Frank Avis' Memoirs of 42 Years in Radio

Frank Avis Departs 2 DAY FM, and Spends a Little Time at 2SM before 2UW/MIX

2009-09-24T12:00:00+10:00

During my time at 2DAY Grant Goldman asked me if I'd do some news lectures at his radio school. It was a really interesting assignment and I threw myself into the role. It allowed me to come up with a programme which proved really useful when my teaching career took off in another direction.

A short time after I finished my lectures with Goldy's group Lois Baird, head of the Radio Division at AFTRS (Australian Film, TV, Radio School at Macquarie) rang to ask if I could do some guest lectures.

These ended up going for a couple of years and they were very enjoyable.

AFTRS was a separate organisation but just next door to Macquarie Uni and was a very "hands on" operation.

My programme usually operated in this format:

THE BIG STORY. We all sat round a desk, playing radio journos, dealing with a big story.

I usually gave them an initial report, for example, two planes have crashed in the Canary Islands, or Prime Minister Harold Holt is reported missing while surfing at Portsea, etc. They spent the next couple of hours writing updates and bulletins and figuring out how they were going to chase the story.

It worked really effectively. I also explained to them that, as the story unfolded and they realized it was going to be really big, it was their duty to be on the lookout for soundbites which they could reserve for the newsroom history tape (if they had one) for future use. I gave them the example of the listener who rang me at 3XY back in the 60's to report on the Westgate Bridge disaster. I said how his report on watching the bridge come down contained a lot of static, but that I opted to leave the eyewitness report uncut, preserving the static. I hear the report from time to time and the static in between the man's sentences gives it an amazing authenticity.

We also always checked the morning news. Each student had to tape the 8 AM news on a particular station and we then sat down that night and compared the product and debated what the various newsrooms decided to do and how they did it.

We ended the programme with everybody doing their own bulletin and reading it. I think that anyone going through the process would have emerged with a very realistic understanding of how a radio newsroom works.

I'd even use background tapes as they tried to prepare their bulletins so that they'd be happily typing away only to find themselves constantly pressured by announcements coming down the line from Police PR, Ambulance, Fire Brigade Central Control, Weather stats, etc, etc. One thing I can tell you is don't go into a newsroom unless you can deal with a lot of intrusive noise.

We enlisted a range of top names on the final night to critique and just plain rap with the students which was excellent exposure to the trade. These included Steve Blanda, Arch McKirdy and some of my own staffers, like Michelle Aleksandrovics and Toni Anne Mathews, who were able to give the class a realistic view of what they were looking at if they chose to go ahead and seek a career in radio news.

One of the key Frank Avis teachings was the use of "INDICATORS". I've been using them since my days at 7HO in Hobart and the key reason is the belief that a journalist should not only report the news but should, where possible, put it in CONTEXT. This is the reason I always dragged my Frank Avis files with me from newsroom to newsroom. Because I always wanted to keep information IN CONTEXT.

The theory is extremely simple. Let's say Sydney had an incredibly cold night in mid winter and actually recorded an official snowfall in the city. It's obviously a good story but gets even better if you know that it's Sydney's first snowfall since 1868. So your story suddenly becomes something else... That Sydney has had its first snowfall in 141 years. (PS. I'm only making up this information by the way so to give you an example. I haven't checked Sydney's snowfall figures, though I suspect it's quite rare).

It's not just the fact that our temperature overnight was minus 6 but that the city has had "it's coldest August night in 110 years".

We used to discuss this sort of thing a lot at 2DAY FM and MIX 106.5. I remember we were always looking for information which would stick in our audiences' mind. Classically, we were looking to build up this basic trust with our listeners so that they could depend on us to give them critical information, providing them with a weapon in the constant battle for one-upsmanship.

Just imagine four people are having their morning coffee at work, sitting round discussing the day's events. They get to saying "how cold it was last night". Three of them then go into great detail about how it got down to minus 6. Then the fourth member of the group, the one who's been listening to our station, is able to slip in and say, "It was our coldest night in 110 years." Cop that guys, that's a real clincher. It tells you not only that it was cold but HOW COLD. It is an INDICATOR that puts the information in context. You can use these INDICATORS effectively on a wide range of stories.

I recall something really nice happening after my classes. I'd been talking to students about making sure you get the interview at the scene and I remember telling them that if they were in a situation where the TV crew went in one direction and the other journalists in another, GO WITH THE TV CREW. It wasn't that the TV crew would always get their eyewitness, but rather that the eyewitness would always find the TV crew. Everyone laughed at the time, but somebody must have been paying attention because one morning I got a call from a student, I think it was Catherine McGath, who said she'd been working in I think it might have been Wollongong radio when she faced exactly the situation as described. All the journos went running in one direction and the local TV crew went in another. She took a couple of steps in the direction of her opposition journos and then remembered the AFTRS advice. She stopped and ran after the TV crew. She was the only radio journo to get the eyewitness. Boy her boss was impressed. I just love phone calls like that.

The other thing that happened while I was at 2DAY FM was that I joined a tour by travel reporters for a month in India. The trouble was the whole thing was a bit of a mess and 28 out of the original 30 journalists canceled out. That left just yours truly and Ted, a cameraman from the Courier Mail, who actually took the trip. We both wanted to cancel but organizers begged us to carry on. We did so, but it was so embarrassing as we arrived at City after City with officials looking at the two of us and asking, "Where's the other 28?"

I only mention this because it was quite a highlight seeing this incredible country and it allows me to pop in a couple of shots of Ted and Frank in India (with apologies to our high tech team at Production Headquarters).

So back to radio. Oh yes and I'm realizing my brain hasn't been working that well. I should also be remembering other identities at 2 DAY, including Warren Burr (went on to 2KY I think), Graeme Virgo (he did some work for me later at 2UW/MIX), Norris Smith, Richard Wilkins (you know where he is now), Rachael Mackenzie, Lee Wallis, John O'Donnell, Mike Hammond (now the "voice and face" of Foxtel), Mike Petrie and Matt McGrane (I was sitting at a bus stop outside Aus Film Corporation in Kings Cross last year and this tall guy sat down on the seat, looked at me and said, "How are you Frank?" It was Matt. How he recognized me from 2 DAY FM is beyond me but there you are).

I remember leaving 2 DAY FM. I think I was called in to the GM's office - as I recall Bob Scott, ex WS, had now taken over following Austereo's arrival - and we agreed that I'd be moving on with Glen Daniel, also ex WS, taking over as ND. It was all very civil and to be honest I was happy to move on. Well, I was just preparing to leave the newsroom for the last time when the phone rang. It was radio legend Ken Sparkes who had taken over assisting 2SM. He wanted to know if I'd do the breakfast slot at SM.

Frankly, I just wanted to take a couple of months off while I assessed my career. I was seriously thinking of setting up a syndicated travel show across Australia. Anyway I went down to Blues Point Road and had a coffee with Sparksey who told me he'd need me to start on Monday morning (It was now Thursday afternoon). I wanted to say NO, I knew I should say NO, but this was Ken Sparkes. A seriously nice bloke so I said YES.

Then I found out that the News Director Anne Edwards was on holidays in deepest Africa. I told station management there wasn't the faintest chance I'd start work without the approval of the ND.

Sometime Saturday Ken rang me to say they'd phoned her and everything was fine.

Oh God, it wasn't good. The station was on its way down to the canvas and was continuing with a mixed format which just wasn't going to hold up under the pressure of FM and specialist AM'ers.

But Ken and his associates were so committed and so keen to make it work that it was impossible not to want to help.

We all tried pretty hard, really, over the next 12 months or so.

I remember quite a few people there... James Knight, Bronwyn Martin, Gareth Macrae, Katherine Hynes, Normie Rowe amongst them… But I think we all knew the place was heading for a brick wall.

Eventually, they called us in to tell us SM had been sold and I had a chat to the new operators who said they planned to specialize in COUNTRY MUSIC. I nearly fell over, rolled my eyes and said they'd be destroyed in the Sydney market. They responded that they'd carried out a wide-ranging survey and found out that the people were desperate for Country music. (John Laws gave Brendan Sheedy the same advice about programming 2 DAY FM. PS He didn't take it.) I don't know where they surveyed but they could have saved themselves the money and just asked me. I think we all know what happened to that concept. I know I walked out of the front doors at SM muttering, "I've got to get out of this industry."

I have to admit that I would desperately love to programme 2SM, even today, when it has suffered untold damage in the marketplace. I've written several letters to the owner explaining how the station has to go into specialist programming and what that should be. But so far all I hear is silence.

Ah, but that's another story.

So bye bye 2SM. I sort of hung around for a while, did a bit of advisory work, potted around until I got a call from UW asking if I could fill in for some weekend news. I did this, probably just OK, and eventually I did some Breakfast news filling in when Ross Symonds went on holidays. Then UW and Pam Mackay parted company and I found myself back as ND at a metro station again. And it went reasonably well. I was hired by the GM John Williams, probably the best station manager I've worked with to be honest.

He spoke directly and honestly to me, never went back on a deal and always took responsibility when he felt it was appropriate for him to do so. I found him absolutely excellent. Cherie Romaro was back as PD and I also remember our Chief Engineer Bob Girdo, senior programmers Peter Sinclair and Dave Smith (I think Dave was the PD who nicknamed me "the Leg", as in Legend, which was very kind), Ellie Specht, along with news staffers David Glyde, Jacqui Dolan, Angie Nelson, Jenny May, John Kesby, Keith Chalmers, Ken Hose, Toni Anne Mathews (she now goes under the name Toni Mathews at ABC NEWS so I have to ring her again to tell her I love her full name), Deborah Knight, John Costello and Peter Switzer. With the full support of John and Cherie I set about cleaning up the joint. We dropped as many of the notorious "voicers" as we could and strove to use only genuine actuality. I think it made a huge difference. I know I had a really nice message one day from a senior programmer at the ABC of all places, congratulating me on the clean sound we'd achieved at UW News. I didn't even know the guy, so that was very, very nice to hear. It's amazing how you hear all the bad stuff but not a lot that's positive.

I also had a similar experience during the Great Bushfires that threatened to destroy Sydney in that period. We virtually had to run the newsroom from 5 AM to around 3 AM for a fortnight while the fires burned through Sydney. Anyway the first thing I said to the staff was to listen to the opposition stations and note the overall impression of "hysteria". Reports just happened, the stations ran from scene to scene with the obvious conclusion that the audience found it really difficult to understand just what was really going on.

We instituted a clear policy to START WITH AN OVERVIEW and then to cover the area geographically. The result was that our listeners had a regular update which summarized the situation and could then follow the rest of the hour with specialist information, area by area. I got a really nice phone call from a senior officer at Fire Control after everything had quietened down and he told me that we were the only station they were listening to, the only place that seemed to make any overall sense. That was another one of those unexpected calls which we all love to get.

The next amazing event was the decision to change UW from the AM band to MIX 106.5 on FM.

I'd already had the unusual honour of putting two new stations to air, 3MP and MMM, and now I could include switching an AMer to FM, a different beast indeed. We'd already been softening UW news so it wasn't a big step to move into an FM format which was looking for a strong female component, 25's to 45's. The one big decision was Breakfast news, especially with the unexpected decision to bring Mike Carlton back from London to launch the FM format in Breakfast. Our reader was Ross Symonds, a nice man, and a top news reader. The trouble was that we no long wanted a "professional reader", we wanted a conversationalist, someone who could pass on the news in a natural style without surrendering authority. The answer was Michelle Aleksandrovics, easily the best female reader I've heard in my career, and one of the top five, male or female. She and Carlton were not together that long but they were absolutely brilliant. Mike quickly involved Michelle in Breakfast as the two teamed up like a dream.

Before that though we had the great difficulty of discussing the decision with Ross who had worked long and hard at UW and was something of a figurehead there. Once again, GM John Williams stepped forward and took responsibility for this difficult assignment which I'm know he handled with great sensitivity.

The changeover went exceptionally well. I've got to say I was amazed when they told us Mike Carlton was going to do FM breakfast, but I've got to admit that after 6 weeks or so I saw tremendous potential in the presentation especially with Carlton increasingly using the softening influence of Michelle.

The problem was the show was cluttered with a lot of additional stuff, including a comedy group.

It was really difficult to be on the sidelines there, listening to the show, and wanting to say to the Management/Programmers that the whole thing had to be "de-cluttered". I wanted so much to say to somebody, "Just let the music, news and info roll and Carlton will do the rest," but I couldn't intervene at that level. Sadly, the experiment ended after that first year and we'll never know what would have happened. What I do know is that Mike could have carried a lot more of the load. He was a Sydney institution, he knew how the city and the nation clicked, had a great sense of humour (quite vicious if required) and all we had to do was run the music and the info and just let Mike be Mike. He didn't need all of the additional gunk, it just clogged up the arteries. Oh well, it's gone now but the original idea was not far short of the mark. This concept should have worked. Don't you hate that when it happens?

Just a promo for something I plan at the end of this series, when I'll name my TOP FIVE RADIO VOICERS. Be advised MIKE CARLTON will be top of the list. Best voice I've ever heard.

Finally, the end came at MIX when the station changed hands, to be taken over by the company that also owned 2WS. We then went through a long and difficult process when the owners tried to combine the two newsrooms, to save substantial costs obviously, which would have operated out of WS.

We fought hard and, if I remember correctly, John Williams actually eventually won the battle, convincing the company that we needed to be in Neutral Bay but something happened to me… I suddenly got very old and simply decided to fade away. It was a funny decision. Things were going fine and my staff was very supportive but, what can I say? I just ran out of steam. Wanted a rest. And so I walked off into the sunset. But I still miss going over to the Oaks in Military road, meeting John Williams, sticking a steak on the barbecue and gossiping about radio.

I didn't do a great deal after that. Brendan Sheedy hired me to fill in for Angie Nelson for a fortnight at SKY NEWS but, so typical of my life, I got this horrendous flu the night before. I filled myself with some anti flu pills and kept using a nose inhaler every couple of hours but I was a hospital case by the first afternoon. I tried to keep going but I was very ill and could hardly talk so it was an overwhelming relief when PD Huw Drury rang and suggested a few days off. Boy,did I need it. Anyway, I filled in for a few nights and that was it, thank God. I think it was a big hint from fate that my time was up.

My final installment next time will update my career, but how many times can you say, "Nothing's happening," and conclude with a few opinions including the BEST VOICES, my THREE FAVORITE INTERVIEWS, some assorted TOP TENS and a few examples of what I've been doing lately (none of which could be regarded as remotely important).

Thanks for staying with me.

Frank Avis at 2 DAY FM

2009-02-15T12:00:00+10:00

It was the early 80's and I'd made the move from Bondi Junction to Crows Nest - MMM to 2DAY FM.

Part owner Graham Kennedy continued to call it TWO DAY FM despite our recommendation that it was TODAY FM, essentially for marketing purposes, but THE KING just wouldn't have it. I'd had a bit of contact with Kennedy since XY in the 60’s and he always remained totally supportive of my career. He was a very nice, extremely quiet bloke who did some hilarious routines on his old XY show.

Ask Producer Brian Newington about those days: he would have a stack of very funny memories.

When I got to 2 DAY, it really didn't take long to organize the newsroom and start putting out a moderately decent product, especially as news started out essentially as a peak-hour component.

Brendan Sheedy was in charge and if I remember correctly he soon hired Cherie Romaro to run programming along with Tony Hartney and Gerry O'Shea. Noel McGurgan was the Sales chief, but soon to take over as Chief Executive. I'm trying to remember the on air staff in those early days. I'm sure Laurie Bennett, from XY, was there and I know Tim Webster came over later on, but my memory is a big vague after that.

The Chief Engineer was The Admiral Graham Greenwood and he had organized the station to utilize an automatic system, which meant the station could run for hours without an actual "live" presenter.

Everything was mixed in the Control room, which included all of the music, commercials and the announcer “drop ins”, pre-taped prior to the shift.

It was good in theory and probably would have been effective for the late evening-mid to dawn arena, but I think it just drifted away as it became clear that all the programmes lacked immediacy.

I mean what do you do if Sydney's hit by a cyclone mid morning and the guy on air is running the show as if nothing has happened? You've got the news bulletins of course, announcing the imminent end of the Earth, but as far as the rest of the show is concerned, it's all fun and giggles.

I remember Tim used to come in an pre-tape his 9-1 shift and all I had to do every hour was pause for the news and then hit the programme start key for Tim's tape to go to the next hour.

It worked ok just as long as nothing untoward happened. Then we were in trouble.

My memory of this time is pretty hazy but I think Brendan and Cherie were already putting the fundamentals in place for the later successful 2 DAY FM "adult" contempory format, based strongly on album input. I remember at the time that I thought the programming was getting better and better by the day. Although, like MMM, there was a lot of pressure on Brendan because of the poor rating figures. It was pretty much like the earlier story of 6PR. We knew the actual listenership was improving every month but it just didn't show on the surveys. This is one of those phenomena which our peculiar industry just has to live with - there is this delay in what is actually happening among the mass audience and the confirmation of this in the monthly ratings. It can sometimes take a long time to move up the ladder, just as it can often take a long time to start moving down.

Then came one of those things that in retrospect you really can't explain.

I got a phone call from Brian Rangott, of channel 9 fame, who was a major shareholder in 3MP.

It transpires that the Board had decided to clean out the place after a series of rating disappointments.

The General Manager Ray Bean was leaving to be replaced by Norm Spencer. My pal Dean Matters had gone and Brian told me they were releasing News director Barry Owen. I was extremely sorry to hear this as I know that Barry really didn't want to replace me as ND when I left. He would have been much happier continuing in his role as the Senior reader, which he did really well. So I blamed myself for some of this, having put him in a difficult position when I resigned in the 70's. Basically, Brian was asking if I would mind assisting the station in vetting any candidates who might emerge from the Sydney market.

I loved 3MP of course, as we had a lot of history together, and I agreed to provide any assistance required. The trouble was no suitable candidates were coming forward. MP was looking for somebody to not only run the newsroom but to put ideas to Management to take the place forward. Weeks and weeks went by and no one surfaced.

Anyway, the long and short of this saga was that I decided to take up the challenge myself. I still don't know why. Just one of those things.

So, I broke the unwritten law of our industry, NEVER GO BACK.

Not only did I break it once but I broke it twice in succession. If you want to stir up the Gods of radio that’s how you do it.

I returned to Melbourne and resettled in beautiful Mt Eliza. I was actually met at the airport by Norm Spencer (I loved him... Everybody loved him) who briefed me on the trip back to the Peninsula.

I can't remember everybody but I know my old mate Ian Nicholls was in the newsroom, along with Chris Morris, Rob Curtain and the Traffic girls. Andrew Rutherford had taken over the Community Services sector including the Victoria Story and Rupert Macaw was the chief engineer.

I remember Leigh Mathews was our football expert. At DB earlier I'd worked with Ron Barassi, and earlier at XY with Jack Dyer, Bob Skilton and Barry Cable. Talk about getting close to the legends.

It was at this time that the most bizarre thing happened which I probably shouldn't even record here, but oh well, here goes. I'd come back into the newsroom late one night, I think it was a Saturday. I was probably editing a footy tape I'd done that afternoon, to be available for the Sunday breakfast. Anyway there were only two people In the place, the duty announcer and me. The jock hit the intercom and said could I take a call on what seemed to be a mysterious matter.

Anyway I picked up the phone and found myself talking to either a young police officer or the head of security at a leading Melbourne hotel. He said he needed to speak to a station executive. I said I was the only one there at that time of night, so he took my name, rank and phone contact.

Then he told me that he was questioning a group of men who had been found running naked through the hallways of the hotel. He had them in a room, apparently in various states of undress, and that several had told him they were from a country radio network, attending a meeting that weekend. He needed to speak to a 3MP official because another one of the men claimed to be one of our executives. He mentioned a name and a rough description and I was able to confirm that yes indeed there was such a person on our executive staff. The officer then thanked me and rang off. I never heard any more of the story and indeed I never mentioned this amazing tale to anybody else, until quite recently when the story surfaced while talking about old times with a former MP colleague. But it was most embarrassing and I wish I hadn't been in the newsroom that night. Funny, huh? Anyway back to the format problems.

I spent a month checking out the situation, only to quickly realize that MP's "something for everyone" policy was being shredded with the arrival of FM radio. I just stood back, listened to the market and looked at the last two surveys and realized MP couldn't survive unless it chose to make some major changes. Ideally, it needed to specialize. But I couldn't see that happening so I wrote a long memo to Norm suggesting that MP go totally mainstream by getting strongly into sport, including VFL broadcasts.

There was still one match per round available and I recommended we immediately negotiate for the spare spot with the VFL and our radio colleagues.

I think my memo came right out of left field for Norm: it was exactly the opposite to what he wanted to hear. He dismissed the whole idea and I think that may have ended his close relationship with me as the station's ND.

Norm and Brian were determined to continue MP's policy and set about cleaning up its on air sound.

Truly, they did this with a vengeance. Brian was there in the trenches, decluttering the on air content and reworking the sound of our local ads and community service input.

By the time he'd finished the station sounded magnificently professional. He did everything anyone could do to give the format a 100% chance of success.

Norm, for his part, ripped into the station's public image. He gave away a house, yes, I said a HOUSE.

He organized a huge bikeathon, picking up the concerns of the community over the abuse of energy, especially the impact of cars.

I came up with this wonderful story of a young lad who'd rescued several people on his surfboard, I think from a shark attack or perhaps a boating crash. Anyway we found out he had lost his parents and was being raised by his Grandmother. Norm opened up a special trust to pay for the rest of his education.

Norm and Brian did everything anyone could ask but the ratings continued to say "no"

It is probably the most demonstrable proof of the adage about radio that YOU CAN RATE DOING THE RIGHT THING BADLY, BUT YOU CAN'T RATE DOING THE WRONG THING WELL.

The whole radio landscape was changing and MP policy mix which had seen them flying high for some years, was now dragging them back to Earth with a thud.

The days of appealing to everyone had gone. Now you had to pick your audience and target them.

We worked our hearts out but to no avail.

This was an absolutely awful experience, particularly as I had to watch a group of really decent, dedicated people pouring everything they had into the place and going backwards.

In the end, the place was taken over by a provincial radio consortium and Norm retired to the farm, to be replaced by Wayne Browne.

I was immediately called into Mr Browne's office and told I was being dismissed. It was slightly unexpected and naturally I asked for a reason. He replied that he thought I'd be leaving anyway.

This left me just as puzzled, although some weeks earlier somebody had planted a nasty little story in one of the Sunday papers, alleging I was in talks with FOX FM. I must say this was news to me, and it must have been news to FOX as well, because we'd never even swapped a phone call.

My dismissal created shock waves in the southern capital.

With 48 hours I was called to a meeting with the Journalists Association in Melbourne. When I walked in the Secretary told me that the Association regarded my sacking as a disgrace and that it was placing a ban on the position of 3MP News Director. The station had tremendous trouble getting anyone to takeover. In the end they had to settle "in house".

Lots of stuff was happening at the time. The Sunday paper which had run the invented story of my talks with FOX then announced that I'd resigned from MP. I rang the reporter and told him it was untrue, I'd been dismissed. Given the boot. The reporter said he thought he was doing me a favour in making it sound as if it was my decision.

I pretty much decided that staying in Melbourne really wasn't an option.

I sucked in my pride and rang Cherie Romaro at 2 DAY FM, asking if she knew of anything going in Sydney and if she'd speak on my behalf. Two hours later she rang back to offer me a job as Breakfast Editor at 2 DAY, to start as early as possible. Warren Burr was the ND and Graeme Virgo his right-hand man.

Mike Jeffreys was taking over the Breakfast show and I was to be part of the team, doing the news and special features.

So I did it again. Twice in a row I broke the cardinal rule of Radio by going back to the place I'd left just a few years earlier. This time, fortunately, the results were significantly better, well for quite a while anyway. Nothing lasts forever in radio, or TV for that matter.