I’ll get this out of the way early…I’m a listener to ABC Radio – namely our local 666. I listen to it in the car and in my office at work – it’s background noise and I tune in and out depending on what I’m doing at the time. I really appreciate the local angle. On most occasions I find the conversation interesting. It’s not always to my liking, either a bit daft or a bit out of my sphere of interest, but not too many of those occasions.
Of late though I have become aware of a noticeable reduction in quality. I know that this is mainly because of the national programming regime around this time of year, i.e. they cut to Brisbane for the morning and Sydney for the afternoon.
Recently however Canberra has been delivering some of those broadcasts and I have to say, the stand-in presenters, (usually program producers or other station staff who don’t have voices for radio), and the quality of the topics really seems to be scraping the bottom of the barrel.
This morning as I was driving in to work, the stand-in presenter was discussing favourite salads, and talking to a woman who had obviously written some kind of recipe book. We got to hear all about their favourite ingredients and the fact that the presenter didn’t think fruit had a place in salads, whilst the guest clearly did.
Then they moved on to dressings – and the value of making your own over buying in the supermarket.
Their twitter conversation was apparently going mad on it, but I was driving along wondering whether I had accidentally tuned into Radio Womens Weekly. It seems to be on-air the equivalent of Twittering!
Has anyone else become aware of this noticeable shift in the quality of broadcasting at 666?
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The only way to become an experience broadcaster is through being an inexperienced one.
The ABC career system appears to mean this time of year is one of painful learning curves for all involved.
Inanity? Is Ross Solly back?
johnboy said :
And it is painful.
Very painful.
I like my inaneBC. Otherwise I’d have no reason to roll over and hit the snooze bar a few times each morning…
I remember a few years ago they had Alan Brough standing in on a national basis. He was obviously not experienced at that stage on radio, and I recall a great attempt at an interview where the guest was not audible but no one realised for the whole interview – so funny, but mistakes aside he still managed to have interesting topics and guests. Seems these days they don’t bother trying to even be interesting.
But maybe I’m being a bit harsh and salad is all there is to talk about in January. For the record I do like salad and I do like a bit of fruit in my salad.
Talk radio is an appalling thing. I haven’t listened to any for about 5 years.
Why would you bother when you can listen to music?
Best ABC Radio of the week (during normal programming periods) is Richard Glover’s Thank God It’s Friday (TGIF) between 5 and 6pm. Usually Richard (a Canberran) has three comedic guests eg Anthony Ackroyd, one of the Chaser boys, Jean Kitson etc, to dissect the news of the week in interesting ways.
If I am lucky I can catch the last half of TGIF via the web after I get home. If I have driven to work that day for some reason, I put up with a bit of scratchy sound to get it on the car radio (I can pick up 702 pretty well). It is also podcast, but I wish the local ABC would syndicate it.
Sorry that’s ABC 702 Sydney – podcast link here
http://www.abc.net.au/sydney/features/podcasttgifsydney.xml
I thought that was what 666 was for – people who LIKE inane witterings about gardening and salad and the best kind of seed for birdfeeders. Listen to Radio National if you want to hear interesting discussions.
miz said :
The good thing about having the radio on the iphone is I can listen to ABC Darwin if I want. All for the same megabits (is that correct?) as listening to 666.
Listening to Ginger tell me all the way home what is coming up gets a little tedious though. Just get to it Ginger, I’m off the bike and in to the shower and a beer by the time what’s coming up actually comes up!
And, what’s so bloody interesting about the question ‘what’s the coldest you’ve ever been? Just because we broke a January low temp record. I mean, do we really need the deep freeze worker from Woolies tell us about the time they just ducked into the freezer without putting on that big green suit?
The quality drops through the floor at this time of year. With any luck it’ll come good by February.
I only listen to 666 for local news, but last few years what we have been getting is mediocre music, and inane prattle. Each time the weather guy comes on to babble about the weather is the TV cross promotion at about 5:30pm I wake up and turn it off. For a local radio station it often does not have much of local interest. It truly is shocking that the most amount of local news happens between 8:30am and 9pm and the rest of the day is fluff.
Merle said :
“Interesting discussions”? Like Phillip Adams babbling on endlessly about the situation in Turkmenistan at the same time Kevin Rudd was being knifed and Gillard being installed as PM?
I can do without that kind of irrelevant, esoteric nonsense.
I think conversations about best salad and other lovely little anecdotes is perfect for this time of year. Just like being at a friend’s house for morning tea. Would you rather the program be broadcast from Sydney like it was when John Faign was doing mornings?
When I listen to 666, it’s always for AM or PM. As soon as either finishes and it returns to local content, the difference is night and day. You can hardly believe it’s the same broadcaster.
Let’s be honest though, are any AM broadcasters in Canberra any better? Indeed is 666 any worse than the others? At the end of the day ABC Canberra has bugger all resources so they do their best.
Bugger all resources? They’re better resourced than any other facility in town with the possible exception of the Canberra Times.
Martlark said :
*You* think it’s tedious! – imagine working as a producer at the ABC: you get to work each morning, and think to yourself, “hey-ho, I need to come up with yet another day of inane crap to follow-on from the 2,619 days of inane crap I have previously had the joy of creating.;…”
Of course, the good thing about our tedious old 666 is that it’s so much better than virtually everything else on the radio.
johnboy said :
No researchers, talent and production roles often merged. Take out the bread and butter TV news content and I’m guessing there’s not much left over.
I’m only going on whispers from the inside though.
I loved Louise Maher during 666Breakfast – played great music. Pity she can’t work 24/7! No, really, I do miss Ross in the mornings, but am so sick of these local radio presenters over the summer. Agree that some of the Canberra standin broadcasters (aka producers) do not have the voice for radio. Jo Laverty? Ginger Gorman? Bring back our regulars! What was that awful song that Jo played this morning about a wedding ring… aaagghhh
Wife and I were driving in separate cars today while the salad lady was on.
When we both arrived home, we had a wonderful discussion about our favourite salads. Sad, but very true…..
As someone who moved to Canberra a bit over 2 years ago 666 is way better than 702 was when I left it – 702 just had wet men – Richard Glover tells the same joke over and over for the period of a week and then when its finished writes it up as a column for the Saturday Herald – I can cope with reading it once – not the painful repetition. And at that stage 702 had the world’s worst presenter in Deb Cameron who apparently has been boned (she used to end her segment with ‘hooroo – need I say more).
No Ross Solly is way better than Adam Spencer, Louise Maher and Alex Sloane are also great. Genevieve is an annoying combination of being completely naff as well as highly pretentious but I can avoid her.
Canberrans are well served by their local ABC – yes Jo and Ginger are nothing special but Sydney is probably facing a far worse fate.
Hi madamcholet,
I agree. It’s rubbish. Morning show = rubbish. The whole day = rubbish. Anybody would think Canberra is full of 55 year old women who sit at home all day in Red Hill, pruning their rose garden and baking scones with jam.
Oh dear, how wrong the 666 ABC team are. And how boring are they? My god ….It’s pitiful.
The regular ‘line-up’ are the ultimate bunch of wowsers that definitely appear to have less than the slightest idea about anything remotely interesting. What’s worse, either the presenters themselves or their 666 ABC management seem to want to increase (not maintain) the status quo.
I want to tune into 666 ABC Canberra throughout the day whilst I am driving, and their is not much else. Radio National, JJJ, 2UE, 2GB with Ray Hadley and the mouths etc. Though I’m sorry to say that each time I have tuned into 666 ABC Canberra I have cringed. Crapping on about digital radio and how good it is *god help me* at every opportunity and 30 minute in-depth conversations about sock weaving, jam making and frickin’ KILLING ONE’S SELF!!!!!!!!
It’s the most dull, depressing, boring and un-imaginative and non-talented heap of turnip cooking crap I’ve ever come across.
Summary of presenters:
Ross Solly = Marginally funny at the best of times.
Jo Laverty (Ross Solly’s substitute) = About the same as a Canberra Grammar year 9 student)
Alex Sloan = Old fogy and extremely outdated and bloody boring
Genevieve Jacobs = Seems like an insular ex-primary school teach from Red Hill who loves finger painting, the history of Burley Griffin’s winter umbrella and gum tree’s – yay!
Louise Maher – Hasn’t been south of Parkes Way or north of the Barton Highway/Northbourne Ave and loves a good tale about gum nut poachers. Indulging in pointless conversations about line-markings on roads and whether they should be dashed or dotted, reading many books, and appreciating ‘artists’ like Guy Sebastian.
Yep ………..
So it is now proved that you also dont make friends talking about salad.
why doesn’t the government sell the ABC and save us some money. The whole network is just dribble
Clear_waters said :
Bwahaha. Gold!
benett said :
Actually there is one good thing about digital radio – ABC Jazz (two if you count SBS Chill). No announcers…
Good call johnboy.
The nonsense this morning about “how many frogs did you here” was about the limit. I am now going to listen/watch the ABC 2 morning show with presenter V I Trioli.
gazket said :
Chanelling today’s Daily Telegraph, eh? That will rot your brain even faster than 666 will!
Waiting For Godot said :
That said Radio National have some pretty excellent programs on Saturday (e.g. Law and Health reports) and playback of programs from other networks (e.g. Deutsche Welle, Radio Netherlands, BBC, NPR) which I really love.
I only wish they’d do more of that during the week.
When the tennis coverage starts on 666, you’ll pine for such inanities.
Seriously, tennis? On the radio??