I engaged online this week with a chap called Mark Humphries, who — among other things — is currently presenting the Saturday Evenings show on ABC Local Radio.
I also happen to know that he has a deep interest in musical theatre. In fact, he won Celebrity Mastermind a few years ago with the specialist subject “Stephen Sondheim musicals (1957-1987)”.
So, when he posted a plug for his program, I asked, “Will there be show tunes?”
He responded: “Not exactly. Though my guests thus far have included Rob Mills, Simon Burke, Mitchell Butel and Virginia Gay. So plenty of discussion of show tunes. Got a very special musical theatre guest lined up for next week’s show.”
Humphries also “liked” my response, which read:
“The ABC should have a show tunes channel. Musicals are more popular than sport and we get too much of that on the airwaves.”
Now, I could’ve left it there but I’ve decided to double down on that assertion. Or, at the very least, demonstrate that musical theatre is popular enough to deserve more airtime.
Sport fans, you are welcome to come at me, but I will back up my claim by pointing to real-life attendance at live events.
Big musical theatre shows can fill a 2,000-seat theatre seven times a week for months on end. The average crowd at an AFL game is 38,344; for NRL it’s 20,605. So, an individual musical would only have to run a month to get a bigger audience than a football game.
Now you may say that it’s comparing apples and oranges to measure the total cumulative audience of a show against that of a single sporting fixture. However, the theatre crowd involves different people from performance to performance. Footy games attract the same fans every week, just shuffled a bit depending on who’s playing who and where.
Sure, the sport audience is huge if you add in those who watch or listen on broadcast media, but so is the audience for musicals when you add in television, streaming and cinema viewing.
The movie version of Wicked alone has taken in more than $20 million at the Australian box office. Even at an average ticket price of $17, that’s an audience of 1,176,000 — on top of the 1.5 million Australians who saw the stage version (and paid much, much more for the privilege). There’ll be even more when it makes its way to streaming.* And part two of the movie is yet to come.
As an event, it puts that one musical up with a State of Origin NRL game or AFL grand final. And, just as there is more than one footy game each week, there is more than one musical playing in Australia at any given time.
So, even if you think my reading of the stats is dodgy (and it, kind of, is), and you don’t buy that musicals are more popular than sport, you must surely agree that they deserve more love than they are getting on the airwaves. Surely.
As far as I can discover, the one-hour Musicals Show on ABC Classic is the only presence for the genre on mainstream radio. It’s probable that some community stations devote airtime to show tunes, but I’m not aware of a program we can all listen to on a regular basis.
It’s interesting to note that classical music is very well represented on radio. Here in Brisbane we can hear ABC Classic (which attracted 2.1 per cent of total audience in the most recent ratings survey) and 4MBS Classic FM (which isn’t included on the ratings but has a strong subscriber and supporter base).
So, if there’s not an argument for a dedicated musical theatre station, there is surely one for a regular program of substantial length.
Mark Humphries would be the natural host.
*Update: Thanks to Walter for pointing out that Wicked part one is already available via Apple, Prime and YouTube for $29.99 to rent or $34.99 to buy.
What other genres are underrepresented on radio? What would you like to hear?
While Kyle’s away..
As I wrote a few days ago, Kyle Sandilands needs a brain operation. I expected by now to have heard or read somewhere about what will happen on air during his absence.
I have not. But I have read about the “eerie” prediction of a “psychic” who told Sandilands he’d need abdominal surgery. Belly-brain, same-same, I guess.
Anway, it has been said (somewhere_ that Sandilands will be off air for about eight weeks, which is a long time in radio.
There are three possible scenarios in terms of impact on KIIS and how its parent company, ARN, handles it:
The ratings will drop, which will be spun as proof of his popularity;
The ratings will stay the same, which will be put down to the loyalty and empathy of the audience and the professionalism of his co-host Jackie “O” Henderson (if, indeed, she remains on air for the whole period without him); or
The ratings will rise, which will be rather inconvenient for Sandilands and his backers and perhaps indicate that the audience primarily listens for the music and celebrity guests not the toilet noises.
Meanwhile, a commenter on social media regarding my previous post about Sandilands, who has been quite reflective and talking about his wild past life, suggested he might come back a nicer, kinder person after the operation.
I wouldn’t hold my breath for that.
Drama double dip
Australian drama is becoming a rare thing. Good Australian drama even rarer. But did you know that we all subsidise it through our taxes, and yet some of what we’ve already paid for is only available to view on pay-for-view streaming services
That’s explained here.