I feel sorry for you Sydney suckers, i'd much rather listen to PBS or RRR here in Melbourne.

Yeah I switched to FBi. Generally better music, less annoying presenters.

I like having two to flip between when 'sex is on fire' comes on. blerg.

even gold fm in melb started playing sex on fire

It's the stupidest lyric and the over the top drama of the delivery just does not compute. What the fuck is this song supposed to be? It's not sexy at all.

Yes I still find some FBI presenters a bit squeaky but hell I don't care as long as they back announce the shit I was piqued by. From my limited listening on the way to work the ratio of music I've liked has been about equal maybe erring on the side of FBI for some of the more unusual acoustic stuff I've heard. If I can get back in the habit of listening every day i walk to work I might start being a supporter again. There was a couple of years there where I paid subscription and maybe listened for a total of three hours out of the whole year.

2ser

ohhh yeah see what i just did

yep if fbi and jjj are both playing sex is on fire that's where I'm at. Actually really like this station but you gotta know your timetable.

JJJ gives me the shits, especially dools.

I'd probably have a crush on linda if that show was anything but complete trash.

I actually havent listened to the radio in aaages. But the best shows on 2ser was that garage show where Wipey swears alot, and another cool one called the Third Ear where it was like, this total geek playing Nuggets and protopunk things. I should listen to more like that one kabuki posts about!!

I dont like their show about prison inmates =[

linda is hot.
but for me it's 2ser or radio national. Or silence.
Fuck, indie rock sucks. Though Lucky Oceans' shows on RN can be boring as batshit.

Does anyone still listen to radio?

i for one LOVE radio. wish i could listen to it more often. in order: FBI, Radio National, NewsRadio, JJJ, 2SER. mainly the first two.

Yes I still find some FBI presenters a bit squeaky

i think i like squeaky.

2ser...

neither.

FBI or JJJ? Who listens to JJJ anymore? Wouldn't a FBI or 2SER thread be more relevant?

2ser is the obvious answer here

poor ho-c.

none. too noisy.

I'm liking FBI for breakfast at the moment. Alex Pye is quite chirpy in the mornings, and even though she miss-pronounces quite a few words, at least she doesn't do the pseudo-intellectual thing that's going on with JJJ breakfast. Marieke, you're not as smart as you think you are, and the whole ''I'm so bored here'' schtick is plain annoying.

poor ho-c.

Not that I've ever listened to JJJ breakfast. Wrong time of day for me.

2ser would win if not for all the times you can't listen to it. I need to study its timetable better and make sure I listen at times when I would want to listen - but really my radio-time is dictated by when I'm not near a computer/stereo listening to music for my (er, FBi) radio show :/

FBI is fucking awful, basically an oxford st soundtrack. all snyth-indie bands, whiny indie bands, and skip-hop. eeeeergh. they present sydney as being this general pants wearing crew who take pills, listen to really bad rip offs of 80's electro-rock bands, and then sit around chilling to hip hop the next day.

FBI has even less diversity than JJJ is basically what i'm saying. and JJJ is fucking horrible.

moral to the story. radio serves a good purpose, in terms of gig guides etc, but in order to serve that purpose they play shithouse music.

fbi should just go pirate, its not hard

The broader question here is whether a playlisted community radio station is financially viable in Australia.

At first blush it appears it should be, as a playlist aimed at a broader listenership should mean more listeners, and more often - they're not going to be bopping along happily at 5pm only to be suddenly exposed to screeching noise as a specialist show takes over at 6pm.

But maybe not.

In community radio, the revenue model usually goes like this: passionate specialist DJs attract specialist sponsorship to their shows through playing music for a specialist audience. Then, come radiothon time, they badger the audience into coughing up cash by passionately and repeatedly reminding them they are the only narcocorrido (or whatever) show on the air in town. A bit more cash comes in from general sponsorship.

In a playlisted model, where are the passionate DJs and listeners? Where is the money from specialist sponsors? Money from listeners and general sponsorship appear to be the only sources of income left.

Money comes from government grants too tbb.

And from Richard Branson apparently.

Ben, you do realise FBi has a huge number of passionate specialist DJ shows? As I mentioned in this or another thread, FBi has more non-playlisted music shows than 2SER does, because FBi is almost all music.

(Or more hours of non-playlist music per week, to clarify. Dunno about individual shows, maybe that too)

Ben, you do realise FBi has a huge number of passionate specialist DJ shows?

Are they the flagship shows? Looking at the grid, it seems based on a fairly generic three-shift weekday daytime with a 1-hr specialist show at noon. Specialist shows are nights and weekends. Is that right?

The Richard Branson thing is just plain silly.

Are they the flagship shows? Looking at the grid, it seems based on a fairly generic three-shift weekday daytime with a 1-hr specialist show at noon. Specialist shows are nights and weekends. Is that right?

What makes a flagship show? Sunsets, for all that I'm not that into that kind of dance music, presents specialists in dance music in the just-post-drivetime slot. Should a flagship show be on... during the day when people are at work? At breakfast or in the evenings where you might possibly want a more generalist audience, rather than the more limited range who would listen to a specialist show?
(I realise that Sunsets turns some people off - me included sometimes. Never been happy with it, but it's been a success regardless.)

The Richard Branson thing is plain silly. That's the point. It's not that the intention isn't there to try and get him to pay up, but it's about consciousness-raising. The financial need is there, and it was decided by a crew of experienced advisors that just doing basically another sponsorship drive wasn't going to get the attention needed. Day #2 and we have 2nd page of the SMH.

As for the specific moneys owed and the specific financial troubles, well it's not the sort of detail that belongs in the press releases/website surely, but you're a journalist - go ask.

woop woop woop. big up Sunsets!

Day #2 and we have 2nd page of the SMH.

The question is, though, how long's the tail? Won't people just go ''Wow! Nice idea.'' and then forget about it?

As for the specific moneys owed and the specific financial troubles, well it's not the sort of detail that belongs in the press releases/website surely, but you're a journalist - go ask.

I think disclosing some of that information would go a long way towards establishing how serious the crisis is.

As to going and asking, I don't cover community radio stations in Sydney - I'm just curious in an entirely personal capacity.

its not that i'm advocating thug be played on fathers day

my fear is that the stations idea of what people want may be wrong

to sydney's only community music focussed radio station i must advise that i don't think middle of the road alternative rock is the only game being played in this town.

its not formless noise i require during drive time its variety and surprise and invention.

all i hear now is a watered down JJJ (non speciality shows) although i can never be 100% certain the station's playlisted shows are unlistenable as i'm not always listening but whenever i do i always feel a little disappointed in the fact i'm rarely engage with what's played, and i'm easily moved by music?

which in turn is why i dont turn it on as much as i should be!

the station should be more concerned in exposing all facets of the cities music at all times than about wider listenership, if the station builds a program base nurtured by truly passionate music lovers who crave diversity we would be exposed to a wider brighter world of endless musical possibilities! why can't we listen to passenger of shit during breakfast or WOG on drive?

whats the difference between moonmilk and peaches? one lives in sydney the other sells cars, who are we promoting!

you must be vocal about what you want from the station as its ours not theirs with hope in the future it caters for the real tastes of my beloved city rather than the imaginary majority?

The Richard Branson thing is plain silly. That's the point. It's not that the intention isn't there to try and get him to pay up, but it's about consciousness-raising. The financial need is there, and it was decided by a crew of experienced advisors that just doing basically another sponsorship drive wasn't going to get the attention needed. Day #2 and we have 2nd page of the SMH.

Is the prize money $50,000? That is quite a lot to pay for something that isn't serious is it? How much is a 2nd page ad on SMH?

It was a news story, so nothing. But yes, that kind of exposure would cost you a lot if you had to pay for it. That's the upside of a gimmick like this.

If you paid a publicity firm $50,000 what kind of coverage and exposure do you think you could get? Or do you think that this gimmick is a publicists idea?

but no one gets the 50,000 unless the station gets the million so it doesn't matter.

unless branson *actually *gives you a million, i think this whole campaign is going to result in you recieving less money than a normal campaign. which is a bit silly.

but the free media exposure is priceless!

Ahh I see, thanks moses.

Anyone hear fbi on the ABC this morning?

Evan Kaldor - General Manager, FBi re: station revenue:
''We did about 80k a month in Jan... what we saw in feb was basically our revenue halved. ''

He also said that they have the largest broadcast footprint, hence largest running costs. Not sure the remote indig community radio stations would agree with that, but anyway..

''We did about 80k a month in Jan... what we saw in feb was basically our revenue halved. ''

Ouch!