Odd as it may seem, a sandwich board outside the Vaucluse Hospital in the Melbourne suburb of Brunswick today was advertising cigarettes for sale from the hospital’s kiosk.
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.
I like taking photos. I like architecture. So when I saw that the Melbourne Theatre Company (MTC) and Melbourne Recital Centre were jointly hosting an open day to show-off their brand new landmark buildings, I thought that this was an opportunity not to be missed.
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.
Music fans familiar with the ‘Men at Work’ classic Land Down Under could be in for quite a shock now that American DJ Lobsterdust has reworked the iconic Australian song into a mashup featuring none other than US rap artist 50 Cent (Curtis James Jackson III).
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!
Not since the Nine Network controversially removed the “dots” from their logo in 2006 has there been so much debate over a television network’s identification. Or any logo for that matter.
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?
When I was a teenager back in 1990′s Melbourne, Triple J was unquestionably the station to listen to if one didn’t want to listen to teen pop or classic rock.
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:
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.
Recent Comments...