Memo Radio National: Customer Care Required

During one truly awful programme on Radio NZ National’s patchwork Summer Schedule a distressed listener, fed up with the garbage going to air, e-mailed: ‘Don’t you realise we have nothing else?’

The caller may well have been the programme’s producer.

All workers deserve bach-time but Radio National’s clients deserve something better than the audio rubbish tipped over them for most of January. If the station’s products had been subject to consumer legislation there’d be recall notices out now.

What had we done that was so wrong for us to be treated so badly? We’ve listened faithfully come rain or more rain; we’ve stayed the distance, never tweaking the tuner even when standards slumped. We’ve always put you first. Friends have been repelled, appointments cancelled and visitors snubbed rather than turn down the volume and miss something vital.

Buying batteries for the trannie has always taken priority over the lamb chops. No protein on the plate? No probs, just as long as there’s been meat for the mind.

It was assumed this respect was mutual. Then in the midst of the festive season you turned Judas, dumping us at the time of our greatest need.

You knew we lusted for intellectual nourishment and for almost 11 months generally satisfied our desires. Just because the minister in charge of promoting NZ tourism dozes in Hawaii while the economy is in free-fall doesn’t mean RN management has to follow the mega-millionaire’s example.

The PM may have serious duties as he will soon discover, but by comparison these are slight: RN is the custodian of our culture and that’s an awesome responsibility.

By mid December the politicians had stopped pontificating. The courts had closed except to process the bashers, hoons, drunks and other Godzone-spoilers. The government’s meisterspinners had given up ransacking the language to prove night is day and dogs are cats.

Business forecasters had been sucked into the economy’s great black hole by the gravity of the situation.

This great zone of silence, this vast blank audio canvas, this clear-felled soundscape presented great and glorious opportunities for real creativity and risk-taking radio.

But what did we get? The appropriately-named Matinee Idle where two unfunny jokers rammed their crass jollity in the style favoured by commercial DJs with nothing between their earphones apart from believing that noise makes sense. Deep Purple in mid afternoon – whatever happened to the Kiwi values of a Fair Go?

A couple trying hard with a late breakfast, displaying some initiative but still proving how good Geoff Robinson and Sean Plunket can be when they have a full house of producers and researchers feeding the lines and arranging the birdcalls.

Last year we heard the sage one was quitting because of age, the rough one in rage. It seems these tactics didn’t flush out better offers so they’re coming back, proof that the media really is in a bad way.

Last year Kathryn Ryan won a black belt in media by staying in charge through a verbal wrestling with the acerbic Brit Robert Winston. His many honours include a knighthood for curmudgeonly behaviour towards fellow broadcasters who might be equally smart.

Her replacement didn’t take over the morning slot. Who could against that record? Summer Noelle just filled a wee nook in the big empty space, delivering two hours of wispy wireless as nutritious as fairy floss. And this when the international economy is imploding and zillions face poverty. To be fair she’d be easy listening if scheduled 12 hours later.

If the station had to look overseas for fillers, why the Prairie Home Companion? The ABC (the one across The Ditch, not the one that pads TVNZ telecasts with clips promoting movies masquerading as news) has some grand programmes of universal appeal that aren’t culture bound like the faux folksy Garrison Keillor from a hemisphere far away.

This guy may be great in Minnesota, but he doesn’t come within coo-ee of RN’s Jim Mora and Simon Morton for good old-fashioned communication.

In its defence RN might argue that going slippy, sloppy and slappy in the silly season is traditional, and that listeners don’t want the gritty stuff 365 days a year.

Maybe that applies to the four out of five Kiwis who don’t tune in to RN, but not those hard-wired to spoken word radio. We may relax our bodies in summer, though not our minds. Those who want muzac made overseas can always dial Vodafone and wait 40 minutes for a human to come on line.

The rest of the world doesn’t go off air and we don’t want to tune out of the universe. Just because the great dissembler from NZ First has gone to ground doesn’t mean others aren’t ready to bluster and confront, antagonise and entertain. The challenge is to dig them up.

At least the Dom Post thought ahead. It put in Freedom of Information requests and fossicked elsewhere for nuggets. Yet the paper still looks hollow.

Too late now to make amends. Radio NZ National is returning to business and we can plug back into the world. Right now is a good time for the station management to start planning for January 2010.

The station has talent in abundance, though apparently not in the department that handles annual leave. Does everyone have to go to the beach at the same time?

Duncan Graham is a former Australian Journalist now living in Wellington. See http://www.indonesianow.blogspot.com.

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