Buckle up for a big week
In radioland and on the Olympics front, expect big news in coming days. Also: is it smart to stop offering Arts degrees?
As I write, The Sunday Mail is running has a story, by Tayla Couacaud and Georgia Clelland, about the plethora of on-air stunts that have kicked off the year in radio.
It’s no coincidence that these things — mostly reheated old ideas that give listeners the chance to win a wad of cash — happen during the ratings period.
The idea, for the commercial stations, is to get more listeners during that time to register a higher rating so they can sell more advertisements. It’s a simple business model but it’s not working as well as it used to, because audiences have other options these days.
And, as University of Southern Queensland senior lecturer in radio and television broadcasting Dr Ashley Jones points out, orchestrating a stunt can be a very short-sighted strategy.
Promoting a stunt or other kind of giveaway may have the immediate effect of encouraging people to sample your station, you’ve still got to have the goods to keep them there and stop them straying back to the show they really like (or to some other kind of diversion, like a podcast or streaming service).
There’s also a danger of “sameness”, with stunts just reinforcing the shallowness, similarity and, in at least one case, sheer desperation, of the four stations competing in the FM popular music space.
The results of the first radio ratings survey for the year will be released on Thursday. The ones to watch?
B105, to see if Stav Davidson, Abby Coleman and Matt Acton retain their healthy lead in Breakfast.
KIIS, because Robin Bailey, Kip Wightman and Corey Oates keep telling us they’re doomed if we don’t listen to them (not a great strategy IMO). More on that, below.
Nova, to see whether the addition of Nikki Osborne to the Breakfast line-up and promoting her on the basis that she swears a lot has had an impact.
4BC, because it finished 2024 on a record low and one would imagine the only way is up (but perhaps it isn’t, and that will almost certainly mean dramatic on-air changes).
The long-term fear for everyone in Brisbane radio is that local shows will become a thing of the past. As James Cridland, radio futurologist and friend of Mister Brisbane, points out here, one of the UK’s big two commercial radio broadcasters, Bauer, is closing all 12 of its local breakfast shows in England and Wales in June, meaning an end to local radio production.
The big radio networks would do it here, too, if they thought they could get away with it. One thing holding back the tide is the misstep ARN has made by pumping the Sydney-based Kyle and Jackie O Show to unkeen KIIS Melbourne audiences. If they sort that out, local Breakfast shows everywhere will be on thin ice.
Even if they don’t make a go of Melbourne, ARN is still keen to get their money’s worth out of Kyle Sandilands and Jackie Henderson and may simulcast them on KIIS in Brisbane and elsewhere, despite the pleas of the local Breakfast crew.
Cridland view is that a radio’s show relevance is more important than it being presented local. If a station offers content that a big enough chunk of its target audience likes, it doesn’t matter where the announcers are based.
It could be argued that the situation is different for news-talk stations, but they have their own challenges which I won’t go into here.
The Games, again
If Thursday is D-Day for Brisbane radio, then Tuesday is D-Day for Brisbane 2032.
That’s when the State Government will tell us what its plans are for Olympics and Paralympics venues. I have written about this at length, but the latest is that the proposed Brisbane Live arena may not be part of David “No New Stadium” Crisafulli’s plans.
Given the Brisbane Entertainment Centre at Boondall, which was never in the right place anyway, is well past its use-by date, that would be a very bad decision indeed.
As far as I can tell, it was one proposal that had near-universal backing among the people of this great city because they can see the possibilities it has once the Games caravan has moved on.
Art for its own sake?
When I was a student at the University of Queensland, in the late 1970s, there was some graffiti in the men’s toilet near the lecture theatre in the basement of the Forgan Smith Building.
It was above the toilet paper dispenser, and it consisted of an arrow pointed downwards and the words: “Arts degrees, please take one.”
It was amusing, of course, but it was — and sadly still is — an indication of how poorly the arts and humanities are regarded by others on campus.
There’s a story by Rose Innes in The Sunday Mail that says the Queensland University of Technology is reviewing its arts courses in the wake of declining enrolments.
This has raised concern in the arts community because reviews often lead to closures. If the courses are shut down, where does the next generation of artists come from?
As QPAC chief executive Rachel Healy points out, the performing arts are especially popular with Brisbane audiences, with record ticket sales over the past summer.
University enrolments will ebb and flow as disciplines come in and out of fashion. They are also linked to job opportunities in the field that’s being taught. So, it all comes down to a numbers game and, I suppose, one can’t blame the university for not wanting to offer courses where it can’t make money.
We can, however, look at the overall community benefit of having artists and arts institutions — and argue for increased government funding in this vital area.
It may be trite to says this, but an appreciation of culture is one of the things that separates humans from the other animals. It makes us who we are, and it informs how we think about our world.
Qualifications in the arts are not worthless.
As National Advocates for Arts Education chair Dr John Nicholas Saunders told The Sunday Mail, “If QUT discontinues these courses, it will have a detrimental impact on the arts industry, limiting pathways for Queenslanders to train as artists and arts professionals in their home state,” he said.
“If we continue to devalue the arts by cutting programs in schools and universities, we risk becoming an arts-less state.”
Shameless cash grab
Although a few people have expressed their interest in paying to subscribe to Mister Brisbane and its sister blog, The Wrinkle, I haven’t turned that feature on yet.
However, I will be featuring Ko-fi “Buy me a Coffee” links in future newsletters. Oh, look, there’s one below. It lets you send me a one-off donation of any amount, the default being $5 but you can make it more or less. But I know times are tough so don’t at all feel obliged.
Disclaimer: Brett Debritz has an Arts degree and has managed to remain mostly employed over four decades. He also used to work for 4BC and The Sunday Mail.