Do we need the Olympics to sell our city?
Also: it's not just radio that needs a rethink and a refresh.
A friend of mine (not pictured) was once a Brisbane City Greeter. It’s a voluntary gig for people who are happy to share the highlights of their hometown with visitors.
My friend specialised in anecdotes related to historic and heritage sites — don’t get me started on how few we have and how poorly we treat them — but I believe others give a more general overview.
In any case, I believe they do a good job — one that’s possibly worth paying people to do full-time if we’re serious about getting the word out about our city.
Meanwhile, I’ve noticed how competitive the domestic tourism market has become, with a boom in the number of ads on social media platforms (and actual TV) encouraging me to enjoy the delights of Melbourne, Adelaide, Sydney and Queensland as a whole.
And all this got me thinking about the 2032 Olympics and whether they’ll be worth the huge amount of money we’ll be investing in them.
I find myself in the unusual position of siding with some of the fringe dwellers of politics who say we should rethink the development of the Gabba as a major Olympics stadium and be happy with what we’ve got.
The price tag they are quoting now is huge and if history tells us anything it will be much more than $2.7 billion (or whatever the current estimate is) in the wash-up.
History also tells us that the Olympics will be deemed a financial success even if they are not, through some creative accounting over ongoing tourism revenue.
I’d like to hope that, in the future, we have better reasons to attract tourists to Brisbane than the fact that a big sporting event was once held here.
MEDIA DAZE
At the risk of seeming obsessed with 4BC, which — as I reported in my past two missive — is busily recruiting a new Drive show host (or hosts) as part of a broader reshaping of its overall on-air offering, I should note that it’s not the only local media outlet going through change.
There are big challenges ahead for all radio stations, and media in general. And the problem is that, as screenwriter William Goldman once observed about the movie industry, nobody knows anything.
Nobody knows which delivery systems will dominate in the medium- to long-term — broadcast or podcast; AM, FM, DAB or streaming, live or time-shifted; or all or none of the above — nor what kind of content audiences will want.
The tech situation will probably work itself out, but when it comes down to content, my concern is that radio will settle for the same answer that television has: that is, to deliver more of the same.
As far as I can tell, free-to-air TV broadcasters have no better solution than to offer up new seasons of tired old “reality” formats, or imitations thereof, and pretend to be happy with ever-diminishing returns.
Once upon a time, a regular audience northwards of 1 million was the bottom line for a success. Now, numbers half that size will get a show renewed.
Yes, yes, there is an element of catch-up viewing, but with the exception of big sporting events — the rights to which the streamers are now chasing too — FTA is losing its ability to instantly corall audiences into watching must-see-right-now, water-cooler-conversation-worthy, social-media-shareable content.
Of course, they are not alone in this, but if the big media players are congratulating themselves on the fact that some prominent media startups are crashing, then they really shouldn’t be.
Anyone in the media who found joy in the recent misfortunes of Vice Media and Buzzfeed News hasn’t been reading the tea leaves properly.
Mainstream media is equally vulnerable to spectacular collapse. Which is why we’re seeing — or not seeing, because those involved don’t have much interest in making their misfortunes public — a lot of redundancies in newspapers and other “legacy” media businesses.
Simply sacking people might help the bottom line, but it doesn’t help create killer content or whatever else it takes to succeed in the brave new world.
I may be among the many who know nothing, but I’m smart enough to know that there is more change ahead and I’m pretty sure that navigating that chance will not simply be about squeezing the last drop of goodness from talent and formats that were really popular a decade or two ago.