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Whatever became of the 2SM archive? I remember as a work experience kid (when Phil O'Neil was doing mornings & before he was 'Ugly')being taken to the downstairs room in the old North Sydney building and in awe of such priceless jingles ID's & workparts, specials, airchecks. It was wall to wall, floor to ceiling full of old reels.
In answering Pete Davidson, there’s a fascinating story behind this. I became aware of this awesome collection in the 1990s. The Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney held onto it following 2SM's licence sale to the former Wesgo Ltd in 1992. I'm told that at one stage the Catholics attempted to sell the tape archive. No takers.
I knew instinctively that this collection - while perhaps not worth raw bucks - was absolutely irreplaceable. If were to be thrown away through ignorance or carelessness...well, I didn't want that to happen. It was a lot of my radio heritage - as a listener - and a plenty of my mates and former colleagues worked on the material. So I felt strongly connected to it.
I managed to use my contacts at The NFSA in Canberra bringing them together with officials at the Archdiocese which resulted in the collection being transported from Sydney to Canberra. This was around 2000 from memory. My understanding is that the copyright for the collection remains with the Archdiocese while The NFSA is the official custodian of the physical collection.
Upon arrival in Canberra, The NFSA (then called ScreenSound Australia) kindly allowed me access to some of the collection for my research. While doing this research it sparked me to think of writing a book like “Don’t Touch That Dial”…and the rest is history.
I assume the SM collection is still all there. Nick Weare from The NFSA would know more about that. One thing though. It's not the entire 2SM collection. I've since come into contact with various SM employees many of whom took dubs of their favourite pieces of the station during their time. A bloody good thing they did too, because this collection came perilously close to being dumped like so many other significant radio collections, e.g. 4BK, 2UW, 6PM, 3XY...you get the idea.
As Radioinfo rightly points out, there is precious little of our radio heritage of the past 50 years available. Dramas and serials… no problem! But go looking for airchecks of some of our iconic music jocks or legendary talk personalities. Good luck. You have to do a lot of digging to find such gems. I should know.
At the risk of being on the soapbox for too long, we in Australia don’t appear to respect or put value on our heritage. That is to say, we don’t in comparison with the Americans. Have a look at www.reelradio.com and you’ll see what I mean. Our radio community COULD band together and create a special place online perhaps using Reelradio as a model. This would be a dynamic exhibit of our radio heritage (all formats) which people ‘out there’ i.e. former fans and broadcasters who have stuff stashed away, could contribute to.
All a fine idea in principle but such endeavours take not only willingness and enthusiasm but also time, expertise, bandwidth and bucks. I think its latter item which is the major hurdle. Plus, there’s the issue (for some) that all this is just ‘old stuff anyway’ and who wants to live the past. Can’t say I’d be that thrilled hearing my first airchecks at 2XL on the web. On the other hand, a grab of Peter Saxon on 2KA – now THAT I’d kill for!
Apologies if I took too long to answer your original question Pete. But I feel this radio heritage issue should be up for debate whenever opportunity knocks. The guys here at Radioinfo are doing just that. They’re to be applauded in a week when we took a moment to remember a milestone in our radio history with the legal introduction of talkback in April 1967.
When I was consulting Fusion Australia, one time owners of 3AK, someone said there were old tapes of 3XY, and possibly 2SM, stored at the transmitter that once was 3XY's which is now SEN's(??!!)
Maybe someone should take a look.
i HAVE A 1966 AIRCHECK OF 2KA (I sound aweful, but I was only a baby), AND A 70'S 2UE Saturday Morning in the days when 2UE had 'pips' between each news story. I'll gladly pass it on.
DAVID BUNT
Gary O'Callaghan and Sammy Sparrow would have to be the longest serving breakfast team methinks. I'm pretty sure they clocked up 28 consecutive years on 2UE, finishing in 1986 from memory (and yes I was there, as an eager young control op).
In terms of archives, 2UE kept a lot of stuff from the old Miller St, North Sydney studios. I'm pretty sure it made the transition to Greenwich Mk1. Can't say after that. 2GB also has a fair bit of archive material.
The NFSA has every Philip Adams Show on 2UE (88-90 incl.) on cassette, as part of his then deal. Hundreds of studio interviews with very famous people (mostly), many now no longer with us.
NB There could be hard cash on offer (quality dependent) for anyone with a copy of Dickie Knee shooting Sammy Sparrow's chopper out of the air - on air - in 1986 during the 'CBC' days of experimental metro network radio at 2UE/3AK... kidding, but I'd love to hear it one more time (don't ask me why I didn't get it on the day, ok?)
Thanks Wayne for the info re. 2SM archives.
Today on radioinfo there's a follow up article with comments re. longest brekky team, and makes mention of Tom Crozier being a pioneer of talkback at 2UE. Is he still with us? Last I knew he was involved with 2RPH, but that was many years ago now.
Pete
While I was compiling the 20 years of 2RDJ specials in early to mid 2003, I got wind of the fact that there was a storage area involved not far from the station, and to complete the specials I was looking for any early RDJ material. There wasn't much that was still in existence within the RDJ tape library, so I figured the storage area would've had some stuff stored which had long since been forgotten about.
I did find some stuff which helped me to finish and do some pre-final mixes of these specials, but I also came across a goldmine in the form of 2UW master reels. 134 all up on 7-inch Ampex reels, with another 70 or 80 Top Spots master reels. Knowing that this stuff was gonna go to the tip if no one claimed it, I took the responsibility of saving all these tapes. I took them all home, and the whole of 2003 was spent in firstly baking each one of these tapes, cleaning each one end to end, making one complete pass of each (and repairing splices which had come loose along the way) and dubbing them to digital. A lot of 2UW's promo masters from number 2 to 170 (1982 to 1988), Classic Countdown masters and tapes going back to 2UW's Call Girl and Hit Squad days (the Call Girl masters were raw tapes..didn't see any final mix tapes of that stuff in the pile).
Each one of these is now safely stored in a seperate location and 2 dubs are with me. I'm so glad I was able to save whatever was in our storage area of 2UW stuff. If I hadn't, it would be at the tip by now.
Still having a 1/4" tascam and various associated bits of gear, I can still help out if you have stuff you want/need transferred. Get in touch through here, or if you really wanna see what I'm up to, check out http://frankster.zanyspace.com - yes, I can even restore from Betamax, lo-band u-matic and BetacamSP.
Wayne,
When I left Canberra in 1990, I left Sound Screen a whole heap of stuff I had collected over the years... Gwen Plumb and Gordon Chater tapes from 2GB, stuff from 2KY and 2UW both circa late 60s early 70s, stuff from 2KA under Digamae programming of the early 70s, launch tapes of FM104 (before it became known as FM104.7 under Austereo)etc, etc... Two moving boxes full. I hope they archived it all.
Just on longest on air brekky announcer... I guess Steve Parsons must be up there somewhere, too. Probably not "the" longest, but I think he racked up around 25 years doing brekky at 2WL.. He's now with ABC Illawarra, again doing brekky.
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I agree. Most of radios past was never recorded.
But I do have a little, including some very early Ward Austin from his days at 2KA. (He got the job instead of me)!!
Bob Price
Not a team, but Paul Dis has been doing 2QN Breaky for as long as I can remember. (No comments please)?