield has become legendary — it was very, very funny stuff); and talking of XY, ex-PD there in John Burls. Hope you guys are all well as we head into the last months of 2017.

I found myself nodding off in the afternoon sun recently transported back to "the Golden Age of Radio". We were either gathered around the old set on the mantelpiece or fiddling with the crystal set we built ourselves to listen to such classics as Tuckonie's Search For the Golden Boomerang (never found out whether he actually found it). The Air Adventures of Biggles, Mrs ‘Obbs, Yes What, Much Binding in the Marsh (Kenneth Horne and Richard Murdoch) and the much celebrated Take it From Here (Jimmy Edwards, Dick Bentley and the Glums, Ron and Eth, who personally set civilisation back 200 years — and we loved every year of it).

Please find attached photo of my RTNDA badge, marking membership of the Radio and Television News Directors Association (International Division). A little bit of history there.

The RTNDA dates back to the mid-40's and hold a standout convention in the US every year which remains a journalistic must-go.

Did you notice a bit of history over the past month with the last "Aussie" cars coming off the assembly lines? Another 13,000 workers wandered off into the economic sunset as the final Camry rolled off the assembly line at Toyota's plant in Altona and they waved farewell to the last Holden at Elizabeth in Adelaide. Yes, people, it all disappeared with a whimper, no sign of a bang. What will we do now with that iconic photo showing Prime Minister Ben Chifley standing alongside the first ever Holden in 1948? Altogether we'd seen the end of 30,000 jobs in the automotive industry over the last 5 years. No wonder they're calling it "carmaggedon"!

Australia still makes the odd bus, truck and trailer but all those passenger cars — eg Toyota built nearly 150,000 12 years ago — are going to come in from OS. We don't make anything in Australia anymore: it's all imported. The astronomical cost of labour and the dramatic rise in general production costs — especially energy — means 18 year old kids today all need a degree in IT to survive. And we refuse to stop this economic tsunami. We want our imports and we want them now, today. This is a nation which will sell anything to pay for our import habit — we'll sell our resources, our land, our businesses, our ports, even our power grids so we can afford our good old Aussie lifestyle. We haven't sold our water yet but it's only a matter of time before the Chinese buy Warragamba and the Snowy River scheme. We'd sell our mother if the Indians made a good offer.

So given all of this negative outlook I was stunned to learn that the international King of Steel, Sanjeev Gupta, had loaded his family on to a plane in London and shifted everyone out to Sydney where he intends to set up his base down under while he undertakes billions and billions of dollars worth of massive projects. He started collecting assets with the purchase of the Whyalla Steelworks and is now widening his targets to include power generation, mining and infrastructure. Why would this smart international "mover and shaker" come into the Australian market with its ridiculous labour costs and having to battle energy prices which are now up there with the highest on the planet — and probably a few other planets as well?

I look forward to his first union meetings. But one thing I can tell you about Gupta is that he is a great lateral thinker. He ran into the same sort of issue when he started up in the UK especially the high cost of energy in Britain. His team overcame this little obstacle by BUILDING THEIR OWN POWER PLANTS, saving over a third of their energy bill. Please Mr Gupta — work your magic will ya, and save Australians from themselves? Ta!

Yet again, we're watching our TV screens as innocent people are gunned down by boofheads who think killing over 50 people in Las Vegas will somehow solve their mental issues. No one in Australia understands America's love affair with the gun. No one understands the galahs who run the National Rifle Association which argues the answer to the "shooting disease" in the US is to put even more guns out there on the street. Arm everybody. It just goes on. Washington has no hope of changing the 2nd amendment, which advocates the right to bear arms. It's with Americans forever.

I talk to a lot of colleagues in the United States and I'm lost as to how this sophisticated country could possibly allow this to happen. As I remind my friends over there when a civil war ends in a country, say in Colombia, what's the first thing Government troops, or peacekeepers if they're involved ,choose to do. It's a fundamental step: GET ALL THE GUNS OFF THE STREETS.

They do a deal with all parties to hand in their weapons. The United States — the great beacon of hope in the Western World — does exactly the opposite. Every time their citizens are mowed down by a backwood's militia, by local or Islamic terrorists or – indeed – by those with serious psychological problems, their answer seems to be to make guns even more available to the citizenry. Maybe they can be sold down at the local diner? It is totally baffling. This crazy law giving everyone the right to carry a 6-shooter — er, make that a 600-shooter nowdays — goes back to the 1700's when the states were determined Washington would never be allowed to run a large army and when the new United States were looking over their shoulders, fearing another invasion by the British or the French. Things have changed in the 2000's. Washington definitely has a large army and I don't think the Brits or French have any invasion plans for the Americas.

My favourite solution — from a commentator with a nice dark sense of humour — is to continue to honour the "right to carry arms" but to ensure these weapons can only be muskets.

I see former Opposition Leader, Dr John Hewson, has thrown his support behind the economic doomsayers, like myself, arguing that the housing boom is in danger of collapse, triggering an Aussie version of the Great Financial Crisis. Lots of economist are joining the chorus, questioning the policy of the Reserve Bank in keeping interest rates down at record lows. They all come to the same conclusion: that this has triggered a massive surge towards real estate which can only end badly.

Finally, I have to confess that old habits die hard. I still read the Phantom comic strip in my Sunday Telegraph. You may laugh and talk about a "second childhood" but doubters beware. I remind you that the Phantom is "the Ghost who Walks". He is all knowing.