MEDIA
New Teeth for Aunty: Reinvigorating the National Broadcaster
The Monthly | The Monthly Essays | December 2007 - January 2008 | Add a Comment
I am a creature of habit. In the mornings, like the former prime minister, I rely on Radio National's Breakfast, although I am less impressed with it in its current incarnation than I was when it was presented by Peter Thompson and Richard Ackland. With the former there used to be outstanding intellectual discussions between 7.30 and 8.00, often involving key thinkers from around the globe. With the latter what I admired was the mordant wit. Almost my favourite moment on radio, ever, came during an Ackland interview with the redoubtable but garrulous Geoffrey Robertson. There was a moment when it appeared likely that a Robertson answer would never end. Ackland had sufficient mastery of the technology to inform his listeners, without interrupting Robertson, by now in full flight, that he was going out for a quick smoke. Every morning I listen to AM. On the way to work I try to take in one of the Radio National morning magazine programs on media, religion and the law, although I avoid sport because the program doesn't interest me much, and health on hypochondriac grounds. If I work at home I often listen to Classic FM, although never to Margaret Throsby, for the paradoxical reason that her interviews are so absorbing that I cannot concentrate on the task at hand. I almost never listen any longer to ABC Local Radio. I am simply not interested in the kind of middlebrow market at which it aims. Melbourne's Jon Faine is an exception. Local ABC becomes important to me only at 6.00, with PM, which I try never to miss. In the evenings, whenever possible, I watch mainly ABC Television: the news and the 7.30 Report, often what is on offer after that, and if I am not exhausted, Lateline. If I am in the garden on weekends, I like to listen to football in the winter and cricket in the summer. During Test matches the gentle patter of the commentary, punctuated occasionally by Kerry O'Keefe's insane laughter, replaces Classic FM. If I am ever in my car at 4.00 in the afternoon or at 10.00 in the evening I listen to Phillip Adams, perhaps the most remarkable broadcaster in the history of this country.
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