After seven years of doing Nights on 2GB, Steve Price has finally landed a more agreeable timeslot, Afternoons. But he rejects the notion that he’d spent seven years in the wilderness.
 
“I think I was very privileged to be able to do seven years on 56 stations,” says Price. “The uniqueness of that show was that you were on everywhere from Cairns in far north Queensland all the way to Warrnambool in Victoria.
 
“It is still the only Macquarie show that’s networked into Brisbane Sydney Canberra and Melbourne. At one point, it was number one in Brisbane Sydney and Melbourne all at once. I didn’t see that as a graveyard shift at all .
 
“I enjoyed it though the hours weren’t perfect.”
 
Now Price is doing Afternoons on 2GB, 12-3pm, with a far smaller network. And while Afternoons has traditionally had the lowest profile of the daytime shifts, he feels the audience dynamic around that timeslot is changing. 
 
“There’s so many more people on the move all the time now. And what they want is exactly the same sort of energy and pace and variation of issues as they get when they listen to Alan (Jones) or Ray (Hadley). That’s the reason why we’ve changed it up with a lot more people around me which helps keep the issues fresh.”
 
His roster of contributors is certainly impressive.
 
● Karl Stefanovic (Mondays)
● Erin Molan (Wednesday)
● Deb Knight (Thursdays)
● Phil Gould (Fridays)
● Rita Panahi (Daily)
● Mieke Buchan (Daily)
 
“We’ve got a lot of women on the program which we’ve been consciously out there trying to do. Erin Molan, Deb Knight and Rita Panahi – strong female voices. In the past, people – including myself – who’d been in charge of programming talk radio, were more resistant to using women on air but I think that’s changing – and changing very quickly.”
 
As widely reported, Price’s predecessor, Chris Smith, who’d been on Afternoons for 15 years and held the number one ratings position in the latest survey, was offered Price’s former Night shift but turned it down, citing family reasons.
 
“There’s only about eight of these jobs available in Australia and if you’ve got one of them it’s a privilege.

“People make their own decisions and I’ve got no comment about what Chris should or shouldn’t have done. But if you’re offered one of those shifts on air, you grab it with both hands – that would be my thoughts.“
 
A recent headline in Fairfax Media said ‘Steve Price vows not to be another shock jock.’ 
 
He denies having actually said that. “Australia doesn’t really have shock jocks. It’s an Americanised term. It’s a term the left likes to use because it’s derogatory. All of us, certainly on our radio station are commentators and opinion makers just like a columnist in a newspaper. That’s all we do.
 
“Are you sometimes saying things that might shock people? Maybe. But for the right reasons. I don’t think I would have lasted nine years on (The Project) which is considered a left leaning show if I was a shock jock.”
 
Price has the rare distinction of having acheived on air success as a talk presenter in both Sydney and Melbourne. He’s also held the role of Program Director at 3AW in the 90’s and was responsible for recruiting some of the station’s top talent.

“I’m proud to say that most of the people I recruited to go on-air are still there. Neil Mitchell is still doing mornings and Ross Stevenson is still on Breakfast . They’ve been there since 1990 and still sound fresh.
 
“Ross and John are rating in the in the 20’s – the highest rating Breakfast show in the country.

“Sydney radio is completely different to Melbourne.

“I don’t think that Sydney would warm to the style of radio that Ross and John do. It’s a very Melbourne based program. The networking of talk radio is an art that’s very hard to make work.”

In the meantime the role of Program or Content Director has largely become redundant at MacRadio stations.

He explains, “When you are talking about 2GB you’ve got a very experienced group of broadcasters that don’t really need hands on guidance on a day to day basis about their content.
 
“What you need out of people who work in programming now is for them to keep an eye out for fresh talent. In Afternoons we had people filling in like Erin Molan from Nine sports and Natalie Peters from our newsroom, And they did a great job, I thought.
 
“We’ve got to keep trying to find new talent. That’s what the program director’s job is now.”
 

Price, a journalist by trade, along with most of his colleagues in mainstream media, is concerned with the amount of misinformation spread by social media and other online sites.
 
“I think that we, as consumers and commentators, are probably subject to much more misinformation than ever.
 
“There’s a whole generation of young people who think that everything they read online is true when clearly it’s not. And some of the lunatics that are online and pretending to be commenters on news would never have been allowed anywhere near a typewriter (prior to the internet.)
 
“We’re less well informed and fed a load of rubbish and most of it is not factual.
 
“What we in the mainstream media need to do is constantly submit the facts and (explain that) if you want real news you need to go to a trusted source.
 
“I think that’s what organisations like Macquarie, News Corp and Nine are doing. They’re getting together and saying ‘Don’t not just roll over to these big faceless companies from over overseas. Remember you’ve got trusted, well resourced information from your own mainstream media. Perhaps you should think about consuming that instead of Facebook and Twitter.”
 
Note: For the second weekday in a row (Friday 26 and Monday 29, July) Steve Price has been filling in for an unwell Alan Jones.

Peter Saxon