Radio Australia Today Editorial
Archive for March, 2008
A Policy of Continual Improvement
24 March 2008
That’s what we have here at the Breakfast Club website.
Since the new site came on-line a couple of weeks ago, we have progressively added more and more stuff to it.
The blog is here (as you will probably know since you’re reading it), the photo gallaries are in full swing, the podcasts are now on the front page and last for a fortnight instead of the previous one week, and we have wallpaper (which just proves that we do listen to you. It was a special request from one of our listeners, who wanted to be able to have us on his desktop so he could look at us as well as hear us. My mum was very pleased at the notion).
There’s heaps more to come. We are investigating a webcam that can bring you vision of what’s going on in the Club live while you hear us. And we’re not just talking about some shonky, grainy $10 webcam that is permanently stuck in a corner of the ceiling. We’re looking at a two or three camera set-up with special lighting. Woo hoo!
All this means that our web designer, Simon Gamble is up at our desks every day trying to satisfy our finicky needs.
Here’s a shot of Simon trying to fix a photo problem on Heather Jarvis’ computer. Apparently he’s not fixing it quick enough:
By the way, Heather has been filling in for Adelaine while she jaunts around Malaysia and Japan, and she’s been great. All those years as host of In The Loop have produced a pretty funky person to be working with.
Thankfully I don’t get throttled too much in the Club studio. Most of the fill-in presenters leave that to Addy.
The James Bond of Managers
20 March 2008
Have we told you about our boss here at the Breakfast Club?
His name is Brendon Telfer. Many long-term listeners would remember him as the guy who covered sport in the region for, like, a million years.
But as I said, he’s now the executive producer of Radio Australia’s English langauge programs. He was responsible for setting up our live sister afternoon program In The Loop, and then the Club.
He’s also the guy who holds the purse strings. When we want to give away music players (or Ferrari caps at the Grand Prix), Brenno is the one we have to ask.
Addy and I both had the silly temerity to ask for pay rises this year, which led to Brendon becoming known by the James Bond villian name of Dotctor No.
We’re still trying to bludgeon him into sending the Club to the Beijing Olympics, but a boss and his money is rarely parteth.
Just so you get the idea, here’s a shot of Brendon when Addy asked him if we can buy a box of new pencils.
Have a great Easter weekend. If you don’t celebrate Easter, have a great weekend anyway.
Going All Akimbo
19 March 2008
Kim Taylor has been filling in for Adelaine this week, and boy has it been a week.
She gives me a hard time, which is no more than I deserve.
Kim is the Breakfast Club’s music person. She collates all the song requests, gets the chart songs for us and throws verbal bombs in during the Top Ten segment every Wednesday.
Strangely enough, she never gets into trouble. Teacher’s Pet.
That’s probably because she has the face of an angel, while I have the face of a Greek guy who’s just committed an armed robbery.
Just look at this face:
Okay, so she’s holding a photo of someone eating something that looks like a leftover from an operation, but she does it with such an innocent look on her face.
What will Kimmie say today? One can only listen and find out.
The Smell of Fumes and the Ring of Kiss
18 March 2008
What a week we had last week on the Breakfast Club. Two days at the Australian Formula One Grand Prix, and neither our tech man Gary Jones nor myself have suffered from any effect from having the fumes of V8 motors and Formula One scream machines spewing out their greenhouse gases all around us. Not to mention the noise. It was kinda like it was compulsary to put 36 inch speakers on the back of Alonso’s car, just to make sure that the noise reaches excruciation point.
But boy the buzz! We got to speak to Miss World Australia (the beautiful and generous Caroline Pemberton) who is the ambassador for the GP. And I got all close and personal.
All the way along, we had a great time. We linked up with Hong Kong’s Phil Whelan, who did his usual act of disdaining everything (He can’t help it. He went to Oxford, or at least thinks he did.)
We even got to speak with a driver, Force India’s driver Tonio Liuzzi, who has been known to battle it out with a certain M. Schumacher in the past. Charming guy with the amazingly obligatory great looks that most F1 drivers seem to share. Check him out:
Did I mention the screaming noise of the cars? That was nothing compared to the Kiss concert on Sunday night after the GP. Paul Stanley, who was in as fine a voice as he has been in the band’s 35 year history, won the crowd over by the third song. At first there was a bit of chuffing about this band of guys wearing 70s glam make-up, but he got them, folks. He got them.
But special thanks to the Jones boy who set it all up from a few suitcases (a la James Bond’s Little Nellie in You Only Live Twice).
In all it was a hoot of a time. It was great to have your involvement too.
Bring on next year!
When the Market Goes Down
18 March 2008
When the stock market goes down.. to many of us who don’t invest in shares, the drop is just numbers. But to the people behind the listed companies, it’s a serious event, certainly not a game.
One story that’s come through today is about a childcare company that has been one of the great Australian corporate success stories of the last ten years. A young couple decided that there was scope for childcare centres that combined a pre-school learning environment with daycare. Australian parents took to the idea, and the company, ABC Learning Centres, was such a success that it quickly became one of Australia’s top 100 companies.
Yesterday though came the bad news. ABC Learning revealed that it made a profit, but a reduced profit, one that was down 42% on previous earnings.
Now, as I said, this was a company that has been doing everything right. But on the news of this profit fall, the value of ABC Learning’s shares dropped, like, hugely.
For a company that has high capitalisation, a share drop was always going to hurt. And it did. The company wiped off sixty million Australian dollars.
In one day.
The good news is that it is a successful company that should continue to make profits for years to come, unless the owners go troppo.
It also highlights a truth of the stockmarket. If you’re going to aim to make money on the exchanges, then you have to hang in, take the lows along with the highs, and hope that over time, natural business and economic growth will reward you.
And even headlines will fade, like the one in Melbourne’s Herald Sun about the ABC Learning share drop.
It reads: “Losing 60 million in a day is as easy as ABC”
Ouch.
