Letters to the Editor: archive

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radio

(posted on 2007-08-02 15:53:07)

I like listening to radio more than putting albums on. Some musicians have berated me for this, but to me listening to radio vs album is like the difference between reading the paper - or your favourite blog - vs a book you've already read several times. Sometimes you'll want the book, but typically the paper is more suitable. Radio connects you to the world. It delivers a cultural barometer that your cd collection can't give you - because it's your collection. I have listened to a wide variety of radio over the years - not all of it voluntarily - here is my review of it.

Radio National

I've started with a wildcard entry. RN specializes not in music but in current affairs and documentary style shows, a format which is often called "talk". I know that for many people, especially those under 30, the idea of a talk station conjures up a horror of horse racing, insomniac talkback callers and shock jocks. RN is a rare and shining exception to this. It's like having a great magazine, at the flick of a switch, and constantly updated. Standout shows are too many to mention but include Phillip Adams every night at 10, and most of Saturday's daytime shows. If RN has one problem it is perhaps that it's too interesting - this is not background music for your thinkin' work. As David Nichols has pointed out, it is ironically RN's music programs that let it down, though there are exceptions such as Tim Ritchie's Friday night show. RN is now podcast, so you can listen at convenient times or while insomniac etc. I've yet to get an iPod but I imagine their owners, having discovered RN, need never experience boredom again.

3RRR

It's become a cliche to say it but RRR really is the cream of Australia's - possible the world's - public radio. It has so many good music shows presented by in-the-know announcers that listening to this station is probably the best way to find out about music - certainly more effective than our increasingly daggy street-press. If you live outside Melbourne and are unimpressed by your local public radio, check out RRR on the internet. You'll have to search for the shows that suit you as it would take too long to list the good ones here, and of course which ones you like will depend on your taste in music. There are talk shows too, and some excel, for example Byte Into It, which is kind of a "cool" look at I.T. with a focus on open source, games and the internet.

3PBS

Used to be on a par with RRR but it went in a new direction a year or two back which alienated a lot of listeners. In the daytime especially PBS now focuses on a "roots" genre which to me always sounds like variations on country and western. I know some people love c'n'w, but possibly due to bad childhood radio experiences I can't listen to it, even in its "alt" or "nu" forms. PBS has fewer gems in its crown now, yet those that exist shine very brightly. It's always been strong in a block that might loosely be described as "indie from 5 to 7 pm". The Makeshift Swahili show is one of the best out-there-music programs around, though it is criminally scheduled at midnight on a Monday. For years PBS championed Aussie-accented hiphop, which is now mainsteam.

JJJ

A lot of critical music fans switched JJJ off during the bad old days of the 90s and have never returned to it. At that time JJJ owned the youth demographic and thus had a lot of power in the music industry. For reasons unclear they decided to program only Nirvana-clone bands for a decade. They bludgeoned Australian musicians with the message that if you want to be successful, you need to sound like a distortion pedal, and if you choose not to, you will be invisible. In my view this caused lasting damage to our music scene. Overseas in the 90s there was healthy innovation which often crossed over to the mainstream - Radiohead, Squarepusher and Missy Elliot are random examples that spring to mind. In Australia we produced Silverchair. And this after leading the world in the late 70s and 80s. A lot of good music happened here in the 90s but it was invisible. Some of the survivors have surfaced post 2000, and Australian music is doing well now.

In the years since it lost its popularity JJJ has improved in many respects, and now broadcasts some gems. The daily afternoon "Hack" is as good a current affairs show as you will find anywhere. They have a knack for finding great interview subjects - real people, not just celebrities and politicians - which can make for stunning radio. JJJ's breakfast show stands out at what is admittedly a bad time to be listening to radio. Fenella's sound-art show on Sunday night is very good, though it clashes with some Melbourne radio highlights.

Other public radio

Most Australian cities have public radio. There are too many to do justice to here. The quality varies and few reach the heights of RRR, but there's enough good stuff around. Brisbane's 4ZZZ has a proud history but lost some of its demographic to JJJ in the 90s and is a bit run down now, though it has standout shows. Melbourne's 3CR is like a radical RN, a lot of it worthy, though it is shackled by a low power AM broadcast which many of its potential audience can't receive clearly. They stream on the internet now and it will be interesting to see whether their specialized shows find a new audience abroad. Hobart's Edge FM, Sydney's 2SER and Perth's RTR all have standout shows, though I don't spend enough time there to keep abreast of them in detail.

3AW

I went through a phase of listening to this popular talk station during insomnia and/or the weak timeslots of other stations (these two phenomena tend to coincide) but despite 3AW's claim to focus on hard hitting current affairs, the focus is mostly restricted to Neil Mitchell's morning show. Virtually all the other programming on this station is fluff. If you're into football, or not, Rex Hunt's weekend calls are fascinatingly over-the-top.

ABC local radio

In Melbourne the station formerly known as 3LO is quite successful and along with the Age newspaper is a real driver of the current affairs agenda here. This twin attack on mediocre media makes Melbourne a better town - when you travel elsewhere you see what a difference it makes (c.f. Brisbane - the main newspaper is a joke, its radio not much better, and locals suffer for it). Unfortunately 3LO went through a patch of 3AW-envy a few years back and has a quality-profile which is uncannily similar to its arch-rival. While Jon Faine's morning show is one of the best pieces of radio anywhere, it is bookended by some of the worst, in Red Symons' bizzarely infantile breakfast show and Richard Stubbs' lite afternoon show. These two announcers were imported from commercial media to boost ratings, but ABC, you've won the war - you don't need to copy commercials anymore.

Commercial FM stations

There's not much good news to report here. This has not always been the case. Some of the early Nova programming was innovative and that station led in electronica and hiphop. Today it is a generic FM brain-drain. MMM has had its moments, recently notably in comedy, but has lost its way lately and judging by its ads, considers randomness its main drawcard: in the laundromat the other day I heard Ultravox's Vienna juxtaposed between two classic rocks - bizarre. Most FM stations (eg TT and Fox) are designed to be aural soma for people in menial jobs. Commercial breakfast shows are designed to pep up a populace who are dragging themselves off to a day of soul-destroying activity in workplaces that reward the ability to act happy. It's sad that many jobs are this bad, and that in the 70s when worker power was at its height we got commercial FM. It's sadder when people voluntarily listen to this stuff outside work hours. It is an example of what Glenn Norman has colourfully described as "pulling the wool over your own eyes". I rarely listen voluntarily, though I cop it at the gym, making a painful time worse. In my blue-collar days I once worked in a car repair shop that played 4MMM all day every day - there are classic-rock songs from this period that I still cannot listen to.

Overseas stations on the internet

I haven't got into this as much as I should, due to an uneasy feeling that when I do I am spending too much of my broadband cap. This is probably irrational as most caps now are high or non-existent. However it is a problem on some plans, and not everyone can afford to do this. New Jersey's WFMU is a celebrated example of streaming radio - I know music afficionados who listen to this on computers in their workplace. I can't really do that - music affects me too successfully and I'd get no work done, and I'm sure my employer would disapprove of this use of their bandwidth. Streaming radio is likely to change the world's media landscape in a big way - and differently to how file-sharing services are changing us, because it is a curated medium. I don't think the specialist internet-only stations will make a big splash, but when existing free-to-air stations add streaming it is often successful. Surely it will not work for commercial FM though, as all the world's exemplars are identical. But for specialty stations and their audiences, streaming is a godsend, opening up a new universe as the concept of broadcast range becomes irrelevant.

reply 1 from Ms .45: I actually quite enjoy MMM's "randomness". In reference to your "blue collar days", in MY blue collar days I worked as a kitchenhand in a cafe which played JJJ all day every day... in the 1990s when JJJ had an hourly playlist and you could set your watch when they played Denis Leary's "Asshole". As a result, I pretty much feel the same way about the J's as you do about the M's. I was very interested to read your opinions on JJJ's supposed improvements, but I have tried and I simply can't go back. Silverchair strikes the same cold fear into me that Cold Chisel probably does into you.

reply 2 from Cousin Creep: I used to listen to Future Perfect Radio on line at work but found it extremely distracting, and had to stop it. Mainly due to the links where you can buy the CD on Amazon (too tempting). Worse yet was researching a band when I should be working (time wasting). So now I just bring in CD to work to listen to or put on Talk Radio. If you ever get a chance to stream Michael Savage (the Savage Nation) please do so it’s hilarious. I find I can't listen to RRR anymore except for a few shows/presenters.

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