Angry Boys is the latest television series from Chris Lilley, the comedian who created We Can Be Heros: Finding the Australian of the Year in 2005 and the critically-acclaimed Summer Heights High in 2007.

With the success of the immensely popular Summer Heights High under his belt, there was a lot of excited anticipation towards Angry Boys. The ABC certainly did it’s best to hype-up the series.

I have to say I was somewhat disappointed with the result.

In some ways, Lilley had an inevitable problem. Unless his new show was nothing short of brilliant, it was inevitably going to be compared to Summer Heights High. Writing in Crikey, Matt Smith made the valid point that with three television networks funding the programme, it would be a struggle making a series that would appeal to the different cultural markets of ABC Australia, HBO America and BBC Britain. Correct he was.

Angry Boys introduced us to autocratic Japanese mother Jen Okazaki and her skateboarding son Tim (Jordan Dang). Tim pretends to be gay to assist his mother’s GayStyle Enterprises merchandising outfit that was established to leverage profit from Tim’s combined athleticism and faux homosexuality. We also met 65-year-old Ruth ‘Gran’ Sims, a juvenile prison officer and grandmother of Nathan and Daniel Sims from Dunt, South Australia, who featured in We Can Be Heroes. Then there’s faded surfer Blake Oakfield who is a 38-year-old man going on seventeen. And finally there is black American rapper S.Mouse, who created the worldwide hit Slap Your Elbow.

Summer Heights High was funny and yet poignant because of the brilliant characters supported by Lilley’s excellent acting. We’ve all known a horrible bitchy girl like J’amie at school. We’ve all sat in a class with an antisocial boy like Jonah who cloaked his struggles with disruptiveness. Gee, we all had an “arty” high school teacher like Mr. G who could have been gay, but none of us really knew. The characters were deep and complex yet real and grew in each episode. Summer Heights High was as much a social commentary as a comedy show and made us think deeply about education and contemporary Australian society.

Contrast this with Angry Boys, where the suspension of disbelief was nearly impossible.

Japanese mum Jen Okazaki was the least-believable character, both in appearance and manner. Comedy shows play on stereotype, either through reinforcement or exaggeration to make a point. Yet for me Jen Okazaki failed on both of these. Okazaki’s language was fowl, and whilst I don’t pretend for one minute that Japanese women don’t swear, the sheer volume of vulgar profanities emanating from her mouth would almost make a sailor blush. My mind simply couldn’t reconcile this with the image of an Asian mother, even one as obnoxious as Jen.

Perhaps Lilley’s acting reprieve comes via S.mouse, a talentless 24-year-old black American hip-hop artist who had a worldwide commercial hit. Playing on the stereotype of a B-grade rapper, S.mouse pretends to come from the slums when in fact he was raised in a wealthy household and previously sung in a church choir. Whilst Lilley struggles with a convincing American accent, S.mouse’s character offers us a lot to work with on account of his complete naïevity about the dual shallow reasons for his new-found social popularity and why Lesquisha (Kristin Dione Metoyer) remains his girlfriend. When he’s dumped from his record label for releasing an unauthorised song called Poo on You, his attempts at launching his own career fail to much comedic effect and S.mouse struggles to understand why Lesquisha dumps him and no-one wants to know him anymore. Whilst not profound, it makes for an amusing story.

Perhaps less engaging are the twins, Daniel and Nathan. Nathan’s hearing almost disappears and whilst struggling with a teenage body filled with testosterone, he also has to prepare himself to go to ‘deaf school’ in Adelaide. His cruel  brother Daniel torments him all the way, although we see that Nathan’s pranks, whilst being fewer in number, tend to be smarter.

For me, the relationship between Daniel and Nathan was a wasted opportunity. When Daniel wants to insult someone, “fag” is his slur of choice. In one episode, Daniel’s exasperated mother invites Henry Keddeys – “an actual fag” – to spend time with Daniel in an attempt to convince him to stop using the homophobic term. Whilst Daniel realised that Henry is actually a good bloke, he returns to calling people “fags” in subsequent episodes anyway. The character doesn’t develop.

Likewise, as the date of Nathan’s departure comes closer, we’d expect that despite his juvenility that Daniel might finally develop some empathy. Again, we are disappointed. Perhaps Lilley wanted to show that love between Australian brothers is demonstrated with larrikinism, but again the theme isn’t really developed.

Even in the case of Ruth ‘Gran’ Sims, who tries to build a relationship with a near-mute boy who’s been sent to the prison for bestiality crimes, we see little development in the characters. When we discover that Gran has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease and she inadvertently contributes to a suicide, it feels like the matters are treated in a superficially light manner.

One of the things that made Summer Heights High such a success was that it was as much a social critique as a story about relationships and character development. When Jonah realised that he was on the verge of being expelled, we could feel the sense of despair and it made us ask how, as a society, we should effectively deal with people like Jonah. It was so deep and emotional yet all the way through the show Jonah had made us laugh with this juvenile jokes and pranks and we’d enjoyed his story.

I suspect with a name like Angry Boys that Lilley was trying to create an intelligent and thoughtful comedy in a similar manner. Unfortunately it seems that character development came at the price of an excessive degree of vulgar language that was well beyond contextual requirements. In Summer Heights High Jonah swore just like most teenage boys do at some stage. But we seldom heard profanities from Mr G, for example. Yet every single one of Lilley’s characters swears like a sailor in Angry Boys. When S.mouse greeted an audience of elementary school children by yelling out “How’s it goin’, mother fu*kers?”, it seems that even the foolish S.mouse would not be so thoughtless, let alone the teachers would just stand there wooden-faced.

Sometimes comedy has to “push the envelope” and challenge us. We saw this in Summer Heights High which dealt with some very serious issues such as teenage suicide, homosexuality and cyber bulling. These delicate matters were treated in a respectful and thoughtful manner whilst the show still made us laugh. But what was Angry Boys telling us?

Some have said that Lilley’s portrayal of S.mouse as a juvenile and idiotic black person is racist. Whilst I disagree, it certainly walks a fine line and I can understand why black Americans may ask if this isn’t a form of modern-day minstrel show. But perhaps it is S.mouse that more than any character provides us with something meaningful to think about. His painfully lame hip-hop songs that utilise every musical cliché of 2011 attempt to demonstrate the poor quality of commercial hip-hop and pop music today. When S.mouse’s absurd song Slap Your Elbow was actually released in Australia, and climbed to no 37 in the ARIA charts, Lilley demonstrated his point in the best way possible.

As for the other characters, I am less certain there is a message. Blake Oakfield told us that a wife will leave a grown man who acts like a teenager. Daniel and Nathan Sims told us that boys can be mean to each other whilst Ruth ‘Gran’ Sims showed us that Alzheimer’s disease leads to forgetfulness. Jen Okazaki was mean to her son and drove him to rebel. It’s hardly profound.

Angry Boys is primarily a comedy, so perhaps we shouldn’t expect a deep analysis of issues. Perhaps Lilley sought to highlight causes for modern-day teenage angst rather than make us think about them.

Angry Boys isn’t a bad programme and it was engaging enough for me to watch the whole series, even if people turned off in large numbers. It certainly had its moments of laughter, that’s for sure.

I admire Chris Lilley a great deal. He has a brilliant skill in character observation and impersonation but I believe me might have overstretched it for Angry Boys.

Australian Radio Online is a unique website that provides a one-stop point for people who want to listen to Aussie radio stations over the net. The portal was started in 2001, and has grown to be the most popular part of my website. Every day, thousands of people pay a visit, so it gives me great satisfaction to provide a service that people will appreciate.

Aside from a sleeker presentation, the new-look website has some exciting features including a new jQuery-dependent dynamic table system that allows visitors to sort radio stations on any criterion they desire. In addition, new interactive features such as a Twitter feed have been incorporated.

On a technical level, the new design represents two small milestones for me.

Firstly, Australian Radio Online is the first of my websites to abandon table-based design in favour of Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). Website designs based on CCS are quicker to load, easier to adjust and the CSS system provides a lot more design flexibility and consistency. I have been using CSS as a support for tables-based designs for years, but have never built an entire website with CSS-based design before. Building  a site from scratch using CSS has been very hard work, but I have learned a great deal and am confident that I can use those skills for updating other parts of my website as the need arises.

The second milestone is that the entire website is 100% compliant with the XHTML 1.0 Transitional web standard. Standards compliance ensures that websites will render correctly in as many browsers and under as many operating systems as possible. Standards compliance also ensures that visually impaired website visitors who use screen readers will be able to enjoy the website as much as everyone else.

You can access the refurbished Australian Radio Online website at http://www.adonline.id.au/radio/ If you like the website, why not subscribe to it on Twitter @AustraliaRadio.

One would consider that after Where the Bloody Hell are You? and Go Walkabout, the government’s tourism agency could produce something substantially better. Alas, they’ve remained true-to-form and produced an absolute shocker of an advertisement: A tuneless parade of clichéd scenes, sedated animals and people who really can’t sing. Take a look for yourself:

The problem I have with this woeful presentation is that it appears to be so astonishingly amateurish. For starters, the lyrics to the song are poorly-written. To suggest that kangaroos are “furry things that bounce around in herds” is neither factually correct (they form mobs) nor particularly cute. And “Da-da-da-daaaaa, da-da-da-daaaa” in place of half a verse suggests that we lack eloquence or even verbal skills. Is this really the best song-writing that several million dollars can produce?

What I also dislike about this embarrassing film is the lack of any real message. Apparently Australia consists almost entirely of larrikins, some sedated animals and various Outback landscapes. There are almost no references to our vast cultural heritage including aboriginal traditional painting, stage performances, our vast music scene, our architecture or our unique sports such as Australian Rules. Even the tokenistic opera singer at the Opera House is overshadowed by a Missy Higgins look-a-like in the front row!

But finally, I think the cinematography compares poorly to the previous advertisements. Couldn’t they at least film the rowers on Melbourne’s Yarra River on a sunny day? That aside, the overall presentation isn’t especially creative and lacks the crispness that one would expect from a national tourism campaign.

The big question we have to ask is “Why are Australians so poor at marketing themselves?”

Look at our last effort: Filmed by Baz  Luhrmann, it starred a stressed American woman (played by an Australian) who is stalked by a creepy Aboriginal girl in the middle of the night:

The Walkabout campaign was regarded as a failure despite it being linked to the release of the film Australia. Tourist numbers declined, and few people understood the true message of the advertisements. (In addition, walkabout can be a racist reference to the supposed lack of discipline and work ethic that Aborigines are said to possess; they’d rather ‘go walkabout’ or wander off).

Before Go Walkabout, there was the much-criticised Where the Bloody Hell Are You? campaign that was banned in Britain and censored in other markets such as Singapore:

Whilst in Australia the word bloody is just considered course, in most English-speaking countries it is considered offensive. So whilst creating a controversy might have seemed like clever advertising tactic by media-savvy marketing boffins at the time, it backfired in most markets and tourist numbers fell.

Looking back now, Where the Bloody Hell Are You? looks like the work of a genius when compared to There’s Nothing like Australia. The music was better, there was more personality expressed, a more representative image of Australia was shown and the cinematography was polished.

So what should we do? I guess we have three options; 1. Give up and accept that Australia is ‘out of vogue’ as a holiday destination; 2. Consider asking foreigners to make our ads, since they are probably more in touch with what works than we are or 3. Consider a serious brand transformation (i.e. no more clichés and the development of a memorable slogan).

We weren’t always so poor at marketing ourselves. Despite the fact that Australians call shrimps prawns and rarely barbecue them, Throw Another Shrimp on the Barbie was a worldwide hit because it increased brand recognition and tourist numbers.

I have no idea whether this advertisement will work. And as an Australian, I am admittedly not the best person to judge. But the reception domestically hasn’t been too good thus far. But for what it’s worth, I reckon we’re going to have to do a lot better than this if we’re seriously going to get recession-affected foreigners to come to Australia for a holiday.

^{A Spanish conquistador, made of sand.}

I’d never been to a sand-sculpting event before, although I’d seen pictures of sand-sculptures on television so I was taken aback with the beauty and detail  of the sculptures when I saw them for myself.

^{_{Workers add touches to the Sydney Opera House sand sculpture.}}

Sand sculpture is the art of making temporary artworks from sand, using just sand and water for construction and simple tools to shape the works. Each work is called a pile, and there were 18 piles at the Great Moments in History exhibition.

Organised by Sandstorm Events, the exhibition travels around various parts of the country, charging a small entry free for viewing. The show has been located in Frankston for the past few years, appearing on the foreshore every summer.

_{A tribute to ancient Egyptian society}

As the name would suggest, this year’s show depicted various moments in history, starting with the Egyptian pyramids and ending with the best inventions of the 2oth century. There were sculptures depicting the Roman, Spanish, French and British empires, the moon landing, the Crusades, the World Wars and even Barak Obama!

^{The Vietnam War, executed in sand.}

My favourite sculptures were those depicting the Spanish empire, and the Roman empire. I was also especially impressed with the Aztec temple, which stood 6 metres high!

There was an Australian sculpture, which depicted the nation’s discovery by Captain James Cook, an Aboriginal elder, kangaroos, Vegemite, a meat pie, and the winning of the Americas Cup amongst other events.

The quality and detail of the sculptures varied. Whilst the Chinese display had a beautifully detailed dragon, I felt the other components were relatively plain. There was also some technical inconsistency in the “greatest inventions” display, although the wrapped dynamite sticks were very well executed.

Local Frankston sand is not used for the sculptures as it is unsuitable for sculpture. In the case of the Great Moments in History exhibition, builders’ sand was quarried from the Graham Quarries in Langwarren, which accounts for its orangey colour.

I thoroughly recommend a visit to the Great Moments in History exhibition in Frankston. Located on the foreshore near the Kananook Creek Bridge, entry to the exhibition costs $10 for adults. A programme costs an additional 50¢.

The show will remain open until 26 April 2010.

Rather than supporting a funding increase, the report’s author David Crawford said the money would be better spent elsewhere, and rejected the Australian Olympic Committee’s request for an additional $100 million in funding per annum.

Predictably, it didn’t take long for a response from the President of the Australian Olympics Committee, John Coates, to crudely declare that he was “pissed off” at the report’s findings. For if there’s one faux pas in Australia, it’s to question the supremacy of sport.

Regardless of such sensibilities, I feel it’s about time we took the axe to elite sports funding in Australia.

Sport is a worthy endeavour. Participation brings considerable health and social benefits to those who engage in it’s many offerings, and elite sportsmen and women provide inspiration for people to give sports a try. Since Australia is now the world’s fattest nation, we need to do all in our power to prevent a looming health crisis.

Yet the current strategy of throwing bucket-loads of taxpayers’ money at the Australian Sports Commission clearly isn’t working in creating a leaner and fitter nation. Nor is it delivering Australia more Olympic gold. Since the 2000 Sydney Olympics, our medal count has been falling whilst at the same time we’ve collectively become fatter.

Exhibiting a vulgar form of sports blasphemy, David Crawford went as far as suggesting that Olympic gold medals are not the best way of measuring  sporting success and described Australia’s aim of being one of the “top five” Olympic nations as “unrealistic”. With comments like that, we’ll no doubt hear calls to “crucify him!” as the angry mobs coalesce!

The Australian Sports Commission was established after the 1976 Montreal Olympics where Australia didn’t win a single gold medal.

The strategy seemed to work, because in time our Olympic performance improved considerably, culminating in the 2000 Sydney Olympics where Australia won 16 gold medals. Yet gold medals come at a cost. In the 2007-8 financial year, the Australian Sports Commission received $216 million in government funding (source). The Crawford report estimated that each Olympic gold medal cost $15 million, although it was a guess because there is apparently little accounting or accountability in Australian sport.

Apparently, to suggest that funding should be cut or that athletes should actually pay for their training, is ‘un-Australian’. Why? Because apparently Australia is a “sports-loving nation” and Australians are “sports-loving people”. After all, what Australian doesn’t love his sport? Or so the myth says.

In fact, there are some of us who don’t have any interest in sports, and resent so much of our taxes being spent on people who contribute almost nothing to our nation.

Students who enrol in university, perhaps to study science, engineering, economics, medicine, law, or teaching have to pay a considerable percentage of the cost of their education. Yet when they graduate they make a considerable contribution to our society by educating our children, designing our cities, developing our medicines, helping us understand our environment, crafting our laws, securing our economy or looking after us when we’re ill. People who enter TAFE to study trades, also have to pay considerable fees.

Yet sports people, who spend their time kicking balls across fields, throwing sticks at targets, or running in circles, receive their training for free. And whilst a university student has to repay his debt after earning a paltry $21,000, a sportman can earn millions and still not pay a cent.

John Coates, chief of the AOC, described the Crawford Report as “an insult”.  At an angry press conference, he asked “Is Mr. Crawford suggesting that medals won in Beijing last year by Matthew Mitcham in diving, Steve Hooker in pole vault and Ken Wallace (kayak) meant nothing to the Australian people? Is he telling us gold medals won by the rowers and sailors in Beijing meant nothing?”.

To suggest that offending Olympic athletes is sufficient reason not to cut the sports budget is ludicrous, whilst Coates’ labelling of the report as “un-Australian” smacks of desperation.

In 2007, the Commonwealth Government slashed $63.4 million from the CSIRO budget. One could call the CSIRO the “Olympic team of Australian science”, as our nation’s premier research organisation. As a result of the cuts, more than 100 jobs were lost and two centres closed.

As a scientist, was I offended? Who cares!

My emotional response (or that of those affected) is irrelevant to a discussion about whether it was a good decision or not. The effect on the nation, supported by data, should be the primary influence on any non-welfare public financial debate.

It is well time that athletes were compelled to pay for their training. It is also time that we dropped our obsession with Olympic gold medals. Instead, we should re-invest our tax dollars into community sport, so that ‘ordinary Australians’ can participate, and gain tangible health and social benefits from their activities.

Winning Olympic gold might momentarily bring a warm feeling to our hearts, but aside from its role as popular entertainment, neither the Olympics nor elite sport in general contribute much to Australian society.

If holding such a view makes me un-Australian, so be it.

The calling of names will never convince me that sport is deserving of such generous quantities of taxpayer dollars, whilst our hospitals are under-funded, our trains arrive late and our poor sleep on the streets.

I didn’t go in to see whether they’d actually sell me some cigarettes. Needless to say, I think think this shows the hospital in a very bad light.

What an error of judgement that turned out to be.

The brand new Melbourne Theatre Company building at dusk.

The MTC and Recital Centre buildings were designed by leading Melbourne architect Ian McDougall, of AshtonRaggatt McDougall. Located in Melbourne’s famous Southbank ‘arts precinct’ and surrounded by noisy trams, the buildings were designed for both architectural and engineering excellence. Both buildings have been heavily featured in the press; with a recent story appearing on ABC1‘s Catalyst programme as well as numerous newspaper articles and live radio broadcasts.

Unfortunately, when I visited the Melbourne Theatre Company and moreso the Melbourne Recital Centre, the reception was far from welcoming.

The Sumner Theatre in the Melbourne Theatre Company building

Before I’d even entered the MTC’s Sumner Theatre, I was told by a member of staff that photography was prohibited. When I queried this, she told me “It’s just the rules” but then went on to explain that they didn’t want people taking photos of the artworks.

Fair enough, the artworks are protected by copyright laws and I don’t wish to challenge that.

My interest is in the architecture. Yet when I explained this, she was still adamant that I was not to take any photos. After a brief discussion, she consulted her manager who agreed that photography was permitted in the theatres, but not of the artworks.

I felt that was a fair compromise and a sensible outcome, so I went in and took some photos of the beautiful theatre.

It was once I’d left the Melbourne Theatre Company and went next door to the Melbourne Recital Hall that events took a dive.

The front window of the Melbourne Recital Centre

For I’d barely taken one shot of the foyer, before I was hastily approached by a woman who told me photography was banned. When I queried this, I got the same answer as before: “Those are  just the rules”. Informing her of the management decision at the MTC, she then consulted a more senior staff member who also told me “It’s just the rules”.

Finding it somewhat incredible that an arts organisation would invite people into their landmark buildings, only to “ban” photography, I again asked her what the specific reason was. She blamed the architect, the artists, and management before running out of excuses. So I asked her to go and see her manager to sort this matter out properly.

Whilst waiting for her to return, I noticed another man, with an even bigger camera than mine, taking interior shots with the aid of a tripod. So I asked the first woman why it was that he was permitted to take photos and I was not. She guessed (but was unsure) that he might be from the media. I pointed out the absurdity of this approach. Surely, aren’t his photos of the same building, so what’s the difference between he and I?

The interior of the Elisabeth Murdoch Hall at the Melbourne Recital Centre

As we stood there discussing matters, I saw numerous people taking photos of the building with their tiny point-and-shoot cameras. None of these people were being approached as I’d been. I queried this also, and was told “It’s because they’re harder to catch”. I wondered if it was because I had a dSLR camera that I was approached. Either way, their logic is flawed.

I should say that the two staff members I spoke to were very polite and courteous. And I do realise that they were simply doing their job, as instructed. My gripe is with the management of the Melbourne Recital Centre.

According to Arts Victoria, $128 million of taxypayer’s money was jointly  invested in the construction of the Melbourne Theatre Company and Melbourne Recital Centre buildings. These are public buildings, constructed on Crown land and built for public enjoyment. There’s no law prohibiting photography of public buildings. My photography was with in the context of an ‘open day’, where members of the public were supposed to come and enjoy the new theatres.

For me, the biggest issue of all was the realisation that it was an arts organisation that was persecuting photographers. Of all sectors of society, wouldn’t you expect an arts organisation to be most sympathetic towards artistic pursuits?

Having my enjoyment of the occasion ruined, I was again approached by a staff member who informed me that MRC management had made a sudden change of policy, and that I was now free to photograph the building.

Foyer space and front window at the Melbourne Recital Centre

It can only be concluded from this absurdity that the initial intervention was an utter waste of time. They’d succeeded in completely ruining my experience, and for what purpose?

Amazingly, I was pestered by two more staff members before I left the venue in disgust (having taken the photos that I wanted).

In a liberal democracy such as Australia, I am astounded that I should be treated by a government-owned arts organisation in such a manner. The Melbourne Recital Centre management need to think very carefully about what it is that their organisation stands for.

I have no problem with the Recital Centre wanting to protect the intellectual property of their artists. That’s fair enough, and I respect that. But I don’t respect their attitude towards photography of the public-access parts of their government-funded facilities on an ‘Open Day’. I don’t respect the very selective enforcement of their “policy”, either.

I will be taking this matter up with the Melbourne Recital Centre. If they so respond, I will publish their responses on The Grapevine.

This new creation has been Christened Down UnDa Club and is bound to get tongues wagging as two worlds collide. The song features the familar flute and lyrics of Colin Hay and Ron Strykert overspoken by the rough ‘gangsta’ sounds of Fiddy Cent’s In Da Club. It’s bizarre to say the least. But then again that’s the nature of mashups.

Triple J have been playing this song a bit lately and I have to confess that when I first heard Down UnDa Club I was shocked! How could this Aussie classic be treated with such disrespect?

But the song has grown on me very quickly and despite a general disinterest in rap or hip-hop, I’ve become a big fan of this particular specimen.

Click to listen to DOWN UNDA CLUB
(or download MP3 from DJ Lobsterdust’s website).

For those of you interested in the original, here’s the Land Down Under video clip from 1981…. enjoy!

This week, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) revealed that its network of television stations, hitherto known generically as “ABC-TV” are in for a name change and an identity makeover. This fuelled a rumour that the iconic ABC logo, which has been in use since 1965, would disappear from our screens.

I knew that a change to the familiar lissajous curve ABC logo would spark some discussion. I didn’t expect that The Australian newspaper would see the matter to be of such national significance to warrant a page 1 cover story! The Australian‘s Michael Bodey claimed this morning that “the (ABC’s) looping ‘squiggle’ logo will be taken off air after more than four decades in favour of a younger and fresher brand.”

As it turned out, The Australian and Mr. Bodey were wrong. Speaking to the Sydney Morning Herald, Director of Television Kim Dalton flatly denied that the logo was to be abolished and expressed frustration at The Australian’s erroneous reporting.

The ABC is planning to re-badge “ABC-TV” as “ABC1″ to better align the network with its digital-only sister station “ABC2″. The naming follows the convention used by the British Broadcasting Corporation and makes sense in light of news that the ABC is planning a children’s channel to be called ABC3. These changes would obviously involve a new set of idents, but not an abolition of the ABC logo.

The ABC has one of the most widely recognised corporate logos in Australia. Along with the Nine Network’s dots, both are renowned across the country. Abolishing the ABC logo would be as crazy as abolishing the Nine “dots” was, surely?

Back in 2005, the Nine Network was losing ratings and talent to the rival Seven Network. So Nine decided a re-brand was in order and the “dots” were dropped.

The dots dated back to the opening of Sydney station TCN9 in 1956, and were so successful as a corporate identity that they even spread to Nine affiliates such as Darwin’s NTD8, Newcastle’s NBN3 and Wollongong’s WIN4 that didn’t even broadcast on analogue Channel 9! Yet in 2006 they were scrapped in a multimillion dollar “corporate makeover” that sparked considerable controversy in media circles. The move was a branding failure and after 18 months, the ‘dots‘ are back with a vengeance.

Unlike the Nine Network, the ABC is aware of the value of its logo and so won’t make the same stupid mistake. The Australian newspaper (and a blog) released a “leaked logo” for ABC1 (shown below) but ABC management told Crikey that the logo is incorrect. The new “ABC1″ will be launched on Monday 4 February and the ABC is refusing to release the official ABC1 logo until then.

Some commentators have suggested that having “ABC1″ on analogue Channel 2 may cause confusion, however this will only be an issue in the major capital cities since ABC television is broadcast on other channels in the regional centres. And most people will probably cope anyway as the station will still be available on VHF Channel 2 (or whatever frequency it had previously broadcast on in any particular district).

I’ll watch with interest to see how successful the launch of the new-look ABC1 and ABC2 are. I do wonder if the “incorrect” ABC1 logo wasn’t leaked to stir-up media attention (and thus free promotion) for ABC Television ahead of the re-branding?

The nineties was the era of grunge and electronic dance music and Triple J was leading the pack in broadcasting new music from these genres. I recall the delight in finally discovering this amazing station and its unique blend of music. Its announcers were amusing and knowledgeable and the station had a significant cultural and social relevance to me. It rocked!

But something has gone terribly wrong at Triple J since those glory days.

The station seems to be having trouble connecting with its audience. Rather than face up to the challenge, the station has chosen to blame Nova, blame the audience and even blame the former Howard government!

In essence, I believe that:

1. Triple J is arrogant and doesn’t understand its audience.
2. The music Triple plays is not what the audience wants to hear anymore.
3. Triple J’s announcers are mostly dull and boring, or just strange.
4. The on-air presentation is mediocre, if not plain bad.

I have always really enjoyed listening to Triple J, but I am fast wearing tired of the ABC’s youth station. So let’s explore these issues in some more detail to see why “the j’s” have ended up like this.

I recently read an interesting article on Crikey by Michael Tunn, an ex-Triple J announcer. Back in July, Tunn noted that in his city of Adelaide, Mix 102.3 (Radio 5ADD) regularly out-performs 5JJJ in what is supposed to be Triple J’s target market - 18 to 24 year olds. This is despite Mix’s target demographic being women aged over 35! Indeed, a scan at the Melbourne radio ratings for December 2007 shows that 3JJJ recorded just 5.3% of the 18-24 market, compared to rival Nova 100 (3MEL) which captured 31.1% of that audience and 3FOX with 26.9%. You may ask what Nova and Fox have that Triple J doesn’t? Relevance is the answer.

If you tune into Nova (Triple J’s major competitor) or other commercial FM music stations, they’re polished. Their announcers are fast-paced and witty, the music is constant and there is a general feel that something interesting is happening or about to happen. The news is local and the personalities (for the most part) are engaging. In contrast, Triple J sounds like crappy community radio a lot of the time.

Long gone are the glory days of Helen Razor and Judith Lucy with The Ladies Lounge or Chris and Craig with Today Today. These days we get the occasionally engaging and rarely amusing Top Shelf with Robbie Buck at drive time. No wonder people prefer to listen to Hamish and Andy on the commercial stations. People like to laugh on the way home from work, not be bored with long interviews.

Back in 2003, when Richard Kingsmill took over at Triple J, he told The Age “I think Triple J has the potential to be the best radio station in Australia, if not one of the best in the world. But we let ourselves down too often. We can be great one moment and pretty average the next. At times we sound like the worst community radio station around. We need to realise that our competition is on the ball, so we need to be on the ball, too.”

A lot of this “community station sound” has to do with dead air because Triple J is full of it. From stuttering young announcers waffling about who-knows-what to fill gaps between songs to “technical problems” with CD players, its so often sounds amateurish. Listen to Nova and the songs seamlessly glide from one to the next. Their announcers sound excited and keen. They use backing tracks behind the announcements for interest and continuity. The broadcast sounds dynamic and people enjoy it.

But lack of polish alone doesn’t account for poor ratings at Triple J. The lack of listeners has as much to do with the music as anything else.

Triple J has always had the challenge of balancing “alternative” and “popular”. In my opinion, the station needs some commercially popular music in order to expose their audience to the alternative songs. That’s what Nova does successfully and what Triple J used to do too, but hardly any more.

As an example, Triple J used to play music by Primary, a Sydney-based electro-rock band that featured the distinct vocals of Connie Mitchell. Mitchell has since moved on to Sneaky Sound System which is musically similar to Primary. And whilst Sneaky has become an ARIA charts success with its unique brand of music and Nova has been playing their songs on high-rotation, Triple J has ignored them completely. Why? I have no doubt that a Triple J audience would enjoy this music. Nova’s ratings would confirm this, since they’re credited with eroding the Triple J audience.

Perhaps the music committee at Triple J really is out of touch with what young people enjoy listening to?

I say this because Triple J announcers seem to be afflicted with a peculiar sort of musical élitism. They deride their commercial counterparts’ musical line-up as if ‘alternative’ is superior to ‘pop’ somehow without recognising that taste is involved. This holier-than-thou approach does nothing to win audience share. Commercial stations see no need to deride Triple J audiences, so why the reverse? Surely a confident station would see no need to engage in this juvenile behaviour.

It is not shameful to like Britney Spears’ music. Sure, I don’t like Briteney Spears and I wouldn’t want her played on Triple J (or my CD player) for a second, but her music’s not inferior, just different and not to my taste.

Yet staff at Triple J can’t understand this. So whilst Triple J pretends to promote variety of music and be open and tolerant, they self-indulgently focus ever more on their favoured hip-hop, reggae and garage sounds at the expense of music that their target audience will actually enjoy. Michael Tunn summed it up nicely when he said Triple J needs to “stop being scared of being mainstream”.

Triple J staff need to understand that people listen to Nova for a reason. Even if Nova plays Shakira or Britney and other sugar-sweet teen-pop artists, they also play music that Triple J would once have considered appropriate for airplay. And whilst Nova isn’t faultless, a 50% slump in Triple J ratings cannot be ignored, even by the ABC.

The problem with the Triple J staff is not just their attitude, but their presentation too. In a way it comes back to the concept of polish.

Is it really too much to expect a prime-time announcer not to “um” or stutter? Listening to Vijay Khurana is just painful, especially when he talks to a caller live-to-air. Dave Callan isn’t much better. The ums and arrs, the delayed waffle whilst changing CD’s and the painful “So, what are you up to this weekend?” talkback is sometimes too much. Okay, if the caller is doing something different or interesting, let us know. If they’re going to get pissed on the front verandah with mates over the weekend and that’s all they’ll tell us, what do I care? Just play some music!

For all the criticisms I’ve made of Triple J, I do acknowledge the good work that they continue to do and have done. Their tireless promotion of emerging Australian music is something for which the nation can be grateful. And Triple J’s preparedness to play new music long before commercial stations is a testament to their brevity. And the station does still have some excellent announcers like Gaby Brown and Mel Bampton. Yet these alone aren’t good enough.

Triple J has major deficiencies. It has no local news call and no local weather. (Scott Dooley even once complained on air “why do people need to know what the weather is anyway?”). Perhaps some regionalised broadcasting would be nice? Simply syndicating everything from 2JJJ in Sydney isn’t good enough. And finally, the employees at the station need to get of their high horse and find out why their audience are listening to the other stations, and what music they enjoy listening-to rather than condemning them for liking it.

For if they don’t do something soon, there won’t be much justification for the ABC (and the Australian taxpayer) to maintain Triple J at all. Triple J is unlikely going to be number 1 any time soon, but it should come close if it is meeting its charter obligations to young Australians.