Hasn’t the radio world changed!

That was the theme of the conversation when Ian MacRae spoke to John Laws last week.

While MacRae, himself, has certainly seen some changes – he was #1 in breakfast on the #1 station in the seventies which was then 2SM – at 71, John Laws is arguably the longest serving announcer currently on air. Bob Rogers has been around as long, but he’s had lengthy stints away from the microphone in fashion and other businesses.

While Laws’ career spanned some enormous changes in technology – he was around in the era of “wire recorders” – more significantly he’s seen changes to the style of management and vindicates many of the correspondents on the radioinfo forum when he says, “I think that they were much more interested in the actual sound of the radio station in the past – what went to air and how it did sound when it went to air. These days they’re more interested in the bottom line, I’m afraid”.

Yet, not surprisingly, he was supportive of networking and has no trouble balancing the competing needs of networking and localism, “I found that because we network so far and wide, that people in the country love being able to have their say in the city. They love being able to say what they think about John Howard and have it heard all over Australia”. said Laws.

Laws would not be drawn into a response to Ray Hadley’s attack on him except to say that the reasons behind it can be summed up in one word, “Envy”.

Click on the link below for audio of the full interview.