Tell that to Glass Animals who were still top 10 two years after topping the Hottest 100.
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I have noticed that too, the Aria charts have been quite stagnant for quite sometime now, is it lack of good new music being released?
Heat waves will probably still be in the Aria charts next year aswell. It still gets played to death on the radio. I am quite sick of the song now.
I think itās a case of music not having as wide appeal as it used to, with the availability of every genre under the sun via streaming/TikTok.
The stuff that does reach a wider mass (ie Heatwaves) sticks around for longer.
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I think Streaming services have a negative effect on the chart with their algorithms which keep the same songs in the chart.
I select certain songs to be played on Spotify and then random selections from Spotify that follow are always songs at the top of the chart and often nusic I hate.
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Itās easy to dismiss the criticism - itās from News and its pretty shallow, but as one of only two national, widely-available music stations (on the dial) it cant continually be immune to criticism and critique by spinning the same tired tropes (itās not about the cap cities, itās about the regions - it does a lot of good to the local music industry, etc), these are simply a poor reflection on the industry as a whole rather than just on the ABC
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Thereās also not enough differentiation between triple j and Double J. The latter should focus mostly on classic alternative (say 70% old and 30 % new). It should mix the alternative with the more popular. The original 2JJ and 2JJJ did this well.
Thereās also scope for an intelligent adult music station along the lines of what ABC Local Radio play (Coast FM Gold and Sunshine Coast used to do this).
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Totally agree with both suggestions. Double J is simply too much like triple j. Double J needs to be more mainstream.
The ABC music stations are simply too niche and try to be too cool. They make them so niche and then launch an investigation about why their ratings are so low lol.
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Agree. The regional argument doesnāt stack up anyway because they generally rate even lower in the regions. Same with Classic FM, it might as well not be on air in regional areas with so few listeners. Australians pay for these services and they neef to produce content more people want to hear.
The ABC needs to look at BBC radio. The British taxpayer is at least getting value for money there.
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When the newscorp rags continuously bash the station after every survey, itās pretty obvious that itās a biased take, not to mention plucking the alleged figure of how much the FM licenses are worth when the ACMA will likely one day convert ABC AM licenses to FM.
In saying that, I donāt think itās completely invalid either in a conceptual way, in the sense that the ABC Music stations need to better justify why they are not making any changes as audience numbers continues to shrink.
as for Double J vs triple j, it is absurd that the playlist differentiation is kept behind closed doors, and thereās so many inconsistencies - I bring this up each time itās mentioned, but why on earth is Hilltop Hoods still getting play on triple j despite 20 years on the air at this point, and broadly speaking why are some artists relegated to Double J and essentially soft-banned from play from triple j, but others get constant triple j play despite having a similar sound and audience.
There needs to be greater transparency as to how the playlists are chosen and as to what differentiation exists.
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donāt have a problem with constructive criticism, but when in the first line it says ātax payer fundedā when News Corpse pays 0% taxā¦
I would like a swap - Double J on FM, Triple J on digital and maybe extend out into ādecadesā like Absolute Radio. Go deeper than what the iHeart and Listnr ones do. Play back some good old breaks done by previous brekky and drive shows etc, nostalgia - Hottest 100 Channel, playing back the years etc
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I think we can all agree there needs to be major changes the ABC radio offering - the general consensus is they need to merge radio national and newsradio, dump some of the niche offerings like Jazz and Triple J Unearthed and move Classic FM to DAB+ with a good lot of bits.
But whats being forgotten is how supportive JJJ is of aussie music and talent.
its a great training ground for on air talent too. Will Anderson, Adam Spencer, Matt Okine, Myf.
Iām not a JJJ listener anymore - Iāve definitely aged out but Iām forced to listen to commercial all the time - my wife listens to commercial radio in the car and by fucking god itās bad.
Itās either the latest pop hit form Ed Sheeran or Beiber or itās a 30 year old Australian Crawl song.
Commercial radio wonāt play Australian songs until it ābreaksā. But it wonāt break because no one plays it if JJJ goes.
As much as I sometimes shit on Kingsmill at least he is supporting the Aussie industry.
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In a way JJJ suffers from the Ch10 issue; a younger audience is the first to abandon the traditional listening / viewing platform, so any media catering for that audience will either diminish, or appear to; over time.
Agree with the thoughts above about ABC needing to consider what is actually broadcast on FM, could easily be argued that Classic is only there, because itās legacy, before the advent of DAB+
Double J would be a good addition to FM, even for regional areas where thereās less options.
But then they run the risk of reducing regional audiences on commercial, and those stations crying foul about a big bad ABC threatening their viability.
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The focus on terrestrial ratings is the problem. And this argument tends to be the ABCās approach on TV.
If young people donāt watch terrestrial TV, why bother catering to them at all. Give up the game and focus on older audiences.
And what you get is an ABC FTA channel with flagship shows that almost entirely focus on the āgood old daysā. Back In Time For The Corner Shop, Great Australian Stuff, Spicks & Specks, The Newsroom, Barons. You get some experiments, like that new Auntie Donna show, but itās exceedingly rare. The ABC that made āedgyā shows for younger audiences, like The Chaser, The Glass House, Hungry Beast, Good Game, is just totally gone. Donāt even get started on a show like Grand Designs, which will be lost on anyone under 35 who canāt afford a house.
And Iām not saying bring back The Chaser. Iām saying bring back something new in that vein.
This is all an existential risk, and itās by design. Through board changes (remember how forward-thinking Mark Scott was with iView) the new guard has stopped competing in digital. Theyāre programming primarily for terrestrial and almost never factor in the potential of iView to compete with streaming services and become their main TV output. Imagine an ABC that had commissioned Koala Man or Heartbreak High. The creator of the former was pushed back by the ABC. According to Michael Cusak:
āIām completely done with networks like the ABC because in my opinion theyāre not really interested in representing an Australia that is, I think, what Australians want to see,ā he said.
"I think because weāre here, we have to hide certain things. Weāre a little bit embarrassed to be our true selves. Weāre kind of stuck in this strange situation where we donāt know if we want to be seen as silly or serious. We definitely have an identity issue in Australia, but Americans can see us a little bit differently.
Just because younger audiences arenāt listening to FM radio doesnāt mean Triple J is dead. The ABC should be building back Triple J with a focus on digital. The app should feature genre and general shows on-demand. It kinda does now, but the design of the app highlights live radio over everything else. They should go even harder with playlists and curation. Like A Version is a huge success on social media already. How could they expand that? They should be streaming Live At The Wireless on iView. Look at Coachella on YouTube this past weekend. Itās trending worldwide. Why arenāt Triple J at least streaming recorded sets from Groovin The Moo in that way?
The ABC focusing on digital TV and FM radio will be the death of it. And critical news organisations like News Corp skew the message by focusing only on terrestrial ratings.
The ABC should be coming back to them and talking about digital growth. And if there is no digital growth, they should work on fixing that as a core focus, not a side project.
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That is insane. Triple J gets a decent enough audience on FM to justify it continuing on that bandwidth and shifing it to a digital-only platform would knee-cap its listenership. Thereās room for both it and Double J on the FM band.
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I agree Triple J rates well enough to stay on FM. But Double J is too similar to Triple J to take up valuable FM space - itās just far too niche. It would never get anywhere near the audience Triple J has in its current form. In order for Double J to be on FM it needs to be broader in appeal and more mainstream.
The gap ABC needs to look at filling is older music listeners. Commercial radio does not cater for this audience on FM. You canāt even say Gold or Smooth actually cater to older listeners anymore, not over 50s anyway. In most regional areas there are no music choices for older listeners on FM. Some regional areas have a hit music station and a talk-based station as the only commercial choices.
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Perhaps Radio National could become an easy listening service. And be in stereo in regional areas where it is on FM.
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Would love to see RN be more like BBC R2
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The news.com.au article and headline shows that News Corp just has it out for Triple J. No byline either, as nobody wants to be associated with such a ridiculous article premise.
A few minutes of technical difficulties apparently spells the end for an entire radio station. Just ignore that every station, TV or radio or streaming, has technical difficulties from time to time.
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