I love radio far more than I like movies and tv. To communicate by voice alone is a wonderful thing. I voraciously consume podcasts from Our ABC and the BBC.
This is an old photo, perhaps 15 years old or more, that I came across god knows where.
The Christ like person at the back is retired ABC Melbourne radio evening presenter Derek Guille, a consummate broadcaster with a great interest in music.
On the right is sacked ABC Melbourne breakfast presenter Red Symons who was also a glam band former pop star. He was popular and I don't think any regular listener understands why he had to go. Generational change, I suppose.
Red as a member of the band Skyhooks. He had a bad 2018. His twenty plus year old son died from cancer, he was sacked as an ABC presenter and his marriage broke up.
Attracting a younger demographic and diversity is the only reason I can think of for replacing him, with the replacements being Jacinta Parsons and Sami Shah. It was a very shaky start for them, with Symons' devoted audience missing him terribly. To its credit, ABC management stuck by Sami and Jacinta and while they perhaps don't rate as well as Symons, they seem to be accepted now as ABC presenters. I quite like them but it has taken a while.
Now to the two unmentioned at the front in the first photo. One is ABC Breakfast News TV presenter Virginia Trioli and formerly an ABC Melbourne Drive radio presenter. I first noticed her when she wrote a newspaper column or single story for perhaps The Canberra Times many years ago. The other is Jon Faine, aka El Faino. Faine looked almost decent back then. Now he looks like a mad professor. He is retiring at the end of the year and for something like twenty years he has been presenting the morning show for ABC Melbourne. He is a brilliant broadcaster, a tough interviewer of politicians, not afraid of showing emotion and has a good sense of humour.
He is a hard act to follow, but there is no dispute from anyone that I have heard that Virginia Trioli won't step into his large shoes with aplomb. Good choice, Our ABC, but a word of advice. Three and half hours talking from 8:30 to noon is too long for one presenter five days a week. Perhaps to our local disadvantage but as long as Richard Fidler's Conversation Hour isn't too Sydneycentric, I believe his show goes to the rest of Australia, then I expect we could cope if he was broadcast here.
He is a hard act to follow, but there is no dispute from anyone that I have heard that Virginia Trioli won't step into his large shoes with aplomb. Good choice, Our ABC, but a word of advice. Three and half hours talking from 8:30 to noon is too long for one presenter five days a week. Perhaps to our local disadvantage but as long as Richard Fidler's Conversation Hour isn't too Sydneycentric, I believe his show goes to the rest of Australia, then I expect we could cope if he was broadcast here.