ABC Radio programme "StarStuff" -- Axed

[stuart gary (Stuart Gary)]

Hi everyone, I just want to thank you all for your kind words and efforts.
Cheer's
Stuart

[stuart gary (Stuart Gary)]

Hi guys,
Thanks for all the support, management wants to answer all the e-mails themselves from now on.

[iceman (Mike)]

Hi Stuart, to IceInSpace! Thanks for signing up.

Were you given any chance to plead your case as to why it should stay? Was anyone fighting for it before the decision was made?

I'll post about it on the IceInSpace homepage to get more people to send their complaints to the ABC management.

[koputai (Jason)]

What more can you expect from a broadcaster that puts Will Anderson on air. They probably want the extra half hour so he can do more schoolboy tits 'n' bum jokes. Hey, it seems the great unwashed are lapping it up.

Cheers,
Jason.

[rider]

youre wrong about more sport,
ABC news radio has never reported on Sports.

just Games

Game of cricket,
Game of socker,
Game of Rugby,
Game of Golf,
Game of Tennis.

They'd report the statistics and gossip about a warfies BBQ cricket party rather than actually report RESULTS for the top level competition in any of the wide variety of sports that are not available on commercial channels.

Rider

[renormalised (Carl)]

Originally Posted by stuart gary

Hi everyone, I just want to thank you all for your kind words and efforts.
Cheer's
Stuart

Welcome to IIS, Stuart

We tried...we may have failed but we gave it a go. Seems the powers that be can't understand anything useful. It's beyond them.

[MrB (Simon)]

Hey! nothing wrong with Wil Anderson.
Infact, one of the ABC's biggest rating programs got axed and he was the host, R.I.P. The Glass House

Another program that was to be axed but survived due to public outcry was BTN (Behind The News) , so hope is not lost.

[Ric]

I fired off a load of emails last night to everybody on the list, no replies as yet.

Welcome to IIS Stuart, hope you have a great time here with us.

Cheers

[hilb]

I, too, am appalled at yet again more evidence of the cult of mediocrity that has been gaining momentum in Australia for several years now.

I have fired off a volley of emails to pollies and the ABC in the vain hope that sense may yet be seen.

[gts055 (Mark)]

I have received one reply to the many emails I sent to the various government departments yesterday. I noticed its the same reply that "dannat" received a few posts back. Seems that science has little relevance to the ABC.
I replied to "Elysha" at "ABC NewsRadio Audience" with :

Elysha,

Thanks for your reply, but that is hardly satisfactory. Your telling me that
I should listen 24/7 to the already grossly fat ABC NewsRadio, anticipating
a few odd seconds of science news, rather than the ABC offering a once
weekly, 30min timeslot dedicated to Astronomy/science. Where do think
society would be today without advances consequent of science.

Regards Mark



I have copied and pasted Elysha's initial reply to me:


Dear Mark,

Thanks for your email and feedback about StarStuff.

While we appreciate that you enjoy this specialist program, we need to
allocate as many of our resources within ABC NewsRadio as possible to
delivering the key promise of the network to provide rolling news
coverage.

We've decided to end the program because we need producer/ presenter
Stuart Gary to work on ABC NewsRadio's main newsdesk five days a week.
As you can appreciate, it's important the network's resources are
devoted to delivering the network's key promise.

But we will certainly continue to report on news from the scienticific
and astronomical communities, as part of our overall coverage of
breaking news.

Of course, this can also be accessed online from
http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/?...io&topic=space or
http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/?topic=space.

Again, thanks for your comments about the show.

Yours sincerely,

Elysha

[Ric]

Thats one more than me Mark, no one has replied to any of my emails as yet.

I await their replys

[renormalised (Carl)]

Originally Posted by Ric

Thats one more than me Mark, no one has replied to any of my emails as yet.

I await their replys

Same here...we might have to do something "drastic"

[bipedalhumanoid (James)]

I only just heard about this.

This was an apalling decision by the abc. Noone delivers science news like Stuart Gary and his Star Stuff programme.

I've been listening to Star Stuff for about 8 years starting when I was living in Brisbane and I continue to listen to the podcasts now that I live in Dublin. I'd accept the newsradio's explanation if it weren't for the fact that they will be continuing to broadcast sport. I take it now we have to rely on science coverage from Radio Deutchewelle; BBC; CBC and NPR? how many of those stations are going to bother interviewing Australian scientists and give an Australian perspective to science coverage?

I've sent an email of protest to newsradio and I might also draft a letter to be sent to a few politicians. I wish there was more we could do.

I just can't believe they're doing this.

It's always been a battle. They used to frequently use Star Stuff's timeslot to force arial pingpong down the throats of us Queenslanders while the rest of the country got to enjoy the show.

I'm bloody angry. I think Aunty needs a good slap.

[bipedalhumanoid (James)]

Has anyone started a petition yet?

[ngcles]

Hi All,

From an ABC source:

STARSTUFF UPDATE

Sadly the ABC has decided to ignore the hundreds of complaints it has received regarding its uneducated and ill informed decision to axe the popular StarStuff program.

The ABC is managing the fallout by redirecting all letters of support for StarStuff and its host Stuart Gary to something it’s calling “Audience Research”.

Stuart Gary has been ordered not to answer any e-mails about StarStuff and not to forward them to ABC Managing Director Mark Scott, but instead send them on to Audience Research.

Audience Research sounds very important, but it’s actually the junior office assistant to NewsRadio Manager Helen Thomas.

Helen Thomas is one of the three key ABC management people involved in killing StarStuff, the other two are Head of National Radio Networks Margaret Cassidy, and Head of Radio Sue Howard.

ABC management was always expecting an initial flood of complaints, but they also knew that this would fade away after a few weeks which is exactly what’s happened.

So despite what they say, the truth is, complaints to the taxpayer funded ABC are a total waste of time, because ABC management really don’t give a stuff about what you want. They know all they have to do is wait out the storm, and they’ll get away with it!

What does upset ABC management (because it makes them look bad publicly) are letters of complaint to newspaper editors, especially to the big national papers like the Australian, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the Herald Sun ,the Daily Telegraph, The Courier Mail, The Canberra Times, the Sun Herald, the Sunday Telegraph and so on, you get the idea!

So if anyone out there still has a copy of the complaints they sent the ABC about the axing of StaStuff, then I urge you to send them to the Letters to the Editor departments of the major dailies, it really will be our last hope to save this show!

As for the politicians, it seems the Communications Minister doesn’t want to get involved because it would interfere with the independence of the ABC.

However it seems the ABC isn’t being completely honest with the Ministers office.

The ABC told the minister’s office StarStuff is being axed because it doesn’t fit in with newsradios move from block programming (which means long slabs of a single program like StarStuff) to a continuous rolling news service.

But it appears ABC Management didn’t tell the minister’s office whole truth.

They left out some important facts which the Ministers office should have known.

Like all the new block programming recently introduced by Helen Thomas, such as her new sports program “Weekend half time “ which is block programming just like StarStuff, but costs three times more to produce and goes twice as long, and oh yeh! It’s sport not science!

Then there’s Helen Thomas’ decision to introduce an additional 24 hours of block overseas programming every weekend. Newsradio used to broadcast from 0600 to midnight, but Helen Thomas cut that by 12 hours so it now usually only broadcasts from 0600 to 1200 noon, the rest of the time some 18 hours per day is almost all wall to wall BBC or WRN which is not only block programming, but block overseas programming. And Thomas has made similar changes to the weekday programming schedule which often see’s the BBC take over at 1906 on a weeknight! And remember these are AEST, which is the middle of the afternoon in Perth.

None of these facts were included in the ministerial briefing given by the ABC in relation to your concerns about the axing of StarStuff.

And for the record, other examples of significant block programming on NewsRadio which hasn’t been axed, includes Friday night and weekend AFL Football, with each game involving three hours of block program coverage.

Then there’s the daily hour of American National Public Radio’s “All things considered” every lunch time, which is yet another example of block programming.

Of course this isn’t the first time the ABC’s management has failed to tell our elected leaders the whole truth about StarStuff.

Hansard shows that during the Senate Estimates into ABC funding on February 13th and 14th 2006 question 85 (outcome1, output 1.1, 1.2,1.3 topic StarStuff on NewsRadio Hansard Page: ECITA 136) fails to answer the actual question asked by Senator Ronaldson.

That’s what spin doctors call “a non denial-denial”.

For ABC Managing Director Mark Scott the facts are simple! It’s not rocket science, at least not in a hard way.

StarStuff is Australia’s most successful astronomy program which has been going for nine years with over 400 episodes under its belt, and which as an hour long program every Sunday night consistently rated better than 8 per cent and even the Saturday night replay the following week still got better than 6 per cent according to The ABC’s own national ratings figures.

Why won’t Mark Scott just reverse what everyone else in the real world sees as an ill informed and un-educated decision by a network that’s lucky when it rates one per cent?

Mr Scott should reverse the decision to axe StarStuff, and he should move it and its host to the Radio National Science Unit where the show can develop rather than face constant attack by those 1 percenters who kill off science in favour of sport.

Hmmm ...


Best,

Les D

[rogerg (Roger)]

If Stuart Garry or someone else started a podcast service of similar content to StarStuff I'd pay real money to subscribe.

Roger.

[bipedalhumanoid (James)]

Originally Posted by ngcles

Hi All,

From an ABC source:

STARSTUFF UPDATE

Les D

Thanks very much for the info Les. I fully intend to write to as many newspapers as I possible about this issue and would like to use some of the information you have provided here. Do you have sources for it?

[ngcles]

Hi Bipedalhumanoid & All,


Bipedalhumanoid wrote:

"Do you have sources for it?"

Yes, of course I do.

Can I tell you who it is? Nope (for the obvious reasons). Sorry!

Best,

Les D

[bipedalhumanoid (James)]

I'm working on a petition. Any input on the wording would be greatly appreciated...

I, the undersigned, would like to appeal to Mark Scott (ABC Managing Director) to overturn a decision made by News Radio management (supported by Helen Thomas, Margaret Cassidy and Sue Howard) to axe Stuart Gary’s Star Stuff programme on News Radio.

Star stuff was Australia’s only Astronomy, cosmology and general science news programme and has been running successfully for almost 9 years and 500 episodes. When the show was running for a full hour on Sunday nights it consistently pulled 8% and even its rerun managed to pull a staggering 6% rating. The show has continued its success even in its relegated and reduced format.

The reasoning provided for the decision was that news radio would be moving away from block programming opting for a continuous rolling news broadcast. This is however, utterly inconsistent with other programming provided by the station which includes a myriad of foreign block programming, three hour blocks devoted to AFL matches and a sports programme (Weekend Half Time) which happens to be hosted by Helen Thomas herself.

I believe that if News Radio can no longer support the programme it should be moved to another station such as Radio National. I also believe that if News Radio can no longer support block programming then it should remove all of its block programming, including that hosted by station management.

Yours,

The Undersigned

[Ian Robinson]

I want my 8c back !!!!