Why is commercial radio the last bastion of middle aged white men?
Australian radio networks need to start embracing diversity to stay in touch with the changes in society argues Sunil Badami.
When I first started broadcasting on ABC Local Radio a year or two ago, a listener texted in to say ‘how great it is to hear an ethnic face on the radio.’ I joked that I didn’t realise “our” faces made any noise, though I supposed with “our” mouths open, they made as much noise as anyone else’s.
But for someone like me, born and raised in Australia to Indian parents, it hasn’t always been easy to see or hear faces or voices like mine in the media, especially commercial media.
For many non-white presenters, actors and writers, the ABC has traditionally been a haven for having our voices and perspectives heard.
But while high profile former Radio National Drive presenter and Fairfax media commentator Waleed Aly was recently appointed as anchor of Network Ten’s high rating The Project, what “ethnic faces” can you name on commercial radio?
Surfing the radio waves, from FM to AM, you’d be hard pressed to find a single non-Anglo voice, and I can’t remember anyone like me on any commercial station.
Popular wisdom says that audiences, particularly on talk radio, are generally conservative, and don’t like any moves away from the usual middle-aged white blokes you can find on any commercial talk radio station across the country.
Don’t get me wrong – some of my best friends are middle aged white men! But all of us know or love people who aren’t just middle aged white men: how many of us have female or Asian or disabled friends and family? Over a third of us are born overseas. One in five of us has a disability. And more than half of us are women.
So why doesn’t commercial radio reflect the diverse realities of modern Australia?
This month, I was thrilled to join Fairfax Radio’s NewsTalk 4BC on Afternoons and Evenings. I’m happy to be corrected, but while I can’t think of any other non-white presenter on commercial radio, it could be a first.
Liddell
That I followed the wonderful Karni Liddell, champion Paralympian, motivational speaker and disability activist, who’s been presenting on 4BC for the last couple of years, only made it a greater thrill. Again, can you think of any other presenter on commercial radio who happens to have disability?
Listeners love Karni: she’s warm, engaging, funny. She’s so many things – model, author, all round cool chick and more – that although her disability has helped make her who she is today, it’s not the only interesting or inspiring thing about her.
Similarly, although I’m proud of my Indian heritage, it’s only part of who I am: a husband, a father, a writer, a quiz show winner – and, I have to admit, a bit of a ratbag who thinks rules, especially on radio, are meant to be broken.
But I can’t and wouldn’t ever claim to be a spokesperson for anyone else but me. While it’s great that 4BC have broken the supposed rules of commercial radio in bringing Karni and me on board, it’s even greater that they did so not because of what we were or what boxes we might tick, but because of who we are and what things we can bring to the conversation with our audiences.
And although my name was a bit of a mouthful for many listeners when I started, it didn’t stop them trying to get their mouths around it and tell me how much they enjoyed hanging out with me on the wireless.
I can’t deny I had my own preconceptions about commercial talk radio audiences, but I was as pleased as surprised to discover how generous, open – and, as I got to grips with the shows I was covering – forgiving they were, and how eager they were for new voices and views.
While people were interested in who I was and what my story was, my ethnicity was never the defining issue, any more than it would have been if we’d met in the street or the pub, and I loved getting to know them as much as they got to know me, as we talked about the issues that connected us and interested us – from what to do with the kids during the holidays to how to use up the last of the summer mangoes, and everything in between.
If anything, this past fortnight has only proven that rules are meant to be broken, and that audiences are hungry to meet new people just like them, with different perspectives and interesting stories to share.
I can’t wait to hang out with 4BC listeners again, and hearing more voices like ours – ordinary Aussies like you and me from all kinds of backgrounds and viewpoints – on commercial radio in the future, as well as inspiring kids like you and Karni and me that their voices can be heard too.
- Sunil Badami is a radio broadcaster
Its a really good point you make Sunil and I would love to see some more diversity in the industry however when you are talking about AM talk focused stations the overwhelming majority of listeners are middle aged white men who may not identify with people from a different cultural background etc
The good news is that I think this will change in upcoming generations as they are going to be far more culturally diverse than present ones. Once the next gen hit that “middle age” bracket then I think we will start hearing some different voices (hopefully)
User ID not verified.
Great article Sunil. There’s a similar debate going on about “code-switching” and white voices on US Public Radio that is also worth a listen/read:
http://transom.org/2015/chenjerai-kumanyika/
User ID not verified.
Why are 97.7% of all contributors to Mumbrella in the last 3 years middle aged white men?
User ID not verified.
Hear hear!!
I wonder if it’s because newer generations are “more diverse” that we will start hearing different voices or just that it’s not as much of an issue for them?
There is heaps of great talent out there – Bring it on!
User ID not verified.
Its the law of averages Sunil.
How many Indians are sending in demo tapes and asking for jobs on air?
This article is a nonsense.
User ID not verified.
Maybe there is a niche – find some backers and explore. Im sure there is something like 3-7 percent market share potential
User ID not verified.
Great article Sunil.
Thanks for your insight!
User ID not verified.
Sunil – great piece.
Sorry to disappoint you but Rodney O, who is black, has been presenting on commercial radio for some years- KIIS at the moment. I am an Arab Australian born here. I was presenting on RN in the early 90s and was an Executive Producer there for quite a few years and it was an issue back then. This problem is not confined to commercial radio- let’s get that straight. It runs across the whole of the media and film industries.
However, it goes much further – it is not just about the people on air- the faces and voices upfront. It is about the management of media organisations, the people making decisions about audiences and content.
I have spent three decades training, mentoring and employing people from ethnic and indigenous communities in the media. They do apply for jobs all the time- but let’s be honest – how many jobs are handed out through networks of men who only know men like themselves? There has been no improvement
User ID not verified.
There has long been a culture in this country that seems to say that only white Australian males can be racist.
You exemplify this when you state as a reason that the status quo should change is that ‘Over a third of us are born overseas. One in five of us has a disability. And more than half of us are women.’
You then go on to say how wonderful 4BC is for hiring you, an Aussie of Indian decent, and a handicapped woman and although you then refute it, your inference seems to be that they have hired you and Karni because you have an ethnic background and she, as I said, is handicapped AND a woman.
You, it seems, can make whatever claims you want but, as a white Australian male, questioning your statements will instantly get me accused of being a racist and labelled discriminatory.
The difference between you and I is that I don’t care where someone comes from, what colour they are or what gender they are, if they are the best person for the job then I am happy to have them on my radio. That is the only true non-racist/discriminatory approach and it is the one you should also be adopting.
I would like to believe that you and Karni got the jobs on 4BC because you were the best applicants. The truth is that, if you did get it because you are of Indian decent or Karni was hired because she is handicapped or a woman, that is racist and/or discriminatory. Wouldn’t you like to believe that you got the job because you were good at it and not because of the colour of your skin?
What we need is not equal amounts of men and women in parliament or equal amounts of ethnically diverse races on radio. What we need is the best people for the jobs and it doesn’t matter who they are or how that slews the averages.
Please stop vilifying white Australian males.
User ID not verified.
Not many at the moment, but Sunil isn’t a first. Akmal Saleh did national afternoons on Nova for 2 years.
User ID not verified.
This would be a surprise to Luke Bona on 2UE who proudly states his Aboriginal heritage.
Sounds like someone has a chip on their shoulder because they can’t get a job.
User ID not verified.
Commercial radio. See that word “commercial”. It’s all about money. It’s the only reason it exists. If you don’t bring in as much money as the middle aged white guys then guess what. Shareholders don’t care about your diversity. They care about return on investment.
If Sunil was smashing rating records he’d have commercial stations lining up to give him work. Apparently they aren’t. Says a lot.
User ID not verified.
Perth radio has some v average presenters, yesterday heard a whole load of nonsense on how young gold digging women marry old men. Who cares? But it was the only thing a couple of blokes could come up with on primetime radio for morning. So bad, so dull. I wish some of these guys would leave the juvenile humour behind and pick up a book or two sometimes…
User ID not verified.
Actually, it’s not middle aged white men – it’s middle aged white men born in Australia. Apart from Ian ‘Dicko’ Dickson’s brief sojourn, how many middle aged white men born outside this country make it into mainstream electronic media. None. So, it’s not a race thing, it’s a “where you born here” thing. So the MSM never reflects the quarter of the population who moved here.
User ID not verified.
Think it is interesting too that all the black and brown people we have thought of are MEN. Just underlines that men are making the decisions. To say it should only be about the best person for the job and that we do not see race/ethnicity is a furphy. Research shows that in recruitment people choose candidates that are most like themselves. So the best person for the job is nearly always a white man because he is being chosen by a white men.
User ID not verified.
Rubbish Nicola. Are you saying that people of ethnic background and women should get jobs just because they are of ethnic background or are women regardless of their ability?
It always has to be the best person for the job, anything else IS discriminatory.
There are thousands of people who want jobs in the broadcast industry and that means that there are lots of very talented people applying for those jobs. Radio station management’s responsibility is to create a successful team that will win them audiences and they will normally do whatever it takes to achieve that result.
If you are the right person to make that team work, you will get the job regardless of who you are.
Sunil obviously got the job at 4BC because he was the right person with the necessary talents at that time and beat any other applicants for the job. The fact that he may not have got work at other stations more than likely means that he wasn’t the best applicant at the time and was not because he was of Indian descent.
Programme Managers are far too mercenary to worry about race, creed or gender, all they are concerned about is ratings.
It really does feel like this argument is trying to shift the blame from audition failures to racism or discrimination.
User ID not verified.
We are to politically correct these days!
Who gives a shit about skin colour anymore?
What happened to the laid back, self depreciating Aussie attitude that can be shared by all colours and sexes?
User ID not verified.
Stick Mareebo
User ID not verified.
Gary, well said.
User ID not verified.
Gary, no I am not saying “that people of ethnic background and women should get jobs just because they are of ethnic background or are women regardless of their ability”.
What I am saying is this: To claim it has always been the best person for the job is a lie which ignores discriminatory practices in recruitment. I witnessed this in the ABC – especially in the recruitment of the many casual employees who went on to become full time workers.
Media people employ who they know through their networks. Now I wonder if those white men know many Indigenous and ethnic Australians?
I understand the claims of political correctness and negative reactions to Sunil’s article. It is really hard to appreciate the depth of discrimination whether on the basis of gender, race etc if you haven’t personally experienced it. I note all the negative comments are from white men.
User ID not verified.
Hilarious! By that I mean the defensiveness of those at the top of the privilege pyramid (yep…those white males again). How very good of you to not see colour or care about gender. Now if you could just parlay those fine characteristics into actually employing people who don’t look like you, that’d be tops.
People who argue that merit is an actual real thing are invariably white men. Ask a woman or a person of colour, or better yet a woman of colour if she is judged on her merits. If merit based appointments actually existed, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. You only have to look at a lot of the white men who are making these sorts of decisions. If you believe that all of them got there because of merit, and not because they knew someone, or went to school with someone, or reminded someone of themselves, I’ve got a harbour bridge to sell you.
You guys…hilarious.
User ID not verified.
Rachael, unfortunately I am not in a position to hire radio staff any more. Mind you, when I did have that power it was not to hire ‘on-air’ personnel, although I did have a say in auditions for on-air personnel, I was in production.
During my 10 years in Sydney radio I worked with many women who were marvelous. In fact I would say that I worked with at least as many ‘On-Air’ women as men and know how to appreciate people who have the talent. As is the case, there were many on-air staff I worked with, both men and women, who I thought had little talent but strangely they managed to get jobs that according to you would normally be taken by ‘white Australian males’. I presume those girls, some of whom are probably still in the industry, would not totally agree with your summation.
During my time in radio I also did some teaching at AFTRS and there seemed to be at least as many women in those classes as men. Sometimes there were more women than men and many of those went on to successful careers in the industry.
I have seen many ‘white Australian males’ who got jobs but didn’t last 5 minutes when it became obvious that they auditioned well but just didn’t have it once they got into an ‘on-air’ studio.
I’m not speaking here just to defend ‘white Australian males’ and I think I have enough experience to know what I am talking about. I have no idea what your experience is but I can assure you that I am speaking from experience when I say that PDs are too mercenary to care about race, creed or gender. They just want ratings and will hire whoever they think can get it for them. Ratings are their life blood. If the PD does well here he can move on to bigger and better things and, if hiring a handicapped, ethnic woman will get ratings for him, I can guarantee you she will be hired.
You have to remember also that the PDs, and radio management, are continuously surveying their audiences and a lot of what comes out of those surveys tells them what they need to do. If those surveys were to say that the station needs to hire more women you can bet your bottom dollar that is what would happen.
Your argument ‘People who argue that merit is a real thing are invariably white men’ is a nonsense. Anyone with a reasonable level of intelligence knows that merit is a real thing? Are you saying that people who merit being hired should sometimes be pushed aside so that we can get more women or people with ethnic backgrounds into jobs whether they have ‘merit’ or not?
Let me tell you, in the time that I was able to hire staff, I hired three women and two males. One of those males was not a ‘middle aged white man’, he was seventeen and was a great prospect as an engineer in the studio. The other one was a ‘middle aged ETHNIC male’ and turned out to be a miserable failure and I had to fire him. As it turns out, he and I are still mates but that’s another story.
The real point is that radio is an extraordinarily hard industry to crack and every time you go for a job you pit yourself against many other highly talented people who all desperately want that job. It is reasonable to assume that you will miss out more often than you will succeed. It will never be easy but you have to realise that the only way you will do it is to be the best at the next audition. Blaming ‘middle aged white Australian males’ might give you an excuse that temporarily soothes your ego but it is not going to help you get a job.
The simple fact is, be the best at the audition and the job will be yours. Sunil proved that at 4BC.
User ID not verified.
You accuse me of being a liar and I do not appreciate that.
What I am telling you is all to do with my experience which, as I said to Rachael, did not include me having the ability to hire or fire ‘On-Air’ staff but gave me an input by management seeking my opinion on auditions and demo tapes that were sent in by prospective employees.
In all my time I cannot recall a single time when the prospect was hired because the PD knew him or her through his ‘network’. During that time many women and men were hired based solely on their perceived ability to attract audiences in the demographic of the station. Interestingly there were heaps more men than women and a much lower percentage of applicants with ethnic backgrounds.
This of course meant that for every white Australian male that got a job, more white Australian males than females missed out on getting it. How do you explain their problem? Those poor saps are not as fortunate as you because they have nothing to blame their failure on. They are white Australian males so they have to suck it up and realise that they didn’t get the job because, on this occasion, they didn’t fit the bill or they were not good enough.
Now, quite often, if an applicant listed past employment on his/her resume, the PD would check with former employers and may get a recommendation. Even then, none of the PDs I have worked with would blindly take the other guys word for it although it certainly might get the applicant an audition. These applicants would still need to satisfy the PD of their ability, remember how the station performs governs his ability to advance his career.
Do not get me wrong. I am not saying that what you propose has never happened, we are talking about human beings here, what I am saying is that it has never happened in my experience and would never happen with any PD worth his salt.
You said, ‘Now I wonder if those white men know many Indigenous and ethnic Australians?’??? Do you really believe that these white men only hire people they know?
I have to say that it is really quite interesting that you claim to have witnessed this practice at the ABC where political correctness seems to be practiced to the n’th degree? I now live in the country and listen almost exclusively to the ABC (not because I like it that much but because it is the only station that gives you constant reception) and during the day you get the impression that it has been taken over by women and people of ethnic extraction? That definitely seems to be at odds with your statements.
You say, ‘I note all the negative comments are from white men.’?
I say it is you and the general tone of Sunil’s comments that are negative.
It makes it nice and neat if we fail an audition to have a group we can lay the blame on. ‘I don’t need to improve my auditioning skills or make a better demo tape, the ‘white Australian males’ will never give a woman or someone of ethnic background a job. It is their fault, not mine.’
Rubbish! It is up to you to. If you conduct the best audition or have the best demo tape, you will get the job.
There is one really serious caveat. You will always be up against serious competition, there are many more people looking for work on radio then there are available jobs, and you need to understand the probability is that you’ll fail more auditions than you will win. That applies to everyone, ‘white Australian males’ included.
If you truly are as negative as you indicate here I can understand why you might experience difficulties and I can assure you, it is not because of ‘middle aged white Australian males.’
User ID not verified.
Gary,
Rule 1 in radio – ‘Less Is More’. Thanks for your essay though.
Great article. Always love a good debate
User ID not verified.
Sorry about that guys.
I am inclined to get a little verbose about things I am passionate about.
User ID not verified.
All human beings are “ethnic”.
User ID not verified.
Absolutely loved your article Sunil, and congratulations on your broadcasting success. Given the insights you just shared and your comprehension of modern radio there is no doubt the commercial radio world is going to “hear” a lot more from you..Well done mate
User ID not verified.
Anyone from Maxus would love an article relating to radio!
User ID not verified.