Comment from Peter Saxon

Tina Arena is undoubtedly one of Australia’s greatest musical performers – ever. 

Last week she was inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame. And deservedly so. Ms Arena’s name is now forever enshrined with the cultural icons that have shaped Australia’s musical history since Dame Nellie Melba at the dawn of the 20th Century. Among them artists as diverse as Kylie Minogue, The Bee Gees, INXS, Nick Cave, LRB, ONJ, John Farnham and Dame Joan Sutherland.

It was disappointing, then, that at the moment, that surely ranks as one the greatest highlights of her illustrious career, Ms Arena chose her acceptance speech to lash out at the commercial radio industry accusing it of being ageist.

“Who decides in radio that a woman at a certain point in her life no longer becomes viable?” she asked the gathered audience. “Women and men of all ages have something interesting to say but what I have struggled with is the complete ostracisation of a woman at a certain age.”

She also admonished commercial radio to “continue to support Australian music on the quality of the song and not the age of artist” and “don’t meet your Australian quotas because you have to. Exceed them because you want to.”

SCA’s newly appointed Head of National Content and Development, Dave Cameron didn’t quite see eye to eye with Ms Arena’s statements…

“I think Tina is partly right by saying songs should be chosen on strength. The part of the equation missing there though is they should also be chosen on format fit. An amazing song won’t always fit the direction, strategy and sound of a station, designed to appeal to a specific target for commercial purposes.

“I love the new Cold Chisel album, but you won’t hear it on the hit network. I also love Guy Sebastian’s new song, but you won’t hear that on Triple M.

“Formats exist to provide options and choices for listeners, as they should.

“I think commercial radio in Australia also generally does a wonderful job alongside record companies of supporting and helping create new Australian artists for the future. Ultimately it’s then up to the artist and the record company to maintain their relevance, not commercial radio,” says Dave Cameron.

One would think that Ms Arena would understand all that. After all, commercial radio has always targeted demographics. Even if a station such as Triple M is more focused on gender and lifestyle, it still ends up attracting a given age group by default.

But if Triple M attracts males, smoothfm which out-rates it (and most other music stations) comfortably in both Sydney and Melbourne, attracts females – pretty much of Ms Arena’s age. It’s not that they put up a sign that says, “no blokes allowed – we only want women 35 – 54,” but that’s what they tend to get. Because at, say, 4pm of a Saturday afternoon when Tina Arena presents her own one hour show, that’s who tends to prefer listening to her playing a wall of mellow music rather than rock and the odd sports result.

That’s why Ms Arena’s outburst alleging radio discriminates against older females has me puzzled. Perhaps if she was talking about the paucity of female radio presenters and senior management she’d have a point. But as a musician, here she is with her own radio show in the company of other international superstars – most of them men – who like her, now struggle to get a song played on KIIS or Nova but are thrilled for the exposure on smoothfm.

Lionel Ritchie, Leo Sayer, The Beachboys’ Mike Love, Chicago’s Peter Cetera, Neil Diamond, Michael Buble and David Campbell among them. Of course, there’s women on smooth’s roster too, including Kylie Minogue and Olivia Newton-John. 

BTW, ARN’s Pure Gold network is no slouch when it comes to playing music from artists like Tina Arena who’ve been 40 years in the business.

So what’s Ms Arena’s issue? That her music doesn’t appeal to 10 – 24’s as it once did? Perhaps it doesn’t. But it appeals to people her own age, as it always has.

 Peter Saxon