Question: what’s the similarity between ABC local radio in Sydney and the Nine Network?

Answer:
both are showing the sort of managerial instability and lack of
confidence that you wouldn’t normally expect from two outfits that have
been well run over the past few years.

But now Nine is stumbling
– which it has been, on and off, all year – and 702 has developed a
Nine-like capacity to shoot itself in very sensitive places. It all
started with the departure of Angela Catterns to the new DMG station
Vega in Sydney. And yesterday it continued in a major way with morning
presenter Sally Loane quitting (she’ll wrap up on Friday). All this on
the day when the latest radio ratings showed an up-tick in her
popularity.

This morning, Loane thanked her listeners and her
production team for the ratings result, commenting that they were the
highest in her five and a half years in the morning timeslot. One of
the reasons for Loane being out of favour was that after a dip in
ratings late last year, ABC management did research that supposedly told
them that she split her audience: inner city, and especially inner
west, listeners thought she was trivial.

702 doesn’t have Loane’s replacement, Virginia Trioli,
ready to step in yet. She’s untested in Sydney and the original plan to
allow her to spend a month finding her feet in Sin City might now have
to be scrapped.

So who will be in the seat next Monday remains a
mystery, along with the identity of Catterns’ replacement in the
breakfast shift. On-air auditions have been conducted for that slot in
an unedifying way. Will management – driven by Sue Howard, the head of
ABC Radio – now follow suit and conduct auditions for Loane’s
replacement?

Probably not, because the Trioli deal has been done. Then you have the
question of who takes Trioli’s spot doing Drive in Melbourne at a time
when her ratings are back into double figures and Derryn Hinch’s
figures on 3AW are in striking distance.