There’s a nickname for the man who runs ABC radio these days. Some jokingly call him a Black Thunder bro – a nod to the time when Ben Latimer, now the director of audio at our national broadcaster, worked at commercial radio stations. Those Black Thunders (SUVs) were all over Sydney, handing out Coke and chips.
Is that unfair? Since he took over, ABC local radio has lingered in the doldrums. We need neither Coke nor chips nor the kind of staccato delivery which has come to personify the sound of ABC Sydney. Blokes barking at me. Reminds me of work. Geez, those booming low voices are triggering.
Broadcasters Chris Bath, left, and Sarah Macdonald, and the man at the helm of ABC radio, Ben Latimer. Credit: ABC, James Brickwood, Supplied
We are a day after the release of disappointing radio ratings and two days after we heard Chris Bath chose to leave the crucial Drive slot. She won’t have even reached a year in the gig. Is it resourcing? God knows but when I ask some staffers if they are getting the kind of money needed to do local radio well, they laugh at me. Unkind.
Some of the folks still at the ABC tell me it’s hard to get a clear message through to Latimer. As a leader, he is steeped in commercial radio, the sound of it. Commercial radio growls. Not sure about you, but I loathe that sound. Yes, yes, 2GB. The ABC audience and the 2GB audience could not be more different.
Bath took over from Richard Glover not even a year ago and is leaving her slot to go to a shorter, less high-profile program on Sunday mornings. To replace her? Thomas Oriti, who for quite some time has been the presenting backbone of NewsRadio. He’s fabulous and I’m devoted to him because I adore high-profile ABC reporter Nas Campanella, a sensational and stubborn former student of mine and wife to Thomas.
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Latimer has managed to oversee (and survive) the Antoinette Lattouf catastrophe and the shift of ABC Sydney from a station that had lots of women, with programs that sung to their listeners, to one which is quite different. We must note that Bath’s ratings were far from sizzling. But from next year, sunrise to sunset, it will be blokes akimbo. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, if the audience was also just blokes akimbo. After sunset, women are let off the leash. Thank heavens for Renee Krosch, who does evenings.
I asked Jacqui Ewart, a Griffith University professor who’s been researching talkback radio for decades, what she thought about the male-to-male shifts.
“I’m a bit shocked to tell you the truth … I mean you might expect something like this from commercial radio with their shock-jockery,” Ewart says. “There’s a risk of alienating a section of the audience, particularly with the ABC, if all you have are male presenters … I’m not suggesting that all men have a limited world-view, but if you do have a line-up of men, there could be a perception among some listeners that women’s interests are not being catered for.”