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Report by Johnson Leung for AFANA in Melbourne

Melbourne radio station 3AW has axed four members of its sports team after suffering a plunge in the latest ratings survey of AFL radio coverage.  3AW Executive Producer of Sport Ralph Horowitz and journalist Craig Hutchison (who presented the pre-match program on Saturday and Sunday afternoons and called the Saturday night game) were given their marching orders last week, as were Trevor Marmalade and John Rothfield (aka Dr Turf), co-presenters of Saturday morning sports/variety show Glossing Over, which was also dropped. Hutchison and Marmalade are colleagues at Channel Nine Melbourne.

3AW's main commentator Rex Hunt has been put on notice by station management that his style must change, and banned from touching the sound effects button and making "unfunny jokes". In other changes, co-commentator Clinton Grybas will step up as host of the station's football coverage on Saturday afternoon as well as Friday night, Tony Leonard will host the Sunday match broadcast and share the commentary role on Saturday night with former 3AW Program Manager Shane Healy.

The blade dropped after mid-season ratings released during the week revealed the station had fallen from No. 1 in all four weekend time slots to a distant third behind fellow broadcasters ABC and Triple M. 3AW Program Director Clark Forbes discovered listeners, mostly 40 years old or over, were put off by blaring music at every goal, barking-dog sound effects, excessive singing and use of nicknames.

Forbes said parts of 3AW's coverage were "irrelevant, unfunny and past their use-by date". He said coverage hit its lowest ebb in the final quarter of the Round 11 Carlton-Port Adelaide game, during which broadcast antics overrode description of play. Hunt, who had called VFL/AFL matches for 3AW for more than 20 years, conceded his team had dropped the ball and alienated many people who simply had not taken to Hutchison and that he, as frontman, had to shoulder the responsibility for the loss of listeners. Hunt described the changes as "a fantastic wake-up call" and pledging to rein in his bombast.

Hunt vowed it wouldn't be long before 3AW was back at the top of the ratings.  He said he was hurt by the sackings of the "two young men who are not only friends but people who have so much to offer football broadcasting". But he added: "This isn't the worst thing to happen to me in my life and I remain very positive. To those who think it's all over just wait and see how hard we work. I'm up for the challenge."

Graham Mott, General Manager of Southern Cross Broadcasting (owner of 3AW), said he had been concerned about the performance of the commentary team for some time. "Our football has clearly lost direction, as have the people within it. Quite frankly, we've been too busy looking at ourselves and talking about ourselves and trying to entertain rather than concentrating on the game," he said. Mott said he had no choice but to make the hard calls. "I don't believe Hutchy was the right fit," he said. "That's a hard call but that's the way it is. And I charged Ralph with the responsibility of making sure 3AW football was handled the right way but given some of the judgment calls that were made I don't believe it was appropriate for him to continue in that role." 3AW Director of Football and match-day statistician Graeme Bond said a lot of sound effects used in the past two seasons would be dropped immediately, including dog barking and "Listen to the fans" (a prompt for blaring music after a goal has been scored).

Horowitz, a former producer of Channel Nine's Footy Show and a staff member at radio station SEN before joining 3AW last year (and led it to wins in all of the footy ratings for 2006) was stunned when he arrived at work to be told of the decision. He had no comment "because that's what my lawyers told me to say".

Hutchison, who was recruited by Horowitz from Triple M at the start of last year and has since combined his radio work with roles at Channel Nine, a sports gossip columnist in The Sunday Age and running a sports website, said he was "bitterly disappointed" and "shocked by the quick reaction to the first really bad survey".

Hutchison, a former journalist at the Seven and Ten networks, said he was not aware of any issue with his performance prior to his sacking and had not talked to his bosses. He said he was really hurt and disappointed by the "knee-jerk reaction" and would have liked the chance to correct what they perceived. 3AW's sudden drop in the footy ratings after winning all of the four match-day timeslots in the same ratings period last year comes as a severe blow, as it had dominated football broadcasting for the past 20 years and called itself "the best".

The latest Nielsen listener survey, based on the period from March 25 to June 9, revealed ABC Radio Melbourne won three timeslots and Triple M won the other timeslot, while 3AW had slipped to third in every slot. The new player in weekend football coverage, SEN, has had no impact, with a minescule market share.

At the halfway mark of last season 3AW rated 17.1 on Friday night to hold a huge lead over the other two stations. But this year it rates 9.0, well astern of Triple M and the ABC. 3AW's Saturday afternoon match call numbers have crashed from 17.9 to 9.4, while the Saturday night match call team, headed by Hutchison, has been abandoned by listeners, with its numbers down from 11.8 to 4.3.  Since the departure of Hutchison and Sam Newman from Triple M, the station has risen to seize No. 1 in the coveted Saturday market with its preview, call and review on the back of its 2007 team, fronted by Garry Lyon, James Brayshaw and Brian Taylor.

ABC Radio Executive Producer Susie Robinson said the station was very happy with the result. "We respect the game, we respect our experts and we like each other," she said, referring to the ABC's successful mix of Gerard Whateley, Drew Morphett, Stan Alves and Mark Maclure. The survey also shows average audience figures across the four Melbourne stations over the four weekend AFL periods at almost 10 per cent less than two years ago. The average share of the total radio audience that listened to the four stations during these times was 30.525 per cent, compared to the average audience share of 40.125 per cent over the same time slots on weekends in 2005.

Sources: Herald Sun, Melbourne Age

Article last changed on Tuesday, June 26, 2007 - 2:06 AM EDT


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