2010 Henry Mayer Lecture - Voices of the people: Audience participation in Australian radio

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No. 137 — November 2010

Bridget Griffen-Foley

AbstractJohn Laws famously labelled his commercial radio talkback program, and its genre, ‘dial-in democracy’. Amongst the mellifluous tones of Laws and ‘Andrea’, the gravelly rasps of Brian White and Derryn Hinch, and the impatient injunctions of Alan Jones and Howard Sattler have been the voices of countless ‘ordinary’ Australians. Here, I consider how voices of ‘the people’ have been heard in Australian print media outlets, led by The Bulletin, since the nineteenth century, and on Australian radio since the 1920s. The discussion moves from community singing to radio clubs, programs like Voice of the People to Australia’s Amateur Hour, and of course to talkback. Along the way, it reflects on issues such as the flow of ideas and influences between Britain, the United States and Australia; the ways in which notions of the public and the community have been deployed by commercial radio managements and interpreted by broadcasting regulators; and how listeners and callers – like some regular writers of letters to the editor – can emerge as media identities in their own right.

‘[E]very man with brains has at least one good story to tell,’ declared The Bulletin soon after its launch in 1880 (Lawson, 1987: 154). While we might now lament the sexism of the statement, there was something prescient, perhaps even progressive, about it – the sentiment I mean, not the sexism.

The Bulletin was probably one of the earliest periodicals in Australia – and certainly the most successful up to that point – to give ‘ordinary’ readers a voice. It was to be followed by a range of other media outlets: radio programs from the 1920s, the Australian Women’s Weekly from the 1930s, and talkback radio from the 1960s. Here I want to build on an earlier article teasing out the history of participatory media in Britain, the United States and Australia since the late nineteenth century (Griffen-Foley, 2004: 533–48) by specifically addressing Australian commercial radio. These two studies suggest that the history of participatory media in Australia began long before the emergence of reality television and the spread of the internet. In their own modest way, they help to historicise Graeme Turner’s recent international examination of what he calls ‘the demotic turn’, which considers ‘relatively new’ developments (2010: 171). Unlike Turner’s work on the increasing visibility of the ‘ordinary person’ as they have turned themselves into media content (Turner, 2010; see also Turner, 2004), my work is not focused on celebrity culture. Here, I reflect on issues such as the flow of ideas and influences between Britain, the United States and Australia; the ways in which notions of the public and the community have been deployed by commercial radio managements and interpreted by broadcasting regulators in Australia; and how listeners and callers – like some regular writers of letters to the editor – can emerge as media identities in their own right.

2010 Henry MAyer Lecture Voices oF tHe peopLe: Audience pArticipAtion in AustrALiAn rAdio

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Media International Australia

From readers to writersProponents of the ‘New Journalism’ that emerged in Britain and the United States in the second half of the nineteenth century sought to build mass circulations by appealing to the increasingly literate lower middle classes. They devoted less space to political and parliamentary reportage, parcelled up news into short portions, featured a brighter style of writing, and used new printing technologies and typographical devices to improve layouts and to appeal to the visual senses of readers (Wiener, 1988). In the late nineteenth century, in an era of industrialisation and urbanisation, some commentators anticipated that journalism would perform a democratising function by diminishing the social and geographical distance between individuals (Kern, 1983: 69–70; Jackson, 2001: 62, 74).

In 1881, George Newnes conceptualised a new publication, Tit-Bits, as a companion integral to the very rhythms of readers’ lives. A familiar editorial tone – invariably featuring references to readers as ‘friends’ – was the essence of Tit-Bits (Jackson, 2001: 63–64). From 1885, a column entitled ‘Answers to Correspondents’ appeared, conveying a sense of editorial presence and reader involvement.1 The success of Tit-Bits inspired Alfred Harmsworth (later Lord Northcliffe) to launch an imitator, Answers to Correspondents, in 1888 (Pound and Harmsworth, 1959: 81, 85). Stephen Elwell (1985: 40) observes that ‘entrepreneurs such as Newnes and Lord Northcliffe stand out now because they discovered in the 1880s and 1890s how to define and exploit the common interest of the middle class in inclusive [emphasis added] rather than exclusive terms’.

In Australia, The Bulletin’s co-founder and editor, J.F. Archibald, came to realise that in a national magazine it was necessary to cover the continent, but that it was impossible to employ regular correspondents everywhere. The thing to do was to invite his readers – members of a small, dispersed and itinerant population – to write for him. Throwing open The Bulletin’s pages to its readers in 1886, Archibald published regular notices calling for contributions: original political, social or humorous matter, unpublished anecdotes and paragraphs, poems and short stories (Davison, 1998: 94; Rolfe, 1979: 70–71; Bulletin, 10 July 1886: 4). Contributors were encouraged to address a national readership. ‘I want you to remember that Australia is a big place,’ Archibald advised a new recruit, A.B. (‘Banjo’) Paterson, exhorting him to write for ‘the pearler up at Thursday Island and the farmer down in Victoria’. By 1892, the general invitation for contributions was casually and cheerfully worded:

Every man can write at least one good book; every man with brains has at least one good story to tell; every man, with or without brains, moves in a different circle and knows things unknown to any other man … mail your work to The Bulletin, which pays for accepted matter.

It is estimated that under Archibald – who remained editor until 1902 – The Bulletin averaged some 1000 contributions every week (Davison, 1998: 94; Lawson, 1987: 154, 157; Rolfe, 1979: 71).

Clearly, by the turn of the century a number of publications were based in part on reader contributions, and most also included letters to the editor. Other magazines followed The Bulletin in seeking to foster a personal relationship with readers and publish contributory features. Woman’s Budget, launched in 1906 and possibly the first Australian weekly magazine published for women, established a club which by the 1920s was organising social events for members (Arnold, 2001: 278). In 1919 an American bodybuilder-turned-publisher and his wife hit upon the idea of producing a magazine, called True Story, that was generated almost entirely by its readers. One solicitation uncannily echoed The Bulletin’s rhetoric: ‘Every man and woman has lived at least one big story which has

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that ring of truth for which authors of fictions strive with might and main.’ (Taft, 1968: 627–33; Fabian, 1993: 59)

radio arrives‘I like you – I’m your friend!’ declared the ‘Cheerio Man’ (Captain A.C.C. Stevens) on a 2UE postcard during this period (Jones, 1995: 36). As Australian radio broadcasting developed in the 1920s, the industry sought to connect with listeners in a variety of ways: through radio ‘families’, radio clubs and community singing. Here I want to explore what the American historian Roland Marchand (1985: 8) calls radio’s potent ‘capacity to deny its own status as a mass medium’.

As early as 1926, the radio ‘Uncle’ and ‘Aunt’ were a feature of several Australian radio stations. Adopting a position of benign superiority, these announcers – ranging from ‘Auntie Goodie’ (2GB), ‘Uncle Tom’ (2SM) and ‘Uncle Lionel’ (2UE) to ‘Big Brother Jeff’ (4BC), ‘Cousin K’ (5DN) and ‘Uncle Peter’ (6PR) – appealed to adults as well as children. One listener wrote to a station in 1928: ‘I have a very old Aunt … When the children’s hour comes on, I place the loudspeaker beside her … I caught her the other day using it as a telephone to talk to the aunts and uncles.’ (Johnson, 1983: 45; Griffen-Foley, 2009: 119–20) ‘Uncles’ and ‘Aunts’ sometimes took their shows on the road. When ‘Uncle Tom’ appeared at the Plaza Theatre in 1938, thousands of the estimated 50,000 members of his ‘gang’ queued up to see him (Radio Pictorial of Australia, 1 June 1938: 39). 2CH’s ‘Hello Man’ (A.S. Cochrane), who appeared at a city store each Saturday morning, remarked that every child who greeted him had to be ‘noticed’, if not personally addressed (Wireless Weekly, 15 July 1932: 18). Most of the sessions hosted by ‘Uncles’ and ‘Aunts’ included birthday calls for individual children. Sometimes announcers, having been tipped off by parents, explained where presents could be found. 2SM’s studio manager, John Dunne (known to listeners as ‘Uncle Tom’), reasoned: ‘Call a youngster and that kiddy remains a listener for life.’ (Griffen-Foley, 2009: 120–21)

In the 1920s, for many listeners the great fascination of wireless lay in outside broadcasting, in the bringing of the wider world into the privacy and comfort of the home. However, as the broadcasting historian Lesley Johnson shows, by the end of the decade Australian industry leaders and periodicals were convinced that radio was most successful when it was intimate, human and personal. If radio had begun by exploiting the extraordinary, by the 1930s it was conjuring up the everyday, ordinary, intimate world of home life. ‘Elva’ wrote to Wireless Weekly in 1931 praising the ‘personal touch’ of radio; her favourite announcers all had ‘a friendly, cheerful way of making one feel that in many ways a friend is chatting’ (Johnson, 1983: 43–47). Many individual station slogans elected to draw on notions of companionship rather than on regional characteristics: 2MW Murwillumbah was ‘The Friendly Station’, 4WK Warwick ‘The Listener’s Companion’ and 6PM ‘The Cheery Station’ (Griffen-Foley, 2009: 121).

Announcers and their audiencesArticles about the important role played by fan letters in the lives of radio stars and in the production of programs themselves echoed the theme of the central role that listeners’ voices played in radio (Loviglio, 2002: 90–91). In 1928, the 2UW humorist Jack Win noted that every year thousands of letters were received by each station. By the mid-1930s, Australian radio periodicals were gleefully running photos of piles of fan mail, which seemed to attest to the medium’s popularity and importance. As Wireless Weekly put it, ‘no mail, no proof for manager and advertiser, no job’ (27 January 1928: 5). These letters

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do seem to have had extra resonance at a time when audience research in Australia was in its infancy (Griffen-Foley, 2009: 122–23).

In 1927, 2GB began allowing listeners to arrange the Saturday night program by writing or ringing in with requests for songs and poems (Wireless Weekly, 20 August 1926: 7; 11 February 1927: 8). In 1936, 2CH conducted a competition asking listeners to nominate what features they liked (Radio Pictorial of Australia, 1 May 1936: 10). This sense of audience involvement in the processes of production also extended to some sections of the press. The Australian Women’s Weekly, launched in 1933 and the country’s next great national publication after The Bulletin, insistently treated its readers as collaborators, inviting them to contribute to ‘Constructive Criticism’ and ‘New Feature’ competitions, vote on their favourite features and submit images for covers. When the same publishing firm relaunched the Daily Telegraph in 1936, it introduced a new columnist: ‘Mr Wu’, who purported to write of ‘something strange, or notable, a pretty scene, or a touching incident, or a little comedy’ he had witnessed in everyday life. If a reader recognised themselves in a story, they could call by the Consolidated Press office to collect a daily prize. By the end of the decade, the newspaper was asking readers to comment on features and to ‘Tell the Telegraph’ if they had seen an accident, a robbery, or any other news in the making (Griffen-Foley, 1998: 38–42; Griffen-Foley, 2004: 8).

The most popular male radio announcer in Victoria, Norman Banks, set himself up as a friendly adviser in programs with titles such as Help Thy Neighbour and Husbands and Wives. By appearing to be leaning over the back fence, chatting, he produced an image of programs that simply held up mirrors to listeners’ lives (Johnson, 1988: 73). Husbands and Wives was a soul-baring confessional in which men and women discussed the deficiencies and idiosyncrasies of their spouses. Theoretically, Banks was in charge of the women at one end of the studio, and Zeris (‘Kay’) Dunoon was in charge of the men, although the exchanges often developed into outrageous slanging matches. The probing of marital secrets and the intimacies revealed during the program raised the ire of the Postmaster-General’s (PMG’s) Department. In 1939, a nervous 3KZ pulled Husbands and Wives from air and replaced it with a program called It’s Up to You, run in association with the very respectable Returned and Services League (RSL) (Walker, 1984: 17–19, 50, 71). However, the dramatisation of the personal continued in other programs presented by Norman Banks. Stumbles, launched by 3KZ in 1938, involved studio audiences calling out mistakes in ‘a gripping story of real life’ being read out by Banks (Listener In, 5 November 1938: 3; Johnson, 1988: 124).

One broadcaster who specialised in presenting advice programs was Sydney’s Frank Sturge Harty, whose appeal to the individual through a mass medium was captured by the Wireless Weekly’s label, ‘The Man Who Knows the Confidence of TEN THOUSAND WOMEN’. Interviewed about his new 2UE advice program, Between Ourselves, in 1938, the former Church of England minister asserted that it was ‘designed to be intimate, so that every woman, sitting alone, will feel that it belongs to her individually’ (Johnson, 1983: 48; Griffen-Foley, 2009: 121–22).

Sometimes announcers took listeners on excursions. When 2CH’s ‘Fairy Godmother’ (Margaret Herd) hosted a picnic at Taronga Zoo in 1938, some 2000 listeners – adults as well as children – went along (Radio Pictorial of Australia, 1 June 1938: 39). By now the private lives of station ‘personalities’ were very public, with periodicals such as Radio Pictorial of Australia reporting on announcers’ interests, working days, families and romances, and showing inside their homes. There were gossip columns, such as the Listener In’s ‘Both Sides of the Microphone’. Radio stars became ‘real people’, not mere voices. The radio bachelor was an identifiable figure in the pages of radio periodicals, with the implication being that you too could snare yourself an announcer (Johnson, 1988: 114; Griffen-Foley, 2009: 124)!

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As Jason Loviglio notes in relation to the United States, radio fan magazines were also encouraging audiences to see themselves as potential broadcasters (Loviglio, 2002: 90). In Australia, this rhetoric was advanced by actual stations. In 1933, for instance, Cyril James won a 2GB competition to become an announcer on the station. In fact, he was not really an amateur, as he had already been heard on air singing as a baritone (Wireless Weekly, 7 July 1933: 20).

From vox pop to quiz showsIn 1932, Vox Pop was launched on American radio, and from mid-1935 it was heard across the United States. The first network broadcast declared: ‘You’ve been asking for something different in radio, and here it is … an unrehearsed program that gives you a cross section of what the average person really knows – and what he thinks about.’ By turning the microphone on to members of the listening audience, Vox Pop and other audience participation programs accelerated the process by which the new mass medium of radio came to stand in for ‘the nation’ and ‘the people’ (Loviglio, 2002: 89–90).

In December 1935, at least two Australian stations launched their own versions of the program, called Vox Pop: The Voice of the People. Frank Sturge Harty and Ronald Morse, who hosted the program for 2UE, transmitted it from a different part of the city each week, where ‘Mr. and Mrs. Sydney pass up and down’ (Wireless Weekly, 6 December 1935: 24). 3KZ’s approach was a little different, with host Norman Banks launching the program in the lobby of Melbourne’s Regent Theatre. He recalled that Voice of the People, as it became known, was so successful that more than once crowds crashed through glass doors in the rush to participate. Indeed, so prominent was the program that when Prime Minister R.G. Menzies visited the recording studios, he pretended to be holding a microphone himself and mimicked participants in the show. Voice of the People ceased during World War II after Banks became suspicious that one speaker might be a Nazi spy and reported him to the security forces; the man ended up in an internment camp.2

Within weeks of its debut in the United States, Vox Pop had fled the noise and unpredictability of the sidewalks for the more respectable environs of hotel lobbies and train stations (Loviglio, 2002: 99). In Melbourne, Norman Banks did likewise. On Voice of the Voyager from 1937, he would go down to Port Melbourne each Monday morning and interview passengers and prominent citizens aboard incoming ships; his popular 3KZ program was heard on a relay of commercial stations. One of the most prominent features of Melbourne radio, Voice of the Voyager, was suspended during the war as passenger ships no longer arrived; after the war, it began to embrace passengers arriving by air.3 Banks also hosted Voice of the Shopper, which broadcast from Coles in Bourke Street and explicitly pointed to radio’s merging of ‘the people’ with the commercial public (Walker, 1984: 17–18; Loviglio, 2002: 92–93).

In the United States, Vox Pop and other broadcasts featuring the voices of ‘average Americans’ provided a series of compelling performances of what ‘the American people’ sounded like and what they believed in (Loviglio, 2002: 91). There was a variation on this theme in Australia. Originally designated as ‘B-class stations’, commercial stations here vied for ‘prestige’ broadcasts and challenged the claims of the Australian Broadcasting Commission (the ABC, originating as ‘A-class stations’) to be the national broadcaster (Griffen-Foley, 2009: 319, 358, 419). Commercial programs with potent titles like Voice of the People purported to be speaking for the Australian people, and were ammunition in the sector’s contestation with the ABC.

In the United States in the second half of the 1930s, Vox Pop helped to invent the network quiz show format, posing questions of ‘spectacular unimportance’ to ‘average Americans’. Such shows, which offered small prizes and were portrayed as spontaneous

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and ad-libbed, with highbrow educational overtones (Loviglio, 2002: 91; Mittell, 2002: 322–23), made their way on to the Australian airwaves. In 1939, Information Please – which was heard across the United States – was introduced to Australia by 3DB. It was publicised as a program that allowed ‘ordinary citizens’ to turn the tables on ‘patronising sage[s]’ by asking them questions (Listener In, 11 March 1939: 8; Johnson, 1988: 124).

From community singing to radio clubsCommunity singing, led by popular local artists in town halls and theatres, began in the early 1920s and spread to radio later in the decade. Celebrated as a radio form peculiar to Australia, it involved station personalities leading audiences in singing on-air – usually during outside broadcasts. The concerts were broadcast live via a maze of landlines from theatres, vaudeville houses, and concert and dance halls across Australia (Duffy, 1982: 9; Whiteoak and Scott-Maxwell, 2003: 557–58).

As Wireless Weekly maintained in 1931, community singing ‘removes’ Depression. It reported that the Savoy Theatre was packed with happy, laughing 2GB listeners who had forgotten ‘all the worrying present-day financial difficulties’ as they sang along with ‘Uncle George’, a baritone and a pianist; were entertained by an ‘eccentric dancer’, comedian and female impersonator; and donated modest sums to ‘deserving institutions’ (Wireless Weekly, 22 May 1931: 39). In mid-1937, 2GZ Orange staged Friday-night concerts in central western New South Wales towns. At the freezing venue in Lithgow, a Wireless Weekly reporter found youngsters and other residents of the mining community having ‘a shot at everything from tap dancing to playing a banjo-mandolin’ and competing for a guinea for the best performer (Wireless Weekly, 25 June 1937: 10, 18). 3AW even went to Pentridge Prison, where it broadcast the sounds of 800 inmates and a brass band.4

During the war, community singing functioned as a morale-booster and fundraiser, as well as a means for stations to connect with audiences. An upmarket community singalong endured in Australia’s Hour of Song, which was broadcast nationally from 2UE on Sunday nights from 1952 to 1955 (Griffen-Foley, 2009: 250).

Radio stations also created opportunities to discover Australian talent, either musical or variety. P and A (Professional and Amateur) Parade, networked from 3KZ, ran from 1935 to 1964. Australia’s Amateur Hour was launched in 1940 and was hugely successful for 19 years. Broadcasting Business portrayed the show’s sponsor, Lever Brothers, as the guiding patron of no less than the ‘Australian National Spirit’. 2UE retaliated by going even further in 1950, conducting a quest to find the typical ‘Mr and Mrs Australia’ to be sent on a tour of England. Other popular talent quests included Radio Auditions, Child Stars of the West, Opera for the People and the Mobil Quest (Griffen-Foley, 2009: 260–61). At 3AW, John Masters’ music program of the 1950s was simply entitled People’s Choice (Campion, 2007: 39).

Radio stations and networks worked hard to turn their personalities and their endeavours into popular social movements. Radio was represented as a means of escape and fun, of solace and support. While there was the occasional magazine club, and several film clubs, there were even more radio clubs in the Australia of the interwar years. The Great Depression was rendered part of the outside world, with radio clubs emphasising private charitable endeavour and neighbourliness in a depoliticised, personalised realm. Fan clubs enhanced the industry’s civic reputability, insinuated themselves in the lives of consumers, engendered goodwill and facilitated tie-ins with sponsors (Johnson, 1988: 88, 110–11, 196, 203; Griffen-Foley, 2009: 124–25).

The most notable of the clubs launched in the early years of Australian radio was the 2GB Happiness Club. The founder was Mrs W.J. (Eunice) Stelzer, a music teacher who began performing on 2GB, where her husband worked, shortly after its formation.

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Her women’s session drew letters from listeners confiding their worries and seeking advice. As the volume of correspondence increased, Stelzer organised suburban branches to assist with replies. In September 1929, she announced her intention to form a club to gather the branches together. Some 250 women attended the meeting that spawned the 2GB Happiness Club.

The club’s motto was ‘Others First’, its signature verse ‘Pull Together’. Stelzer’s brand of self-help, selflessness and sisterhood struck a chord with listeners during the early days of the Depression. The club was non-political, non-sectarian and free to join. Sixty-four branches, each opened by Stelzer on air, were formed across Sydney and beyond.

Afternoon teas, musicales and conversaziones were held at David Jones and Mark Foys. Monthly branch meetings usually commenced with ‘Advance Australia Fair’ and featured singing and dancing, and sometimes appearances by 2GB personalities. Proceeds from parties, concerts and community singing were donated to charities. Members of the 2GB Happiness Club visited the sick, repaired shoes, and donated and collected clothes for the needy (Griffen-Foley, 2009: 125).

Other radio clubs also proliferated, if on a slightly less ambitious scale. Most of the clubs that spread around Australia were christened with upbeat names: the Cheerio Club, the Friendship Circle, the Joy Club, and the Look Up and Laugh Club (Broadcasting Business Year Book, 1939: 129). Companionship was emphasised in ‘Being a Chum is Fun’, the theme song of ‘Nicky’ and ‘Nancy Lee’ on 3AW (Lee, 1979).

By 1939, there were at least 117 clubs affiliated with Australia’s commercial radio stations. There were clubs designed for listeners bound together by age, interest, timeslot, and gender. A parliamentary inquiry into broadcasting in 1941–42 found that around 40 stations had established women’s clubs, with a total membership of nearly 150,000, and almost 400,000 children belonged to children’s clubs. The inquiry concluded that these clubs helped to ‘guard morality on the air’ and provided a valuable service to the Australian community (Griffen-Foley, 2009: 128–29). The ABC launched its own notable national initiative in 1941: the Argonauts’ Club. The children’s session featured performers and child listeners, with ship names and numbers, and poems, plays and stories sent in by children and read out by actors. By the end of the war membership was approaching 40,000, and the club continued until 1972 (Inglis, 1983: 90–92, 317–18).

talkback radioIn an essay in 1932, the radical German playwright, Bertolt Brecht, contended:

radio is one-sided when it should be two … The radio would be the finest possible communication apparatus in public life … [if] it knew how to receive as well as to transmit, how to let the listener speak as well as hear, how to bring him into a relationship instead of isolating him. (Brecht, 1979–80: 24–28)

While it is doubtful that Brecht was much on the minds of Australian radio executives during the interwar years, it is clear that large sections of the industry were nevertheless already intent on providing opportunities for audience interaction and participation. But they were limited by a fundamental problem: the PMG’s Department prohibited conversations between individuals by wireless. The department forbade any broadcasting of messages that might compete with postal and telegraphic services, which it also controlled. Broadcasting, the department insisted, should confine itself to disseminating messages from a central source (Griffen-Foley, 2009: 345).

As a result, the voices of listeners ringing into a station could not be put to air. Announcers had to limit themselves to reading out the letters of listeners, or hosting studio and outside broadcasts in which audience members could participate. There were

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occasional breaches of the regulations as early as the 1920s. In 1925, 2BL (later part of the ABC) allowed telephone users to ring in and ask questions of the lecturer. Emil Voigt, the founder of 2KY, Sydney’s labour station, was enthusiastic about a democratic forum that allowed listeners to discard their ‘passive role’ so that they ‘talked back’ (Labor Daily, 7 December 1925: 8; Johnson, 1988: 25). By 1926, 2KY itself was hosting a program called Talk Back on Monday nights. It featured the host, G.T. Beard, answering questions put to him via telephone and mail (Wireless Weekly, 20 August 1926: 7). 2KY probably sidestepped the regulation by having the host relay queries that were submitted by telephone.

On its formation in 1948, the Australian Broadcasting Control Board (ABCB) restated the PMG’s prohibition on the broadcasting of telephone conversations. The conservative regulatory body was concerned enough about new portable wire recorders that enabled ‘actuality inserts’ in news bulletins, fearing that these spontaneous recordings would lead to sensationalism in reporting (Griffen-Foley, 2009: 336–37). These recorders enabled the expansion of late-night ‘true crime’ programs that had been a feature of several commercial radio stations, such as While Australia Sleeps on 2GB, and continued the radio practice of ordinary people being used as entertainment.5 The industry increasingly agreed with the view of the Macquarie Network’s chairman, expressed in 1946, that the recorder made it possible ‘to find people in their homes or at their work or recreation or even in the street, and to extract … the warmth and freshness which spring from spontaneous discussion’ (Griffen-Foley, 2009: 336).

Meanwhile, the Australian radio industry was becoming interested in the telephone’s potential for entertaining as well as informing audiences. During a study trip in 1952, the Macquarie Network’s F.J. Coombes found that the American radio industry was looking to audience participation programs centred on the telephone, such as quizzes, to help counter television. Following sustained lobbying – and breaches – by the industry, the ABCB decided to review and approve requests on a case-by-case basis (Griffen-Foley, 2009: 345–46). The board wanted to ensure that recordings were of a sufficient technical standard, and that the telephone was used for serious rather than ‘novelty’ purposes. Programs like Soundabout on 2UE and What Do You Think? on 3DB tested the ABCB’s patience.6

By 1963, Norman Banks was hosting Town Meeting on 3AW each Monday night. Presumably based on the well-established America’s Town Meeting of the Air, the program featured a set topic, a panel of experts and telephone questions from listeners. Banks regarded the program as the best in his long career, and came to see the wisdom of the decision by 3AW’s general manager Myles Wright not to accept sponsorship for the program. The pair realised that a commercial tie-in might deter prominent citizens from participating in Town Meeting;7 with its bold title, the program increased the station’s overall prestige, and its claims to be speaking for ‘the Australian people’.

In April 1964, the radio industry introduced to Australia the ‘beep-a-phone’, which allowed telephone conversations to be recorded and put to air with a five-second delay to prevent the broadcast of offensive remarks, and a ‘beep’ that made sure callers knew that their remarks were being recorded. The development exposed uncertainty over precisely who had regulatory jurisdiction over such programs. The PMG’s Department questioned both the legality and the rigour of the ABCB’s supervision when it urged 3AK to drop Malcolm Searle’s program, which included discussions of matters such as mental asylums and confessional boxes, ostensibly because the technical quality of calls was poor and the delay was inadequate (Gould, 2004; Griffen-Foley, 2009: 347).

At the heart of the regulatory disquiet of the 1950s and 1960s were notions of what individuals and topics legitimately could be heard on air. The ABCB’s 1964 files bristle with sharp, dismissive assessments by its Director of Program Services, Adrian Jose, and his officers. Broadcasting conversations with ‘unseen telephone caller[s] whose bona

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fides have little chance of being properly assessed’ was regarded as inappropriate. 3AK received a call from a woman whom the police deemed ‘unbalanced’. Airtime should not be given to irresponsible and ‘poorly spoken’ individuals like ‘Fred of Coburg’. The topics discussed in Norman Banks’ I’m on Your Side – including happy marriages and birth control – did not merit ‘serious consideration as news’.8

At the same time, the Macquarie Network saw the potential of building audience participation. In May 1964, the network’s managing director, S.R.I. Clark, returned from an American tour bubbling with enthusiasm for ‘conversation’ programming. He told 2GB’s board that in 1958 WOR had been fourth in the ratings in New York; now that it featured conversation programs all day and bobbed up like an island in a sea of music, it topped the ratings. In Los Angeles, Clark had been struck by the success of programs featuring ‘open-line discussion’ with a seven-second delay. From June 1964, 2GB featured talk – not yet talkback – programs from 9.00 a.m. to 4.00 p.m. (Griffen-Foley, 2009: 348–49).

After further lobbying by the commercial radio industry, the PMG announced that the recording and re-broadcasting of telephone calls would be allowed using its own equipment, featuring a seven-second delay, from 17 April 1967 (Griffen-Foley, 2009: 349). The board’s officers hoped that talkback would contribute to the diversity and entertainment value of programs if it was suitably ‘serious’. Norman Banks’ ‘well-balanced, intelligent’ female secretary was said to assess the suitability of callers to his program, weed out people who might be hoax callers, and seek a balance of men and women, voices and views.9 Joyce Moorhouse (Eunice Stelzer’s daughter), who ran the 2GB switchboard, would doubtless also have impressed any inspector. Renowned for the smile in her voice and her priceless notebook of contacts, Moorhouse used numbered cards to advise Terry Dear, through glass, which call to take next (Sydney Morning Herald, 6 August 1968; 3 January 2006: 27).

Adrian Jose and his staff monitored talkback programs to ensure that the panic button was effective and that, if sensitive subjects were discussed, they were handled responsibly. Stations became more cautious in 1968, after ‘crude words’ went to air on 2HD Newcastle. An ABCB officer in Victoria praised 3DB’s Pat Jarrett and her callers for their careful responses to a guest’s views on a proposal for legalised brothels for Australian troops in Vietnam.10 There were other anxieties. An officer in Queensland thought that it might take time for listeners to become accustomed to ‘untrained voices carrying on conversations with polished announcers’.11 ‘Gimmicky, teenager participation’ was disliked. John Laws, who hosted Party Line on 2UE, was criticised for allowing a call from an 11-year-old boy to initiate a discussion about suicide, and for taking a call from a woman who seemed to be under the influence of alcohol or drugs.12

Unlike earlier media avenues for audience participation, radio could now pick up on ‘real-life’ events and opinions, and transmit them in ‘real time’ (Head, 1976: 148–49). Particular sub-genres of talkback emerged, such as matchmaking sessions, medical and gardening advice spots, and midnight-to-dawn programs (Griffen-Foley, 2009: Ch. 12).

Some talkback presenters tended to infantilise their listeners (and callers). Norman Banks referred to his audience as the ‘Little People’, or ‘L.P.’ The biggest shock of his life, he wrote in his unpublished memoirs, had been discovering so many ‘L.P.’ who ‘simply lacked the knowledge, confidence, courage and/or initiative to stand up for themselves’ and deal with officialdom.13 According to John Laws, callers became more articulate and thoughtful as talkback developed.14

Some contemporary commentators were enthusiastic about talkback radio’s potential. In 1973, for instance, political scientists Don Aitkin and Ann Norrie argued that talkback could play an important role in educating people – particularly housewives – about politics. They maintained that talkback programs provided ‘house-bound women an opportunity to listen to other housewives questioning, criticising, and discussing political subjects of interest to them’. Their article concluded: ‘These programmes are not yet the nation’s

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referenda of the air, but they at least indicate that political apathy is neither a normal state nor a necessary one.’ (Aitkin and Norrie, 1973: 32–38)

Many commercial radio stations discovered that opinionated, even at times hectoring, styles were good for business. Many broadcasters moved a long way from the cheerfulness and togetherness of the days of the 2GB Happiness Club. Some proponents of this newer genre of participatory radio – talkback – were to become known for shocking, provoking and insulting, and for perpetuating a culture of complaint (Turner, 2010: 98, 106; Tebbutt, 2002). As talkback played an increasing role in Australian political communication, some print journalists became frustrated by the use of radio by politicians, and the need to monitor it. One such journalist groaned that talkback ‘has become the town meeting of our times, albeit a largely menopausal meeting’ (Lloyd, 1979: 262–63). Talkback also marked a growing segmentation of the market, with music-dominated FM radio targeted towards the young (Griffen-Foley, 2009: Ch. 12).

At the same time, the radio industry was perturbed by what it regarded as another anachronistic regulatory restriction: a clause in the Commonwealth Electoral Act requiring that the names and addresses of callers to talkback radio be identified on air. The industry argued that anonymity was the basis of talkback; besides, callers could always provide false details. Although the requirement was rarely invoked, so charged was the atmosphere surrounding the 1975 election that 2UE and 2UW banned all political comment from live talkback shows. In 1987, parliament finally legislated to remove the requirement (Griffen-Foley, 2007: 102–3).

Some evidence of the involvement of political interests in lining up callers remains. In 1977, the Amalgamated Metal Workers and Shipwrights’ Union (AMWSU) proposed ‘manipulating’ the media to suit its ‘purposes, partly by lining up callers to talkback radio’.15 In 1988, the ALP’s National Media Liaison Service (known colloquially as aNiMaLS) compiled a ‘Radio Talkback Guide’: a 37-page list of every station and program across Australia, together with the names of each presenter and producer, and the programs’ telephone numbers.16 Early in the 2004 election campaign, a call to a Perth station about Labor’s tax policy was exposed as emanating from a Liberal Party member (Griffen-Foley, 2009: 412). That year, it was also revealed that three regular female callers to Stan Zemanek’s night-time program – ‘Barbara’ the snob, ‘Tanya’ the seductress and ‘Grace’ the aged sweetheart – were the creations of voiceover artist Bryan Wiseman, whose manager received cheques for ‘entertainment services’ from 2UE (Sydney Morning Herald, 16 June 2004: 20; 17 June 2004: 22; 25 June 2004: 16; Daily Telegraph, 29 June 2004: 13).

Overall, however – as Foucault (1977: 113–38) might suggest – whether a proportion of telephone calls to radio, or letters to the editors of newspapers, are genuine or fabricated is probably largely irrelevant. What is significant is that this material is insistently presented as emanating from media audiences.

The talkback radio ‘family’ celebrated by hosts such as 3AW’s Keith McGowan consists in part of regular callers known to thousands by name and agitated callers threatening to commit suicide. Callers who ring in and mention birthdays are often sent a gift, such as flowers or CDs; luncheons and film parties, sometimes presided over by station personalities, are held for listeners; and listeners are encouraged to attend special outside or shopping centre broadcasts (Griffen-Foley, 2004: 542).

A few callers have become radio personalities themselves. Len Somerville, who suffered from cerebral palsy, was a regular caller to 5AA and 5DN. His poems were eventually collected in a book, Through the Eyes of Radio, with a foreword by host Bob Francis; it was published in 1997 (Somerville, 1997). Calls and songs from ‘Dale’, a developmentally delayed listener, were a popular part of John Laws’ program for decades. The voice of the arch-conservative listener ‘Stephanie’ is familiar to regular listeners to Alan Jones and his stablemates at 2GB (Lyons, 1991: 12; Masters, 2006: 285).

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In a similar vein, the writers of regular letters to the editor can become identities in their own right. Following the death of W.W. (Bill) Mitchell in Western Australia in 1996, his widow released a book entitled Dear Sir (Mitchell, 1998). In Victoria in 2000 came An Ordinary Aussie Pesters the Press, subtitled ‘The press wins – of course!’, by serial correspondent John Rawson (Rawson, 2000). More recently, Frank Hainsworth published two books, A Public Voice and And Furthermore, based on a selection of the 4500 letters of his that had appeared in assorted newspapers and magazines over nearly 20 years (Hainsworth, 2004; c. 2006).

In May 2000, the Sydney Morning Herald published letters from readers themselves explaining why they submitted letters to the editor.17 In 2009, The Age reported on the death of Constance E. Little, who had been writing letters to it and other newspapers for five decades; her death also resulted in a piece entitled ‘Remembering a Lady of Letters’ on ABC radio in Gippsland (The Age, 16 June 2009).18 Crikey.com.au noted that if Little had ‘stuck around … she’d have a blog’, and began running a column in her honour based on outstanding letters to the editor.19

Before his retirement in 2007, one of Australia’s longest-serving and most successful talkback hosts began his nationally syndicated program with the confident greeting ‘Hello world, this is John Laws. What’s on your mind, Australia?’ He was fond of describing talkback as ‘dial-in democracy’,20 while his rival, Sydney’s Alan Jones, claimed to be the voice of the ordinary person on ‘Struggle Street’ (Masters, 2006: xii, 224). Of course, the claims of talkback presenters to provide a voice for ‘the people’ are contested by media commentators and critics.21 And just what constitutes ‘talkback’ radio is open to question. A study by Stephen Crofts and Graeme Turner found that Jones talked more than his callers, and took the least number of calls of the talkback hosts they examined (Crofts and Turner, 2007: 135–36).

‘Uncles’ and ‘Aunts’ may have disappeared from Australia’s commercial airwaves, but radio still has the capacity to touch listeners at the most personal level. Magazine editor Marina Go recalls listening to Amanda Keller on 2MMM-FM recounting the birth of her first child moments after the delivery. As Keller shed tears of joy, Go drove:

to my office with tears streaming down my face. As I looked across at the next lane of traffic, I saw cars of men and women sobbing, too … It wasn’t a particularly stylish show … [but] it was intensely personal and real. I found myself caring about the details of the birth as though Amanda were a close friend. (Somerville, 1997; Sun-Herald, 22 February 2004, Sunday Life: 6)

With increasing self-regulation in the media sector and changing community standards, it may have seemed that by the twenty-first century almost no subject was off-limits for Australia’s commercial radio talkback hosts. But in 2009 there was a stunt at 2Day-FM in which a teenage girl was attached to a lie detector and questioned by her mother about her sexual history. The girl’s shocking claim that she had been raped went to air, with no ‘dump’ or ‘kill’ button used. Following widespread outrage, the controversial host Kyle Sandilands was suspended from air, and the Australian Communications and Media Authority conducted an inquiry into the adequacy of community safeguards for the protection of participants in live hosted entertainment programs on commercial radio (ACMA, 2010).

reality television … and beyondSince the first half of the 1990s, some Australian television shows designed for entertainment have co-opted the claims of news and current affairs program to show ‘real life’ (Lumby, 2002: 324). Observational and reality television shows began peppering the airwaves,

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intent on turning the private lives of ‘ordinary people’ into a regular, often daily, public spectacle. As Graeme Turner (2010: 33) notes, reality television ‘may well be the most exorbitantly “noticed” form of programming in television history’ – and, I suspect, one of the most noticed forms in media history. The rise of new media has offered manifold opportunities for audience interaction – through live streaming, blogs, polls, votes, and so on – but we should not forget that the old media offered many such opportunities, too.

All of the forms of audience participation in the Australian media dating back to the late nineteenth century have sought to foster a sense of audience engagement and agency. Here I have focused on the commercial media, and through doing so it has become clear that virtually all of the outlets under examination have simultaneously sought to create a loyal community of consumers – readers, listeners and viewers. As a director of Hume Broadcasters commented in 1978, ‘community participation’ is ‘a very valuable method of public relations and publicity’.22 There is some evidence to suggest that at least the occasional contribution to the media purported to be by an audience member has been fabricated or manipulated, just as there would later be allegations of voter fraud for shows like Big Brother. There has been at least a degree of cynicism in the ways in which some media producers have viewed their audiences. In an unguarded moment in 1936, 2UW’s studio manager told a PMG inspector that ‘he regarded his listeners as morons and treated them as such, hence the popularity of 2UW’.23 When Mike Carlton returned to Australia from England in 1994, he briefly worked in music radio, promising ‘no dumb talkback’ after years hosting this on Australian AM radio (Griffen-Foley, 2004: 27).

Several of the titles under examination in this article – Voice of the People, Town Meeting, and I’m on Your Side – have been quite portentous, and often contentious. More recently, we have seen Today Tonight begin promoting itself as ‘Sydney’s Voice’, and A Current Affair retaliating by badging itself ‘The Voice of Sydney’. No radio or a television program – even with a mass audience – can ever legitimately claim to speak for, and represent, ‘the Australian people’. What are we to make of Norman Banks, whose memoirs – without it a hint of unease – referred to his audience as the ‘Little People’? Much of his career had been built on audience participation, with his retirement dinner in 1978 featuring ‘Voice of the Voyager smoked salmon’, ‘Help Thy Neighbour sauce’, and ‘Open Line vegetables’.24 And yet it is hard not to dismiss Australia’s broadcasting regulators of the 1950s and 1960s as anything other than elitist in their discomfiture at the prospect of ordinary Australians being heard on air, and to cheer on the callers who jammed switchboards when talkback was legalised in April 1967. Then again, are we comfortable about seeing the media, whether ‘old’ or ‘new’, covering and dissecting every aspect of people’s supposedly private lives?

Notes1 This was certainly not the first periodical to carry a column entitled ‘Answers to Correspondents’.

I am grateful to Dr Elizabeth Morrison for pointing out that in Australia, for example, the Australian Journal and the Melbourne Leader had been publishing such a column since the late 1860s.

2 State Library of Victoria (SLV), Norman Banks Papers, PA02/07, Box 13, ‘Notes from Norman Banks’, 2nd period: 1935–39 and 3rd period: 1939–45; and ‘Salesmanship’.

3 SLV, Banks Papers, PA02/07, Box 13, ‘Notes from Norman Banks’, 2nd period: 1935–39.4 Performing Arts Collection, Melbourne: Nancy Lee Collection, Box 1L8, large scrapbook,

clipping, n.d. (c. 1937).5 John Fairfax Archives (JFA): Box 200.27/1, letter from S.R.I. Clark to 2GB Board, 2 September

1960.

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6 National Archives of Australia (NAA)/Victoria: MP1170/3, BA/9/2 PART 1, memo from C. Nichols re Soundabout on 20 February 1961; Herald (Melbourne), 17 May 1961; memo from J.L. Skerrett to ABCB secretary, 15 July 1964.

7 SLV, Banks Papers, PA02/07, Box 13, ‘Notes from Norman Banks’, 6th period: 1957–63; and ‘The Interview’. See also Listener In-TV, 15 August 1963.

8 NAA/Victoria, MP1170/3, BT/2/1 PART 1 and B4069, VT/4/1.9 NAA/Victoria, B4069, VT/4/1, memo from R. W. Fox to Director of Program Services,

16 February 1968.10 NAA/Victoria, B4069, VT/4/1, memo from R. W. Fox to Director of Program Services,

16 February and 1 April 1968.11 NAA/Victoria, B4069, VT/4/1, report from D.H. Ross to Adrian Jose, 19 April 1967.12 NAA/Victoria, B4069, VT/4/1, memos from R.W. Fox to Adrian Jose, 16 February 1968;

C.H. Nicholls, 14 March 1968.13 SLV, Banks Papers, PA02/07, Box 13, ‘H.T.N.’ reminiscence. 14 John Laws interviewed by Bridget Griffen-Foley, 5 May 2005.15 National Library of Australia, MS 4985, Australian Labor Party Federal Secretariat Records, Box

375, Trade Unions and the Media, Folder 9, Proposed Publicity Campaign for the Amalgamated Metal Workers and Shipwrights’ Union, prepared by Tony Reeves, November 1979.

16 NLA, MS 4985: Australian Labor Party Federal Secretariat Records, Box 548, Folder: NMLS Media Guide, 2nd batch: Radio Talkback Guide.

17 Australian Newspaper History Group Newsletter, no. 6, May 2000, p. 6.18 www.abc.net.au/local/audio/2009/06/16/2600765.htm.19 www.crikey.com.au/2009/06/16/lamenting-the-loss-to-letters-of-constance-e-little.20 http://esvc000856.bne001tu.server-web.com/5Milestones_Bio.html.21 See, for example, work by Jon Faine, Chris Masters, Liz Gould and Graeme Turner.22 JFA, Box 200.27/6, File: 5DN Adelaide, minutes of Hume Broadcasters board meeting,

21 November 1978, p. 3.23 NAA/Victoria, MP 522/1, 2UW Part 1 File 3, report on inspection, 24 June 1936.24 SLV, Banks Papers, PA03/72, Box 11, Program for testimonial dinner, 18 July 1978.

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Bridget Griffen-Foley is an ARC Queen Elizabeth II Fellow and the Director of the Centre for Media History at Macquarie University.

Documents

2010 Henry Mayer Lecture - Voices of the people: Audience participation in Australian radio