The sacking of the ABC Sydney Mornings presenter Sarah Macdonald on Thursday has backfired badly on ABC management and almost overshadowed the unveiling of the broadcaster’s new TV and radio slate for 2025, mere hours later.
The outgoing Drive presenter, Richard Glover, took to the stage in Studio 22 before assembled media to introduce his replacement on Drive, Chris Bath.
But he first paid tribute to Macdonald.
Weekly Beast understands the decision was made by the director of audio, Ben Latimer, and the head of capital city network and sport, Mike Fitzpatrick, but the news was not delivered to Macdonald by either man – it was a fill-in station manager who was the bearer of bad news.
It’s the first talent shake-up of the radio networks since Latimer joined the ABC last year from Nova, where he was head of content. Fitzpatrick joined this year after heading up the Triple M network for 11 years.
In the same column, Amanda Meade wrote that the ABC Ombudsman found an interview with Dick Smith on Australia All Over on November 3, did not breach its program’s editorial standards. The 15-minute interview received 186 complaints.
A lot of pissed off people in the Nightlife and Overnights facebook groups about these - not that those programs will be affected too much when the cricket is in Australia but it was good when there was the alternative programming available online when people wanted something different - but as a cricket fan I won’t worry about it!
I seriously don’t know how. He’s been on the nose for so many people for years and I love the idea of the program but his presentation and all the extra stupid noises and “music” just makes it totally unbearable.
I’m actually in Sydney at the moment and was listening a bit this morning and there was quite a lot of callers and many text messages which she said she was receiving but not reading out saying how shocked and disappointed they were. As my first encounter with her on the Mornings program I didn’t think she was too bad and it does certainly seem like she’s popular and sounds to have gone after a few politicians in her time by the comments I think.
I’m guessing even ABC Management aren’t listening on a Sunday morning - there are literally a whole bunch of hosts at the ABC who have shown they can do a better job - once you take out Macca, the weird song choices (with him singing over it), the bird noises and the dingo screams, it can actually be a pretty good show.
However, wouldn’t surprise me if when Macca decides to, in words of his theme song, “get on with it”, if the ABC just airs repeats - it’s not like anyone would be able to tell the difference given how bizarre it all is.
The concept of the show is solid. Let people call in and tell Australia what is going on in their neck of the woods. But Macca being Macca and his catalog of masturbatory audio grabs and music ruins it.
I knew I’d heard Sarah Macdonald before but couldn’t quite remember - she has been a regular fill in on Weekend Nightlife for Suzanne Hill this year. One of the callers last night rang in and asked Suzanne how she was about it. She said that there had been a few drinks and many tears shed and a lot of people upset but wouldn’t say much more about it so it definitely sounds like it has been a shock for all there.
Saturday November 23
Richard Willingham presented Saturday Mornings in Melbourne, filling in for Matt Preston - Brigitte Duclos filled in last weekend.
On Thursday’s program, Jason Chong confirmed that SA & NT would continue to share the same evenings program.
Not during DST, as they join in the second hour due to time differences. Not sure what happened during winter, but I would assume they would just include the NT towns.
They’ve also dropped the popular Kids Quiz during the year, which Peter Goers was very proud of.
- it sounded like they were trying to do that in the period between Goers leaving and the end of the year (i.e. unique theme, many of Goers popular guests and segments mixed in with some of Jason’s ideas), however, since they returned at the start of the year, it’s gone down hill.
Spence is very popular amongst listeners, and is a great communicator and presenter, so will definitely be an improvement.
Justin seems to be the go to fill in lately for Raf and Ali and even Sammy a lot lately. I never really warmed to him back on AW but feels he fits in well at 774.
The ABC’s head of radio has moved to calm unrest and admonish “poor behaviour” within staff ranks as angry listeners flood the broadcaster with complaints about the surprise dumping of the Sydney station’s Mornings presenter Sarah Macdonald.
Amid speculation that former Q+A presenter Hamish Macdonald is the frontrunner to replace her, employees told the Herald about festering concern that the radio division’s new bosses, both from commercial music stations, misread the ABC audience.
Multiple sources told the Herald that Hamish Macdonald, a journalist and presenter who has worked across the ABC and on commercial television, is a frontrunner for the job. He declined to comment when contacted on Monday. Sarah Macdonald also declined to return calls.
Article suggests it was just for first test.
They have also included gripes about a decision to broadcast only the cricket this week rather than run normal programming on an alternative channel (there will be normal programming during the coming Tests).
- it sounded like they were trying to do that in the period between Goers leaving and the end of the year (i.e. unique theme, many of Goers popular guests and segments mixed in with some of Jason’s ideas), however, since they returned at the start of the year, it’s gone down hill.