Radio, do you remember when .....

Murphy

New Member
Do you remember when radio was entertaining?

It sure has sunk from the once loft heights it attained before television. Sure we have variety with numerous stations of head-banging rubbish to wall-to-wall lefties on the ABC, but I couldn't believe my ears when I switched on an Adelaide AM 'talk' station, forgetting for a moment it was Saturday morning when they have sporting 'identities', who aren't the sharpest tacks in the box, reading out a stack of sms and emails because their tiny brains were, it seems, incapable of producing anything original.

But wait there's more as the salesman said. My body clock is out of whack so I tried the 'talk' radio again after midnight when I had trouble sleeping. Now I don't know if its just me but to listen to a woman, minus teeth and old enough to know better, slobber and spit her way through the highlight of her miserable week telling us her experience in buying a new fry pan, almost saw my transistor radio thrown through the window. Surely the announcer must have been zonked out on Valium, or perhaps on work experience.

There must be a sub-culture that 'talk' radio is solely designed for, where people who struggle to string 6 coherent words together that either make sense or are in the slightest bit interesting, are free to ramble their time away and vent their pea brains.
 

BBC has, of course the World Service, and a digital station called Radio 4 Extra which repeats man of the old comedy programmes the Goons, and stuff like that
t also puts on plays, serials, crime dramas, etc.
 
Thankfully we can simple turn the dial or change the station.
 

So have I, and I don't think it is dying. If somebody said I could have radio or TV, I would choose radio.
 
I'm glad you don't think it's dying Vivjen. But for me the programming has taken a turn for the worse partly due to changes in broadcasting laws allowing companies to own large blocks of stations. That and the almighty computer have ruined what we used to love. There is a station in San Jose that plays old radio drama and comedies from the heydays every Tuesday. I live for that moment.
 
The BBC may have it's faults; but I do miss it when I go away,NZ radio sounds a little like Australian radio that Murphy listens to, but a few years behind!
 
I can remember sitting on the bed with my dad listening to The Shadow, so that was the late 50's, it must have been rebroadcasts, but it was great fun!
 
I remember The Shadow too; and Lights Out. DH listens to local talk shows in the morning, and one political show later in the day. We used to enjoy Tom Valentine, Dale Somers, and Art Bell years ago, but most of those are online now.

There was something about radio that just seemed better...I miss it, too.
 
I have it going as background noise to mask the tinitus 'cicadas' mostly but I rarely actually listen to what's being said. It's rubbish anyway.
Reception is rotten here, halfway between two yokel stations and I pick up one on one side of the house one on the other. Duzzen madder much, both run either rivetting rundowns on a new whizzbang club some golfer I've never heard of is using or how many Blackfish Fred caught in the mouth of the Clarence River last weekend. Or an amateur mumbling about a church fete and interviewing some old dear who is running charity doily display or something.
But it gets better on weekdays. They both carry the same live feed from Sydney so you get a choice of listening to whoever you want as long as it's John Laws.

One really excelled today. The usual Sunday fill in, airhead, who spends the rest of the week in Sales licking stamps couldn't manage to spin a few records and read news reports on his own so he had a brainsnap to invite ... waaaaiiiiiittt for it..... a clairvoyant Tarot reading friend of his in to field talk back callers and give readings. Spaaaare Meeeee! I didn't even bother to reach back and turn it off, just yanked the plug and put the TV on.

I should admit I can get the ABC too but choose to stay awake as long as I can through the day.
 
Well, they are total crap here too.... I used to love getting in my car on a long trip and blasting great music on the radio, you can't find a good music station now....I refuse to buy XM in order to hear decent radio, the car radio is useless as for as I'm concerned.
 
It is 12.25 pm here, and I am listening to an anthology of Churchill family letters. I could be listing to live soccer commentary, a commercial station that only plays hits from the 60s, 70s, and 80s, or 2 BBC music stations, designed for people of my age.
the list goes on......I am lucky!
 
I know a guy here that "watches" TV every minute of the day...He plays with his cellphone all the time the TV is on.So I say "why don't you turn off the TV off since you're not watching it."
He says "I can hear it don't need to watch."
So I say "isn't that what a radio is for?"
He got mad.
 
I only play CD's in the car and too loud i'm told lol


Too loud? I can beat that when I drive the 3 teenage gals to high school everyday,they just plug their cell phone music into the car jack and "their music" comes out my cars radio.Did you know the rear view mirror can actually vibrate.
 
spinal-tap-volume-to-11.jpg
 
I am listening to a re-run of the Goons, about 1956.
did any other country receive the Goons, or understand it?!
 
Yes we had the Goons, loved it, still get a laugh when bits are played sometimes.
Milligan's grandmother(??) lived at Woy Woy on the central coast here and he got some mileage out of sending that place up.
My grandmother had lived there too.
 
Yes we had the Goons, loved it, still get a laugh when bits are played sometimes.
Milligan's grandmother(??) lived at Woy Woy on the central coast here and he got some mileage out of sending that place up.
My grandmother had lived there too.

I didn't know that.....bet the Americans didn't understand it; although those that liked Monty Python probably did!
 
No Pappy, it was a very British radio comedy of the 1950's Peter Sellars, Spike Milligan, Harry Secombe and Michael Bentine.
Really siily and surreal, ahead of it's time. Monty Python said that the Goons inspired them....
 
No Pappy, it was a very British radio comedy of the 1950's Peter Sellars, Spike Milligan, Harry Secombe and Michael Bentine.
Really siily and surreal, ahead of it's time. Monty Python said that the Goons inspired them....

Thank Vivjen....kinda like our old comedy's of Abott and Costello, Laurel and Hardy, etc. They inspired a lot of new comedians.
 
Yes....Laurel and Hardy taken to the extreme and brought up to date....in a way.
 


Back
Top