Each Friday 50 people are ushered into ABC Ultimo’s studio 227 to be part of the audience for Richard Glover’s live radio show.

Steve Ahern joins them to find out why Thank God It’s Friday is so successful.

Many of the crowd have been here before and grab the front seats, for a close-up view of Glover and his guests.

This week the featured music performer is blues legend Tony Joe White, and three regular comedians Wendy Harmer, Tommy Dean and Gary Eck. During the 5pm news bulletin, 702’s Content Director Sasha Rundle warms up the crowd for Glover’s arrival. “Clap, cheer and make lots of noise, the audience can’t see you if you only just smile,” she tells the audience. When Glover arrives they do just that.

In the latest radio survey Richard Glover’s drive show was again number one in the Sydney market. The final hour every Friday is different from the rest of the week’s format, focused solely on the live show, which has all the hallmarks of an old fashioned variety show from the golden age of radio. It is networked to all ABC NSW local stations.

After the 5pm News, the show opens with Glover’s scripted News from Nowhere, this week a rant about diets. Glover then throws to the comedians for their quirky views on the news. Pope Francis, dictators and media laws are all topics to be made fun of this week.

At about twenty past five, Glover introduces Tony Joe White, who chats about his world wide hits and the people who covered them, including Elvis. A live reading of news headlines follows and ABC weatherman Graham Creed delivers the weather from memory, with no notes or charts to help him.

The team then ventures into a range of topics just as they would do in a stand up comedy performance, with Glover wrangling them and keeping up the pace. Next is the Wheel of Death, with random topics suggested before the show by the audience. Tommy Dean’s mission is to ad lib on whatever topic the wheel lands on. This week the topic is ‘driving lessons’ and Dean does a good job with a fast paced string of jokes ranging from Driving Miss Daisy to Sydney’s chaotic traffic.

The show finishes with winners and losers of the week: Eck nominated himself as loser of the week for letting his money get sucked back into the cash machine while Dean joked about the God Particle and Harmer told the story of the porno-watching office worker.

Like the classic radio variety shows of old, personality, performance and preparation are key factors of the show’s success. The topics are suggested in advance and the comedians have time to prep their material, but the spontaneity of the live performance and the interaction between them brings out their best, just as it did in classic radio panel shows of the past such as My Word, My Music and I’m Sorry I’ll Read That Again.

Glover thinks the variety format and the live audience are the keys to the show’s success.

TGIF is not the highest rating hour in the week in the Sydney survey, but the program is also broadcast throughout NSW. 702 Content Director Andy Henley says the total audience research estimate is around 130,000 once regional listeners are counted.

The standard ratings drive shift time is 4-7pm, but Glover’s show is on air 3-6pm and is followed by the current affairs program PM. These figures show the standard drive shift results from survey 1 this year, with Glover in front, followed closely by 2Day and 2GB

Drive time radio listening is generally higher at the beginning of the week and lower at the end of the week on most stations because audience habits change as the week progresses, with Thursday late night shopping and Friday after-work activities generally decreasing the available radio audience on the final two days of the week. Monday and Wednesdays are Glover’s highest rating days. TGIF taps into the more relaxed end-of-week mood on Friday, one of the traditionally lower rating days of the week.

Henley thinks “it’s perfect radio for a Friday afternoon … it’s the beginning of the weekend for many, so our audience is looking for a few laughs as they unwind and look forward to getting a bit of ‘me time’.”

The other thing about TGIF is that it gives 702 staff the opportunity to meet listeners face to face says Henley:

“As you would have experienced, it is the opportunity for our audience to come into 702 and meet Richard, the comedians as well as TV weather man Graham Creed, our newsreaders and many of the staff at 702 who work behind the scenes.  We get a real kick out of meeting our listeners and they enjoy being able to get a glimpse behind the scenes.

“That we can fill our studio space every week and still attract a large audience to TGIF at the Sydney Writer’s Festival, as well as selling out the special performances at Riverside and the Seymour Centre (and this year Wollongong) as part of the Sydney Comedy Festival, gives you some idea of the strength of the format and the affection that the Sydney audience has for it.”

Tickets to be part of the TGIF audience are free, but have to be booked in advance.

The full hour’s audio is available on ABC702’s podcast.