This one’s for you, maaaaaaate
4BC's new Step Outside program is certainly very blokey
I guess it’s a case of poor timing that 4BC debuted its new weekend Breakfast show at a time when free-to-air broadcast radio is being accused (by me and others) of being too “blokey”.
Step Outside with Paul Burt replaces a general-interest magazine-style show hosted by Olympia Kwitowski (and, before that, by Bill McDonald).*
I’d like to say that I listened to the first show, on March 1, in its entirety, but I didn’t. I listened to some of it, then downloaded the podcast version and used AI transcription software to “read” the whole thing for me.
According to that software, the two-hour show featured 199 uses of the word “mate”, followed by 21 of “buddy” (plus one “bud”), 18 of “guy” or “guys”, and eight of “bloke”.
Sunday March 2 update: For those playing at home,
today’s Burty’s Blokey Bingo score is:
131 mate/s; 15 cuz; 25 buddy; 24 guy/s; 4 bloke/s
All the guests were men — Gav from the Goldie on cooking, Ryan (“Ryno”) the charter boat bloke, Shane the surfer, Craig the tackle-shop guy, Jason the 4WD expert (“Check out Jason, Simon, the boys doing their stuff, mate.”) and Steve talking about lithium marine batteries (a long conversation after which another battery bloke, Anthony, weighed in) — but there were a couple of female callers.
Burt has replaced the old show’s two professional landscape gardeners with, er, himself, explaining at the start of the show:
“Now, I'm a bit of a green thumb at home. I like to get out in the garden. It’s sort of just it it’s my little peaceful little peaceful place, you know? You get out there and you just tinker in the garden and then you go do work, right? You go do work, but a lot of people make their work their garden. So, hey, get into it.”
When the segment came around, his advice on crepe myrtles probably wasn’t everything the caller was hoping for:
“If you cut them back, you cut them back, they die. You got to prune them a certain way. I’m not entirely sure on on how to actually prune them that certain way, but I know if you if you’ve got a really good mulching area around the base there and of course really good healthy soil. … Yeah, I don’t think I’d go too much on it to be honest with you. That again, the angle of it, I’m not entirely sure. I don’t want you to to kill your uh your great [Ed: crepe?] myrtle tree on my advice on that one.”
Around the middle of the show, Burt said, “Big shout out to Greg Byrnes as well listening from Sydney.” That would have gone over most listeners’ heads but it’s a reference to the Nine Radio network’s national content manager, who no doubt will have some notes for his new recruit.
There was a conversation with Graeme from Yamba in NSW (a lot of Queenslanders go there, apparently), then Wayne from Logan, who got this curious response from Burt to a question about fishing clubs:
“…Uh I’m not aware of any clubs per se, but there are a lot of fishing clubs, western fishing clubs in particular. Uh you know, there’s a blue fin fishing club. There’s a lot of fishing clubs, a lot of fishing clubs that move around the pubs and clubs as well...”
There was some advice about what to do in the event of a shark attack and then a couple phoned in about their fishing escapades, with Justine noting she caught more fish than Mark.
Burt’s response?
“Oh, well, you know what? That’s uh that’s that’s a good thing. Uh lady luck. And I’ll tell you what, there’s there’s always lady luck on a boat. There’s a lady out there. They’re always catching the most fish. So, I I don’t doubt that.”
Was he saying that when a woman catches a fish it’s just luck?
Towards the end of the show, there was an entertaining chat with Ranger Nick about camp cooking.
I suspect a lot of the content was sponsored, but that’s the way of the world, and if that money can keep local radio going, and it can be made to be entertaining, more power to it.
In all, it was what it was. Outdoorsy people would have enjoyed much of it, I suspect, although the gardening segment needs work — bring in an expert if you’re going to do it — and, in my opinion, it’s too blokey.
Nearly 200 uses of the word “mate” — that’s one every 23.7 seconds based on the podcast — is way too many for anything other than satire.
I’m not going to judge it forever on the basis of one outing.
I’m also not going to say Burt is a misogynist, but I am going to say the show strayed in that direction and Burt would be well advised to rein-in anything that may be taken that way.
And, at the end of the day, it’s not what I think after just one show that counts, it’s whether the show resonates with enough people to keep the sponsors happy and the ratings numbers healthy.
Time will tell on that front.
*Disclosure: Brett Debritz was the producer of the Weekend Breakfast show on 4BC in 2021 and helped put in place much of the structure and talent that continued until last weekend.
Great "mate" stats.
Commercial radio is an alternate world, inhabited by seat warmers who hope to be discovered, listened to by folk whose dials (yes, dials) are stuck. Which is a shame because commercial radio used to produce important content. And the rise of podcasts shows audiences do want to listen to intelligent, thought provoking, well researched programs while driving, gardening, doing the housework. It's frustrating that the investment and advertising is not there for that. I welcome your analysis and hope you can run your ear across other players in the space. Oh and it is difficult to kill a crepe myrtle but if someone has gone to the trouble of calling up a radio station for advice, perhaps a producer could look up Dr Google to help out!