Talk:Radio National

earlier comments
"Radio National as it is known today has had a long history. "..Hehehe..I'd love to know what it was. :)

--Randolph 09:30, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC)


 * "The callsign 2FC (Farmers Company) was first broadcast in 1927, the Australian Broadcasting Commission took over the frequency in 1937. In 1985 ABC renamed Radio 2 to Radio National. Its current callsign (in New South Wales) is 2RN." Dysprosia 11:03, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I guess I'm not seeing how those few sentences justify the opening sentence. They do describe it's many incarnations in that long history, but the actual substance of the history seems to be missing.

--Randolph 23:18, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC)


 * It says that there is a long history, it just does not give you a lengthy rundown of that history. Dysprosia 00:02, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)

It doesn't mention anything about the other stations (one in each capital city) that formed Radio National. I'd also dispute the date. My reference AUSTRALIAN RADIO: The Technical Story 1923-1983 by Winston Muscio, ISBN 0-949924-82-2, states that 2FC began regular broadcasts in December 1923.

--PeterJeremy 11:08, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Commencement of Australian Broadcasting and of the ABC.
2FC actually commenced broadcasting in 1923 NOT 1927 as stated above and on the main body of this page. Prior to this, amateur broadcasters provided numerous broadcasts and even experimented with musical, news and entertainment programs. However, 2FC was the first officially recognised station.

By 1924 there were five official Australian stations: 2FC Sydney (Farmer & Co.); 2SB later 2BL Sydney (Sydney Broadcasters Limited); 3AR Melbourne (Associated Radio); 3LO Melbourne (named after 2LO in London); 6WF Perth (Westralian Farmers).

Due to the influence of Ernest Fisk of Amalgamated Wireless (Australasia) [AWA], Australia initially introduced a most unusual sealed set system under which listeners purchased seats that were sealed to the frequency of the station they wanted to listen to. Portion of the purchase price of each set went to the station. (If you wanted to listen to more than one station, one was supposed to buy more than one set.) Not surprisingly the system was not successful because most of those listening-in were radio hams (amateurs) with enough technical knowledge to build their own sets and by-pass the law. (Compare this with the computer industry a few decades ago.)

In 1925 a new, licensing system was introduced. All those with wireless sets (radios), either purchased off the self or home made, had to buy a licence from the Post Office. The fees went to the major stations which were known as A Class stations - these later evolved into the ABC which commenced in 1932 (NOT 1937 AS STATED ABOVE AND ON THE MAIN BODY OF THIS PAGE). Other stations could apply for broadcasting licences but did not receive any government subsidy and, so, had to rely on advertising an other sources for their income. These stations were originally known as B Class stations.

I have made some corrections to the historical information on this page.

Australia's fascinating radio history is covered in a number websites and books. I strongly recommend the book: 'THE MAGIC SPARK. 50 YEARS OF RADIO IN AUSTRALIA' by R.R. Walker (1973, Hawthorn Press, Melbourne). It is on the shelves of most libraries and is still freely available from second-hand bookshops. Another good book, albeit much harder to find is: 'SOMETHING IN THE AIR. A HISTORY OF RADIO IN AUSTRALIA' by Colin Jones (1995, Kangaroo Press Ltd., Sydney).

Albert Isaacs 22:09, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Current edits
There are about three things happening and they have been conflated with the lumping of the ref links Mark Scotts comment:"But we are doing nothing to back away from the great success we've had at Radio National and the suite of programming we've had which is specialist, generalist and live programming, and we are pleased with our track record and we think the best days of Radio National lie ahead," he said (ie denial of trying to ditch religion). Crittenden is actually saying one thing and scott and the head are saying nothing - classic communicators :))''
 * (1) Heads of RN are shuffling things
 * (2) Govt is reviewing board http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/10/16/2392865.htm
 * (3) Public is left out -

As a consequence the conflcation of refs in one go and the format at present is not accurate -

the article is a mess and more of a list of current shows - it needs careful work to restore a semblance of an encyclopediac article SatuSuro 04:33, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Notes on edits just made, concerning Stephen Crittenden
I will explain here edits I've just made, just in case they are contested by anyone:


 * I have corrected the quoted speech by Stephen Crittenden about program cuts in 2008, made at the start of "The Religion Report" on 15 October, in the following ways:


 * I removed the spurious title "Death of Religion for Australian Listeners" (the speech was not titled anything, but simply given at the start of the program).


 * I corrected the quotation of the speech: formerly it was only partially quoted, with a few small mistakes, and wrongly included commentary that was actually made by former ABC religious broadcaster Paul Collins. I've given it in entirety (transcribed by myself from the podcast of it on crikey.com), and removed Paul Collins' comments (which I reproduce below in this comment, in case anyone wants to re-work them back into the article).


 * Finally, I changed the link to the podcast of Stephen Crittenden's speech. The one given (http://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/rn/podcast/current/audioonly/rrt_20081015.mp3) was for the ABC's "Religion Report" podcast, which had this speech removed by the ABC; the one I have changed it to (http://www.crikey.com.au/Media/audio/081015-religion-report-2e34149c-0622-4ca1-aabb-4b90ee3f1932.mp3) gives the actual speech by Crittenden (alone - not accompanied by the rest of the program).

I cannot at the moment find a convincing way of including the quotation of Paul Collins' remarks I took out elsewhere into the article. I will consider that later; but, to preserve the passage from Paul Collins' remarks, I will quote the extract here now (with a few corrections of bad punctuation, and needless line-breaks removed). It can be found at http://www.crikey.com.au/Media-Arts-and-Sports/20081015-What-are-they-doing-to-Radio-National-God-help-us.html?source=kwoff, and I append an additional sentence that was included in the quotation (Paul Collins' entire commentary being much longer):

Nowadays religion is a mainstream political, cultural and socio-economic issue with enormous impact on world affairs. To cover it adequately you need specialists.

I'm not paranoid. I don't see this as an attack on religion. It's more a lack of appreciation of specialization, derived from the half-witted post-modern conviction that everyone can do anything. Sure, they can ask a few prosaic "man-in-the-street" questions. But that's not the task of Radio National. If you think it is, get a job with the commercials.

Remember, this (except for the last sentence which I've just now included) was wrongly included in the quotation of Stephen Crittenden's speech, and thus wrongly attributed to him. M.J.E. (talk) 01:16, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

I disagreed with the format and the positioning and feel free to challenge that as well - the Paul Collins article should be a footnote to the crittenden section - am about do so SatuSuro 02:04, 24 October 2008 (UTC)


 * I am distinctly uncomfortable with the prominent position and amount of space given over to this one incident. There is hardly any treatment of the history of RN, by comparison. I believe the Crittendon incident and the rest of "Recent changes" should be further down in the article. Does anyone disagree? The article is in an appalling state. Tony   (talk)  15:07, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
 * "In 2008, controversial programming cuts raised the issue of political interference in the public broadcaster and its executive structure"
 * None of the citations mention political interference, all of them raise the issue of budgeting. Is anyone else in favour of editing this to "raised the issue of politically motivated budget cuts to the public broadcaster" Benvenuto (talk) 08:08, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Wrong Alan Saunders
The Alan Saunders linked in the description of The Philosopher's Zone program is the wrong one - Alan Saunders, CMG, OBE (1886-1964) was Inspector-General of Police in Palestine —Preceding unsigned comment added by 114.77.4.10 (talk) 15:09, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

New RadioNational logo
The new RadioNational logo should probably be updated here... I'm unsure how to do so, therefore I'm bringing this to fellow contributors attention here. :) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Snowleopard48 (talk • contribs) 15:57, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

External links modified
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 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20081102060818/http://www.abc.net.au:80/services/podcasting/subject_Religion.htm to http://www.abc.net.au/services/podcasting/subject_Religion.htm

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Cheers. —cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 21:04, 17 October 2015 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 1 one external link on Radio National. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20081022082408/http://www.news.com.au:80/entertainment/story/0,26278,24526865-10388,00.html to http://www.news.com.au/entertainment/story/0,26278,24526865-10388,00.html

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Cheers.—cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 14:14, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
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 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20110706103944/http://theland.farmonline.com.au/news/metro/national/general/abc-flagship-radio-shows-axed/1334972.aspx to http://theland.farmonline.com.au/news/metro/national/general/abc-flagship-radio-shows-axed/1334972.aspx

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