****ing radio | Monday, May 22, 2006 |
Broadcasting guidelines must be different to the UK. Even the alternative radio stations in the UK (such as they are), are obliged to bleep the more earthy terms from song lyrics and the dj's rarely say boo to a goose (though to be fair I was pretty much a Radio 4 guy when in London).
Here though, they play a quick "bad language, turn down for a few minutes" message then launch into it. Callers and presenters are un-bleeped. This is on Triple J a station that grew out of student radio in Melbourne, but even on ABC's Radio National which is as close to Radio 4 as can be gotten here, the speech is pretty much unrestricted.
A while back, for whatever reason a presenter was talking to someone on the phone probably about the Beatles. In any event, the subject of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (I'm not sure if it warrents a 'the', but accept it for the sake of argument please) arose.
The presenter said something along the lines of "he [the Maharishi] was a bit of a starfucker, wasn't he?". It was something of a suprise after coming from a place where the "Where the bloody hell are you" ad campaign got some stick.
We're gravitating between Triple J for music, and ABC Radio National for news, current affairs and stuff to stop my brain going soggy. Presumably for spectrum congestion reasons, Sydney (along with near neighbour Newcastle) seem to be the only places in Australia that cannot get ABC RN on the FM frequencies - we're stuck with AM which means that it's relegated to use in the car. Interestingly Triple J is also part of the ABC stable - to be honest, I'm not even sure if they have commercial radio here. Well, of couse, they do, I just find no reason to bother with it. Like the UK, the state broadcaster is doing an excellent job (if you can overlook frequency complaints here in the Sydney Metro area for ABC RN)
AM reception here needs an ariel that's going to cost over $100 (when you consider that I got a pristeen condition Pioneer AM/FM tuner from eBay for about $50 I'm not ready to pay twice the amount for what amounts to a bunch of wire). The tuner gets heaps more use than the TV (well, we use the TV loads for watching torrents, but very little TV).
Here though, they play a quick "bad language, turn down for a few minutes" message then launch into it. Callers and presenters are un-bleeped. This is on Triple J a station that grew out of student radio in Melbourne, but even on ABC's Radio National which is as close to Radio 4 as can be gotten here, the speech is pretty much unrestricted.
A while back, for whatever reason a presenter was talking to someone on the phone probably about the Beatles. In any event, the subject of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (I'm not sure if it warrents a 'the', but accept it for the sake of argument please) arose.
The presenter said something along the lines of "he [the Maharishi] was a bit of a starfucker, wasn't he?". It was something of a suprise after coming from a place where the "Where the bloody hell are you" ad campaign got some stick.
We're gravitating between Triple J for music, and ABC Radio National for news, current affairs and stuff to stop my brain going soggy. Presumably for spectrum congestion reasons, Sydney (along with near neighbour Newcastle) seem to be the only places in Australia that cannot get ABC RN on the FM frequencies - we're stuck with AM which means that it's relegated to use in the car. Interestingly Triple J is also part of the ABC stable - to be honest, I'm not even sure if they have commercial radio here. Well, of couse, they do, I just find no reason to bother with it. Like the UK, the state broadcaster is doing an excellent job (if you can overlook frequency complaints here in the Sydney Metro area for ABC RN)
AM reception here needs an ariel that's going to cost over $100 (when you consider that I got a pristeen condition Pioneer AM/FM tuner from eBay for about $50 I'm not ready to pay twice the amount for what amounts to a bunch of wire). The tuner gets heaps more use than the TV (well, we use the TV loads for watching torrents, but very little TV).
