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THE "SLUTS" REVENGE

It was a strange question. A vulgar and insulting question. But it was, perhaps, indicative of the ignorant crassness of the boofheads who inhabited the executive offices of the radio station from which I have recently been ejected.

"What do those sluts in the Hinch office do after he gets off air?"

The "sluts" were the two hard-working female producers who had been in my office since 6a.m., poring through newspapers, the news agencies and the Internet and hitting the phones to drag people out of bed for possible interviews on the Hinch programme. Then manning the post and the phones for three and a half hours of live, controversial, high-pressure radio.

The radio "expert" executive thought they should also kick in and do a couple more hours on the road as roaming radio journalists "to get our logo on the six o 'clock TV news".

Around the time of that edifying exchange I sat in the office of station Managing Director Jeff Chatfield as he goaded his so-called Programme Manager -- who was not allowed to programme anything. Chatfield, the jumbo-sized boss, told Denis O'Kane: "Go on. Have some balls. "Sack Kennett"

(Wisely, the former Victorian Premier, and quickly disillusioned talkback host, quit as a performer and a company director several days later).

Welcome to the Richmond Follies. Welcome to Talk 1116- 3AK, the station that recruited some big names to take on the commercial giants at 3AW. And sadly fell on a self-made rusty sword.

This truly is a "more in sorrow than in anger" report on my swansong from Swan Street. I am a serious shareholder in the company that owns 3AK and sister station 3MP. I bought shares in Data and Commerce at 30 cents and saw them drop to less than eight cents this week. Immodestly I believe my sacking will push the price even lower.

I also have a million options in the company. Options, I suspect, that will eventually be more effective papering the latrine.

But my melancholia about AK has nothing to do with share prices. It has more to do with what I said a year ago when they sacked me for the first time. I passionately believed in what a few of us set out to achieve. To provide an alternative voice in a major, sophisticated city. A city which can, and should, have two competitive commercial talk stations.

I believed that AK could be an admitted David against the Goliath that, ironically, I gave birth to in my glory days at 3AW in the 1980s.

For the first time in yonks AW has been vulnerable, takeable. If the droning, pedantic, ABC can knock off AW imagine the window of opportunity for a sharp and snappy and professional commercial station?

Mitchell is tired, Sigley has stayed too long at the fair and Zemanek, the red-necked rooster, is a one-trick pony. Even the top-rating breakfast programme has problems because Ross Stevenson treads on his new sidekick if he dares open his mouth.

So, into the fray comes the new fearless, intrepid TALK 1116-3AK led by a couple of hotshots from Perth and Singapore who were so impressive I nicknamed them Tellytubby One and Tellytubby Two.

It made life a mite difficult when, during one difference of opinion, the managing director protested that "I didn't say that. Tellytubby Two said that"!

The first night I had dinner with the new owner's one of them, after a couple of glasses of wine, proudly announced "We are cowboys!"

It didn't take long for me to work out they were cowboys from the Gang that Couldn't Shoot Straight.

There were memos you would guess were written by John Cleese. An instruction that any staff members who owned shares should take a day off their annual leave to go to the annual general meeting.

A query as to why Hinch needed to buy and read Sydney newspapers and magazines like the Bulletin. Couldn't his producers read his papers once he'd finished with them? Couldn't people photocopy pages rather than cut them up? Why did Hinch's producers spend their time reading papers during the programme?

(I was once challenged by the MD because Nicole Bland, my producer, was not only reading a paper while I was on air but reading the SPORTS pages. The fact that she was about to do a thirty-minute unpaid sports spot on air eluded him).

An advertiser named Ron Hall bought lots of shares. They made him de facto programmer. He would call the breakfast programme mid-morning and order them to terminate an interview, cut a joke, ban a music sting. He arbitrarily sacked a great broadcaster, John Blackman, mid-week. "Personal personality clash" They said.

Ronnie Pots "n Pans, as he is known, made a fortune owning the Reject shops. Now he owns and runs a reject radio station.

Hall offered my shift to Kennett several months ago. When Kennett asked what would happen to Hinch he was told not to bother. "Hinch is going back to live and work in New Zealand". When I raised that months later with Tellytubby One his emphatic response was: "No comment!"

We ran a Radiothon for the Variety Club and generous listeners gave
money to buy bikes for 278 underprivileged kids. A total of 210 were
donated on my programme.

I came back from holidays this month for the wonderful, emotional
handover of the bikes from donors to kids in Federation Square.

Talk1116-3AK got heaps of plaudits. Only a few of us knew that the bozos who ran the place tried to cancel the Radiothon because
"What the eff is in it for us?"

They built a new studio in Richmond for which they should be applauded. Cost around a million dollars they did not seem to have. Then they ordered staff to sign new contracts which virtually said if anything broke on your shift you had to pay for it. They then ordered producers and presenters not to eat or drink in the pristine area - even though some of the weekend people would be there for six or seven hours straight. One rule-follower fainted.

What sums them up best I think is an anecdote sparked by my sacking. Producers were ordered not to put a flood of dissenting listeners calls to air. When a producer asked a Tellytubby what she should do with the avalanche of calls she was told: "Just hang up on them."

I mean, what the hell, they are only listeners after all. This is radio. Who needs them? A radio station with listeners? At 3AK some people still dream.

hinch@hinch.net

December 22, 2002

©Copyright Derryn Hinch 2002