Goodbye RadioLIVE, and thanks for all the madness
Name: RadioLIVE Died: Any day now. Playing: Talk, opinion and people. Sometimes it was riveting. Former staff: Paul Henry, Bill Ralston, Mitch Harris, Wacko Jacko and J.T, Marcus Lush, Sean Plunket, Michael Laws, Martin Devlin, me and scores of others. Oh yes, Karen Hay and Andrew Fagan, without you my life’s going to be . . . that guy. And Lindsay Perigo, so we clearly weren’t braindead.
Returning as: Magic Talk. Hopefully.
And yes, they did hire a huge legal team of one to deal with the offensive lineup of characters.
So I put my hand up for Drive 3pm-6pm in 2011; you can only work with Paddy Gower for so long in the Beehive.
And no-one from 3 News really had much to do with Live. I found it odd. The company’s news brand and the firm’s talk radio station barely knew each other existed, let alone shared resources.
It was a wild start. Michael Laws wanted to shoot me. Luckily Sean Plunket was a bigger target and he just stood in front of me.
Laws thought our election coverage was biased, or something like that, so mused about putting a bullet between our eyes.
His bite didn’t match his bark and I confronted him in the entrance to the station, where he resembled a darting flea in a black turtleneck skivvy.
He didn’t hang around to negotiate. I liked him. Always have. Immense talent. Great writer. A bit light on compassion.
I found it frustrating at Live initially. So much can go wrong in radio and, when you needed a clear line, you couldn’t get one.
I needed a hotel bed one night after covering the Budget. Sadly we had no budget, apparently. I slept on a mate’s couch. I didn’t care. After years of press gallery privileges, this got me hungry for journalism again, for stories, for explanations, for people and their weird and wonderful brains.
At times you just marvelled at the medium. Immediate, intense, intimate, raw, emotional, real. I loved it. I love talkback. You, me and a world of madness.
I talked housing. I thought in 2011 Auckland had fundamentally changed for the worse. No longer was it housing for families but a tool for investors. I picked it to get way worse. It did. People either made millions or made their way to a car to sleep in.
Carol would ring me from Nelson New World in the aisle selling booze and talk wine. Fun thing she was.
We hit the road, came live from Christchurch, did a show walking the streets of Kaiko¯ ura. How our technical mastermind Scott Walker made that happen I simply don’t know.
We had the 0800 openline open all hours and they poured on in. I had a caller inside the cordon of a police shooting describe the incident as the shooter went down.
Radio at its best, and we were acknowledged at the NZ Radio Awards for that, a huge honour especially for our radio producer Mark Wilson. He was my main man. Always will be. And Kim Blair. Three people, three hours, daily.
But RadioLIVE is set to go. The AM Show stays, as does Drive with Ryan Bridge. He’s a talent. But we get new real estate on Magic. It’ll all become clear.
On its day RadioLIVE launched into space. But it was an orphan. No-one had its back. And slowly either it left the family or the family bailed first. Some good people are losing their jobs. I feel deeply for them, they’re friends.
One last thing: our listeners. Thank you. You care deeply about this country and the issues. We don’t always agree, but that’s what made this station work.
Debate. Talk. Argue. Be kind. Be fair. Go hard. But keep calling. Keep listening. Without you, the next step isn’t that attractive.
Thanks for the good times on Live. Now for the Magic.