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More people over summer are listening, so what do our commercial and national broadcasters do for their audiences? Abandon them and go send their teams on holidays.
There's enough time in survey breaks during the year and school holidays for shows to have a rest when life is more busy.
However, come the Christmas holidays, so many facets of life take a holiday and this is where radio could capitalise. More trial, development programming, keep some headline personalities on air over the Christmas period and so on.
In Melbourne this January, gang violence dominated the news for weeks. ABC Melbourne was anything but with dreary national programming full of schmaltzy summer topics and AW's #1 lineup cleared out the door leaving their producers and substitute presenters to fill their void. They did it well, but so much more could be done with consistency of normal programming over summer.
Regional markets these days often sees local programming cut altogether, a victim of cost cutting and for commercial broadcasters, the local content legislation working against local markets that invest so much in radio.
Whilst radio stations have known for years that more people listen to radio over Christmas and beyond, their cavalier attitude continues. Never mind the audience you're supposed to be catering first and foremost.
Looking at Netflix and other content on demand, it doesn't take a holiday for Christmas and nor should radio.