OPINION: ABC Radio’s The Media Report is dead. Good.
While it may be bad karma to speak ill of the dead, I’m going to risk it.
This weekend, ABC National finally put The Media Report out of its misery (not that you’d know it by looking at its web site).
It went out in much the same way it’s been meandering on for the last few years – with something dreary, lacking in topicality and repetitive. On this occasion it was a programme on media chefs that could have been broadcast at any time in the last couple of years (apart from a bit of a voiceover, most of it was actually a repeat from last year).
There was some fuss when ABC National took the axe to its specialty lineup. But The Media Report did not deserve to be saved. And like many of those shows, it had a small audience.
Spot on, Tim. I struggled through this program week after week in the hope something interesting might one day happen on the show (a fire in the studio, perhaps). When it did cover an interesting trend or issue, it was often weeks behind the pace and I’d heard or read about it elsewhere, such as the superb ‘On the Media’ program on NPR in the US (www.onthemedia.org).
It did kinda lose it’s way, more’s the pity. The replacement program, Future Tense, starts this Thursday and is hosted by … Antony Funnell.
Hardly a big loss. Your dead right in your analogy of it’s coverage – be it struggles in journalism or other obscure topics. Funnell or his crew never stepped out and took risk on something a bit more groundbreaking – It often felt almost like listening in the 50s/60s – bar the internet references.
Media deserves a thriving, rigorous and well honed debate. TMR failed to deliver.
“Defendants”? I think you mean the shows “defenders” (although there may be a case for putting people on trial for bad radio).
Ta, Steve. I always did have a problem with words…
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella