Frank Avis' Memoirs of 42 Years in Radio

Frank Avis Post-Radio

2010-01-24T12:00:00+10:00

I continued my attempt to find a niche in the golf writing business but with little result. They loved all my "Letters to the Editor" (I won several packs of golf balls) but my articles rarely made it up the ladder.

So forgive me if I include a couple of pieces that I felt were pretty reasonable again as a record of my post-radio work and just in case somebody finds them of interest sometime in the future.

The Shark and the Demons, by Frank Avis, 2006

This is the 10th anniversary of the famous "Augusta melt-down" by Australia's Greg Norman. The Shark who turned 51 in February, may tackle the occasional British Open and the odd event on the Seniors and/or Regular Tour but that's probably pretty much it. Even his most devoted fans now realise it's over - it just wasn't meant to be. I'm going to argue in this article that when they come to write the history of this golfing era Greg Norman will emerge as one of the legends, not just because of how he dominated the game for so long, winning two British Opens on the way, but for how he came to lose half a dozen other golfing majors. What fate did to Norman is already part of sporting folklore. I suspect it will become even more fascinating to golf fans 50 to 100 years from now. Detractors will continue to argue that The Shark just didn't have "the right stuff" on Sunday afternoon and to an extent that's obviously true. But honestly, when you take this journey with me and look at those astonishing defeats I believe you'll wonder, as I do, why fate couldn't have been just a little kinder.

The 1984 US OPen, Winged Foot

This is the Championship where Fuzzy Zoeller waved the white flag of surrender believing Norman had nailed a 40-foot birdie at the 72nd. Actually it was a par and pushed the two into a play-off 24 hours later. Norman returned the compliment, waving his white flag as Zoeller gave him a good old fashioned working over, 67 to 75.

The "white flag" routine remains one of the most endearing memories of the 80's.

The Shark's play-off round was obviously way below Norman's expectations but remember Zoeller chose this moment to play a superb 67. How many players do you think have won a US Open play-off with a 67? I'm prompted to ask, "Why Fuzzy? Why did you have to do it against Greg?"

This is a question which will return to haunt us in the following pages.

The 1986 Masters, Augusta

Norman was leading the final round with the greatest of them all Jack Nicklaus, at the end of his illustrious major dominance, back in 9th place. Nicklaus was 46 years old and no one, not even his most ardent fans, entertained the thought that there was the remotest possibility of one last famous charge by the "Golden Bear". Jack made the turn in 35, managing a birdie at the 9th, and then proceeded to take Augusta apart with a finishing 30. That included eagle, birdie, birdie, birdie. It remains one of the most devastating finishes in golf. By the time Norman got to the final hole he needed a birdie to win and a par to tie. He pushed his 4-iron wide and couldn't get up and down. But let's remember Greg still fired a final round 70, normally more than enough to win the Green jacket (What wouldn't he have done for a 70 in 1996?). But it didn't happen this afternoon not with the Bear launching one of the greatest back-9 assaults in Masters history. That most respected of commentators Peter Allis in his book "The Open" says, "In my opinion... Jack Nicklaus is by far the best last-round player ever born." No argument at this end, Peter. Not that we begrudge Jack his '86 title. Such a genius is entitled to make one last charge but funny isn't it that he chose to do it this particular day, this year against Greg Norman.

The 1986 PGA, Inverness

Norman should have had this one all sewn-up well before the amazing drama of the 18th. He led by 4 at the start of the day and was still 4-up at the turn. But the Shark had another episode of those infamous "major wobbles" and found himself all square with Bob Tway by the 14th. The two were still locked in combat four holes later. Tway hit his approach into the bunker while Norman made it on to the fringe of the green. Anybody with a spare $100 would have put it on the Australian. After all this was Bob Tway in the bunker, not Seve Ballesteros. But the young American up-and-comer proceeded to hit out of the pot sending the ball 25 feet straight into the cup.

Michael Williams in his book Grand Slam calls it "one of the most savage acts of fate the game has known".

I don't want you to think I'm turning paranoid here but do you detect a pattern developing?

The 1987 US Masters, Augusta

You thought '86 was a bummer at Inverness? Wait till you got to '87 at Augusta. This time the Shark came home with a 72 to find himself all tied up with Seve Ballesteros and young American, Larry Mize.

Seve had to trudge back to the clubhouse after the 10th leaving Norman and Mize to fight it out on Augusta's most difficult hole, the 11th. Everybody knows now how Mize hit his 3rd from well off the green, sending it 46 yards bang, smack into the cup.

We see it over and over again on TV. It's one of the most replayed moments in sport. It also happens to be one of the most extraordinary shots in the history of golf. Fate is at it again.

1989 British Open, Royal Troon

Norman came home with a wonderful 64 to force a play-off against fellow Australian Wayne Grady and America's Mark Calcavecchia. It was all settled on the final hole of their 4-hole playoff when Norman went for the driver and smacked it 325 yards into a fairway bunker.

Critics still berate Norman for not playing conservatively but Wayne Grady says it was one of the greatest drives hes ever seen. No one had made it to that bunker all Championship - no one thought anybody could. Rarely has a ball been hit so well... Too well. Norman, typically, chose to attack only to see the famous claret jug handed over to Calcavecchia, when the Shark couldn't find the green from the sand. And we can't let this occasion pass without mentioning that Calcavecchia missed the fairway, crashing through the crowd into the rough. The American then proceeded to pull his Ping Eye-2 5-iron out of the bag and hit his recovery to within 6 feet. (No wonder they're banning square-grooves!) I don't need to quote a golf writer, I'll just quote the man himself, "It's the best shot I ever hit." (Mark Calcavecchia, 1989). There are dark forces at work here, folks.

1993 US PGA, Inverness

Norman closed with a 69 to go into a play-off against Paul Azinger. The Autralian, fresh from his victory in the British Open, had a chance to win on the first play-off hole and a chance to stay level with Azinger on the second. He lost the title courtesy of two dreaded "lip outs". Jaime Diaz ,writing in the New York Times, says, "Norman watched two putts in sudden death roll hard against the left edge of the hole only to spin out."

If you ever get the chance to watch a replay (and believe me you will) you'll see how he hits his putt on the first play-off hole just about perfectly. He's 20 feet away and a couple of feet out the ball starts turning beautifully towards the hole. Surely it's in, it can't miss can it? But right at the end, it hits the edge and does a big power "lip out".

Keep watching as the two go to the 2nd play off hole. Norman is 4 to 5 feet away, needing this putt to stay alive. It's looking good, really good, but it's déjà vue time. Again, it hits the edge and does a repeat "lip out". Surely, after 1986 Norman is entitled to a bit of fortune at Inverness, but no, the demons are at it again.

1995 US Open, Shinnecock Hills

35-year old Corey Pavin was four shots adrift of Norman at the start of the final round and still 2 shots away at the turn. But Pavin's 3 birdies at the 9th, 12th and 15th pushed him into the lead. He delivered the coup de grace on the 18th, electing to hit his 4 wood in order to carry the bunkers guarding the green. Has anyone hit a better 4-wood? I mean it's the final hole of the US Open after all, but Corey flushes it, the ball sailing on to the verge between the bunkers to hop on to the green, 5 feet from the hole. He misses the birdie but par is enough to upstage the Shark in yet another Major.

It's not Pavin's "shot of the day". Not his "shot of the tournament". Nor indeed is it his "shot of the year". It's the "Greatest shot of his life" and, yes, you guessed it, he played it against Greg Norman.

1996 US Masters, Augusta

By the time he gets to August in '96 the demons are playing beach volleyball inside Norman's head. But he launches one last attempt to get hold of that green jacket, including a marvelous first round 63, putting Greg 6 shots clear of the field going into the final round. The only thing is he's drawn to play the last 18 with his nemesis, the ice-cold Nick Faldo. This is the last person Norman wants to see on the first tee. Somebody made Nick just to win majors. On a Sunday afternoon he is relentless. Faldo won just 7 events on the US PGA Tour, 3 of them were the Masters. Try that for a conversion rate.

Actually, the Shark hangs on pretty well for 8 holes. All he needs is a break, a sign that Faldo is human. But the British genius is in the middle of one of his greatest ever final rounds. A tough, uncompromising 68. Finally, the pressure valve stops working and Norman self destructs with bogey, bogey, double-bogey. It's his last chance at the Masters and the critics are right: he blew it big time.

I can't help but add a PS here, more than a decade later.

2008 British Open, Royal Birkdale

I wonder did you happen to notice the final round in this Open championship, when a 53 year old Greg Norman led by 2 shots? Now the Shark fell away with a 77, to finish third behind Padraig Harrington and Ian Poulter.

Did you also notice how two "lip outs" in a row derailed Norman on the back 9.

Oh, and just for the record the winner, Harrington, also hit one of the greatest shots in Open history to wrap it up on the 17th. Faced with a 249 yard second shot on the par-5 he pulled out his 5-wood. Did he fade it slightly into a bunker, pull it into the cabbage on the left, to give Norman one last chance? Come on, you know the answer to that? You've read the script. Whack. Straight on to the green, finishing 3 feet from the pin. Eagle. All over Irish Rover.

Let me summarise this amazing tale. Norman was overrun by one of the greatest final rounds in Masters history, engineered by a man in his mid-40's. He then suffered two shattering defeats due to extraordinary chip-ins. Now if this had happened in a 10-year period on tour or indeed in the whole of the player's career we'd just shrug and accept it as "the rub of the green". But it didn't... It happened in just 12 months.

Zoeller, Nicklaus and Faldo all won their last majors against Norman. Tway, Mize, Calcavecchia, Azinger and Pavin all won their only majors against Norman. The Shark is one of only two players to have lost all four majors in play-offs.

I suppose there are dozen to 15 truly memorable incidents in the history of the Majors including the great Nicklaus charge at Augusta in '86. The Gene Sarazen albatross at the Masters in '35. The Larry Mize pitch-and-run at Augusta in '87. The Tom Watson chip-in at the US Open in '82. The Bob Tway bunker shot at the PGA in '86. Ben Hogan's 2-iron at the '51 US Open. The Corey Pavin fairway wood at the '95 US Open and of course the pitch by Seve Ballesteros from a "car park" at the British Open in '79.

As I say about 15-or-so truly memorable moments burnt into the history of Major Golf.

Did you know, 4 or them were executed against one man - Greg Norman. I rest my case!

In recent months we've had a couple of amazing stories relating to golfers' off-course activities.

There is the stunning Tiger Woods' saga which has seen the superstar retreat into a far corner of the house, pull all the curtains shut and threaten to stay there for the foreseeable future. As I write this the 2010 season is underway, Tiger is still incommunicado and PGA Commissioner Tim Finchem is probably thinking of retreating to the far corner of his office and pulling his curtains shut.

I know the other players hate losing to Tiger all the time but boy, do they want him back. Like desperately. I share Retief Goosen's view and express surprise that Tiger has taken so long to go public. The longer he locks himself away the harder it's going to be. He should get out there as quickly as possible, face the flack and win a couple of tournaments. Then it'll all be history. At the risk of being grotesquely politically incorrect, let us all remember, "Men are engineered to be overwhelming attracted to women, women are engineered to like men being overwhelmingly attracted to them. That's how it works. Get over it." (By way of an aside I was talking to a few mates prior to hitting off at Wallacia during the middle of this drama and we were talking about a weekend newspaper which ran pictures of all 14 of Tiger's alleged mistresses. One of the blokes looked at the whole page of photos and remarked, "Hey, look at that... They're all white." Woooo, where were the black lovers?)

Prior to the Tiger's demise we had the absolutely awful Greg Norman-Chris Evert affair.

The two came down with an over the top attack of mid-life hormones. Norman walked out. Chris walked out and they spent over a year publicly swooning over each other. But as anyone who's done Year 1 genetics will tell you the sex-attraction hormones last only 18 to 24 months. After that you're on your own. And after 18 months or so it suddenly stopped for Greg and Chrissy. I have to say that Norman's behavior after that was a pretty good lesson for Tiger. Greg actually had to Captain the President's Cup team shortly afterwards and he bravely walked out into the spotlight and took it on the chin. This was a totally class act from one of the golfing good guys. A pity the same class hadn't emerged when he so publicly dumped his loyal wife Laura. To be honest, I can't believe how Greg and Chris behaved. They were everywhere in public. When they decided to get married it was like the filming of Elizabeth Taylor's "Cleopatra". They took over a whole island resort, closed down the local airspace and turned on the most opulent ceremony since the last most opulent ceremony (whenever that was). What was even more stunning was that Greg had his daughter in the bridal party and his son as best man. It's difficult to know just what impact this had on his ex-wife,who had to sit and watch all of this happening with her two children by her father's side.

I can't think of any act more crass in recent years. And I still can't believe Greg allowed this to happen. Clearly Chris wasn't bothered by all the hoop-dee-doo and we have to assume that Greg was so infatuated that his normal good judgment just went out the window. But where were his friends with some honest advice? Surely there was a gatekeeper somewhere in the inner circle who could have intervened. We know they were madly in love and wanted everyone to know it but this was a time for public dignity, something low key and personal. Someone needed to point out to Greg and Chris the old adage "less is more". Where in heavens name where his parents? What were they thinking to allow their son to publicly humiliate his former wife? The bottom line is that the whole affair did significant damage to the public image of two great sports icons. Fortunately both are normally such class acts that they will quickly regain their public standing but for that brief time, to those of us watching from the sidelines, it all seemed so wrong. (The Palm Beach Post, in Florida not Sydney, has just reported that Greg and Chris have completed a quickie divorce.)

Look this is all getting much too long and complex, so it's time I think to wrap up this particular chapter and prepare for the next.

Just a late note, as we go to press Mike Carlton has retired from the business to tend his family and the "hot goss" in Sydney this week is that radio legend John Laws will actually come out of retirement in 2010 to join the 2SM Super Radio network run by Bill Caralis.

Radio is sort of like the universe – volatile. We'll keep you posted on these and other moves in the months ahead.

Frank Avis... Post Radio

2010-01-01T12:00:00+10:00

I interviewed a lot of celebrities and news makers in those 45 plus years but my three favorites remain: Sir Edmund Hillary, Neil Armstrong and Harrison Ford. Now there’s a trio for you.

And the one link that pulls them all together is humility. Each man was humble. Whether this was genuine or not I can’t say for sure, but if they were acting all three were pretty good. They convinced me.

Hillary was the first person to walk on the roof of the world, as co-conqueror of Everest in 1953.

He was genuinely self effacing. We kept prodding him to tell us who really got to the top first... Was it him or Sherpa Tenzing? Hillary never blinked an eyelid. And he kept saying that the only reason he was first to the top was that his name, along with Tenzing, just happened to come up on the roster for that day.

He reminded us how many other people were involved in the conquest.

Armstrong seemed to be an incredibly introspective man. There was little doubt that he didn’t want to be there in the middle of all of the publicity about the landing on the Moon. He was very convincing, telling us over and over that while there were three astronauts up there making history, there were thousands of others down on the Earth keeping the lifelines operating. And he said that if any one of those failed the mission would probably have been a disaster.

Ford: We all loved him. He was a major star when he came out here to publicise Witness (excellent movie by the way) and it was just like talking to the bloke next door. When we asked him about movie stardom he said that every time he felt he was getting too big for his boots, and he noticed his head starting to swell, he’d go down to his workshop and start building a birdhouse. When he’d finished he’d look at it and say, "There, I’ve actually produced something real... Something that has a purpose." A bit of carpentry quickly brought him back to Earth.

I promised my top five list of best-ever voices. Here we go:

1. Mike Carlton
2. Brian Henderson
3. Steve Leibman
4. Michelle Aleksandrovics
5. Denis O'Kane

(Note: Obviously there are several voices I would have liked to have included. Two come to mind immediately: John Bailey, as I’ve said in previous chapters, "One of the best presenters I’ve heard anywhere," and an old 2SM name Terry Mabb whose voice was made for radio.)

I’ll take if from number five. Denis (I christened him DOK) had a wonderful voice. I guess he’s not as widely known as some of the others but he read news conversationally without losing any conviction.

He kicked off in Sydney - I think with 2SM - and moved south to Melbourne for the second half of his career.

Michelle: I’ve already written about her natural style and charisma.

I’m not sure where she is now... It’s my fault we’ve lost touch because I’m getting too lazy... But the truth is she was really, really good and should have been one of the best known women in modern radio. (Ed’s note: the two have now been reunited, well by phone anyway. Michelle is working as a Senior producer at SBS. Frank and Michelle have promised to have coffee in the new year and it may be appropriate that we publicly announce the time and place so that any parties interested can join their table... Er, just kidding!)

Steve sounded great during those heady days at 2SM. He had the voice and the style. In many respects you remember Steve as the voice of that era. He didn’t do himself any harm at Channel 9 either. Still going strong on TV.

Hendo: This guy was a radio marvel before he became a God on TV.

He didn’t lecture you when he presented this news. It was like he was sitting in an armchair next to you and telling us what happened today. I absolutely loved Hendo when he paired with Mike Gibson on 9 News. This was perfect TV news.

Mike Carlton: He has this classical, international accent combined with a strong, male presence.

I worked with him when 2UW switched to MIX 106.5 but you wouldn’t say that we were close, although I worked my tail off at 4.30 every morning to find funny/unusual stories which would add something different to his show.

A bit of a footnote here. When Carlton left MIX he made the strangest decision I could imagine by taking over the drive slot on ABC Radio. I was genuinely astonished that he’d make this move, something that the commercial sector would generally regard as just one step short of career suicide.

It turned out to be a huge success. Mike was perfect for Aunty, giving the ABC this lovely commercial/street smart "edge". I gave up on radio to be honest in the late 90’s because it became so engineered and plastic it wasn’t worth listening to, but I couldn’t get by without my "Carlton Fix" on good old ABC Radio in the afternoon. It was tragic that he opted to go to UE. I know the money was huge but it was a bit like Mike Gibson quitting 9 to go to 10 for the money. Carlton and ABC afternoon radio were made for each other. I can no longer listen to ABC Radio, sadly. I hope you don’t mind another tirade here and remember that you’re listening to an old man, no longer in the trade, who thinks the golden era of radio was back in the 50’s.

You also need to take into account one of the unwritten rules of life: that the older generation always regards what the new generation is doing as absolutely awful. Nothing compares with the old days.

But seriously, most radio today is dreadful and ABC radio may be even lower than that - Appalling - is that what I’m looking for? When you listen to some of the stuff, well here in Sydney anyway, it’s as if a senior bureaucrat walked into the front office at the ABC and picked the first six people he saw to go on the radio. I don’t know exactly how to describe the overall image of ABC Radio in 2009, it just seems to be so colourless. I know this opinion is not shared by ABC listeners. They remain loyal through thick and thin.

Well, it’s a bit on the thin side at the moment. I should add, as an afterthought, that watching ABC News on TV is just as frustrating: it’s almost as if the presenters are petrified that some viewer might discover that the reader is actually human.

When you go back to the days of Michael Charlton, who hit the screen like a guided missile, you’ll understand the extent of the loss. Even good old James Dibble is looking like as extrovert.

Sorry about that. I should have just shut up. None of my business really. And to be fair to the ABC I have to add I was forced to watch one of those breakfast shows on commercial TV recently and my feeling was it was probably written for a bunch of 14 year old giggling high school girls. So the malaise seems to be general or is it just me? Anyway, getting out of radio I kept looking around for something productive to do and I finally decided to put two interests together, journalism and my love for golf, to see if I could do something in that direction. After all, I’d interviewed many of the golfing greats of the last 40 years so surely I’d picked up something? (The answer to that question by the way if it means does watching and interviewing elite golfers actually help you to play the game? No.

I decided to do a story on 18 holes on 18 separate golf courses and call it "The Sydney Challenge". I personally checked all of the holes and they even wanted to toss me out of Bayview when officials found me on the course, checking out a famous par 4 one day. I’d got permission from the Pro Shop but the official decided that wasn’t good enough and gave me a bit of a lecture.

Anyway I thought the concept came up rather well and was very happy when it found its way into print in the comparatively new publication Inside Social Golf. I’m enclosing the article for your perusal, with a warning that the next few pages are really pointless unless you’re addicted to sports/golf journalism.

Well, what did you think of that? If Col Denovan is reading this in Victoria he might like to pack his clubs into the car and come north to give the "challenge" a try. Okay, I’ll even caddy for you mate.

I’m now advised that that the length of this entry has entered the red zone so may I thank you for reading my latest effort and promise another page or two in the near future, when I’ll print a few more of my articles (yet to be published) and continue my ramblings. I should also warn you my career included a lot of cricket and VFL/AFL coverage, along with a love of movies, so you may well get a bit of that stuff along the way, including my 10 Best Ever Movies of all time (Alex Shabs will no doubt have his say about that).

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.