Matthew Levinson

A little trouble at big Triple J

Published on 31/07/07
by matt

At 30-something, Triple J’s been a crucial part of Australia’s music landscape for a long time now, certainly since the early ’90s alternative explosion. But there are signs of discontent, with people harking back to that golden era – which they were also doing at the time, it must be said. The fact that it commands a huge amount of power in the industry is an important piece of the puzzle: people at indie labels say getting the nod from Kingsmill at one of his all-too-brief listening sessions can make or break an artist.

That role came out in blog posts on Melb band The Basics and their persistent failure to attract Triple J interest, despite boasting JJJs fave Wally ‘Gotye’ de Backer in their numbers. The post attracted fierce debate on Mess+Noise‘s typically polarised forum – which divided along fandom boundaries: boring or marginalised.

The national radio station was designed to give the audience an outlet for music and radio-making that was different to the rest (i.e. commercial radio), according to Kingsmill, in an interview with Eliza Sarlos for M+N last year.

Eliza made the obvious comment that:

When what you’re defining yourselves against is as stagnant as it is (non stop blocks of rock, or manufactured pop, on repeat 24-7) the space offered to create an alternative is huge, and the places you can posit yourself are endless. I don’t want to be a hater, because I’m not – I think Triple J occupies an important space in Australian culture and the luxury of having a national youth broadcaster shouldn’t be undervalued – but I do feel that there are unnecessarily imposed limitations to the music that Triple J covers. According to my interviewees I’m not the only one.

Eliza’s firmly of the community radio/grass roots alternative take on radio – that it should be supporting interesting, exciting music. (That’s probably where I’m at too). But at the other end of the spectrum, Michael Tunn (“Tunny!” – former presenter who inspires emotions at both extremes) appeared in Crikey today (subscriber-only), lambasting the station for being alternative at the expense of its audience.

On the back of poor ratings performances in Newcastle and Darwin (six and five per cent respectively), and capital figures drifting around the bottom of the pack, according to Tunn, as well as the annual Hottest 100 number one position being taken out year in year out by commercial radio hits rather than Triple J faves, Tunn complained that:

Triple J, in its ivory tower at 700 Harris Street in Ultimo, sees no reason to respond or adjust to its target. Triple J believes it sets the agenda on what is cool.

There’s a remarkable par in Eliza’s piece that seems to articulate Kingsmill’s position:

“I think there’s a lot of people who will ignore the great work we do. They’ll never look at the effect that we’ve had and the bands that we’ve championed… I think there’s a certain amount of jealousy about Triple J and what we do. There are a lot of people in the press who are jealous of what we do who would like to work here who don’t work here who kind of think they could do a better job than what we do and so they’ll criticise us.” Kingsmill knows his words most likely apply to me, and they do in part. Although I don’t think I’d do a better job, just different.

Tunn says Triple J should:

Stop being scared of being mainstream, there is still a gulf of difference between Triple J and everyone else on the band, narrow it down, play a song because it appeals to your audience, not to the tastes of a desperately aging staff trying the maintain the coolness.

But that’s never been Triple J’s role. It’s not another commercial station, it’s to ‘entertain and inform’.

I doubt anyone sees Tunn as an impartial observer – Crikey gives David Flint column inches too – but Tunn may be right in saying that Triple J should be more like its “older sister” (ABC Local), though maybe less in terms of content, and more in terms of having local stations, local reporters and presenters who play a role in their local areas.

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