I have lived in Sydney for two of the last 20 years, and yet when Vic Lorusso‘s name is mentioned I immediately know him as ‘the eye in the sky’ or the traffic guy on the radio.

Yesterday’s news that Vic would wrap up with ARN this Friday on Gold 101.7 and KIIS 106.5, and commence with SCA‘s Triple M 104.9 and 2DayFM on Monday July 20 was announced just prior to the release of radio survey 4, so while it was widely reported, the significance of the move may have been lost. And it is a loss for ARN. A huge one.

For background, Vic is the Chief Executive Officer of atn (the Australian Traffic Network) and Global CEO of gtn (the global version). As a nineteen year old, while still in high school, he started delivering traffic reports in Sydney and basically never stopped. He is about to mark his 26th anniversary. He’s also dabbled in a podcast network, occasionally auctioneers and, despite the expanding responsibilities of his role, still delivers Sydney traffic every weekday morning to Gold and KIIS.

How atn works is that they buy the traffic spot airtime from the many networks that use their services and make this work for them by the advertising that bookend these reports. Vic is also known for wearing clothing emblazoned with advertisers for when he was pictured in the traffic helicopters. Memorably it was Panadol for a long time, because traffic is a headache, right?

The relationship then between the radio or TV network and atn was symbiotic, with benefit to all beyond the paid stuff. Most importantly, listeners knew when there was a dingle on the M1 that would impact their morning commute.

However, Vic Lorusso offered ARN something much more than that. When something major happened, Jonesy and Amanda and Kyle and Jackie O could call him directly for further details. He would make that information known to them first, and immediately.

Bear in mind that atn also supplies the traffic to SCA, Nova, ACE Radio, SEN and even 2SM. Only Nine and the ABC have their own ‘in house’ traffic. Vic, the head honcho, was ARN’s personal traffic eye in Sydney.

At the end of last year Jonesy and Amanda were shifted to Gold 101.7 Drive and Melbourne’s Gold 104.3’s Christian O’Connell commenced his now networked program on breakfast. In February, Kyle and Jackie O, the top rated FM breakfast show for around a decade, imploded. They too broadcast into Melbourne on KIIS 101.1, but I think we can all agree that Kyle’s focus in particular remained in and on Sydney.

We, as humans, have the wonderful capacity to filter out the irrelevant or boring, but spring to life when we do hear something of interest, that is incorrect or incongruous with what is going on.

An example of this is the radio news bulletin. I am a strange beast who went from being a music broadcaster to writing and reading the news, the other way around to most. I was trying to hook and make stories more interesting with my voice until my boss reminded me that news wasn’t about converting people to sports, or finance, or anything. If the news story wasn’t of interest, or relevant, a listener will likely tune it out and be utterly unable to recall any detail of Parramatta’s win over the Broncos. They don’t care, and my delivery won’t change that.

But get a detail wrong, or have a major story happening in a listener’s suburb, the phones would ignite with callers.

Traffic is the same. Most will wash over you but as soon as you hear the road you are on, or the destination you are headed to, you will focus like your life depends upon it. And if it is a really big accident or incident, the traffic person will also be holding the ears of everyone who might have a loved one who has headed or is heading in that general direction too.

It is the minutiae of localism. And what many people who commute are still using their radios for.

For Christian, and for Kyle and Jackie O, any time they might pick up on a traffic story of significance, once they catered to two markets, they then would alienate half their potential listening audience.

This is different to someone who tunes out the sports report because it’s not in their interest. This falls more into the ‘wrong information’ category that they also ring about. Why are you wasting my time with an accident on Brunswick St when I’ve been stuck on Pennant Hills Road for an hour?

Christian, and Kyle and Jackie O have to make a choice, and I imagine that the easier one is to leave the traffic to the traffic guy and not intervene at all.

That denies Vic Lorusso what he has been so good at for so long. A voice above and beyond to incidents as they happen. And some of the fun that came with building a genuine relationship with Jonesy and Amanda. Vic took Jonesy out on the helicopter one day when Jonesy was rather unwell with a hangover….

It was Vic’s choice to break up with ARN. The network still will get its traffic from atn. As that decision was made public, SCA made the smart and savvy decision to ask him whether he’d go exclusive with them. I wonder if that was the only offer?

What happens from Monday is that Beau, Cat and Woodsy, on Triple M breakast, and Nath and Emma on 2DayFM have a traffic guy who will deliver above and beyond for their Sydney audience. There’s no networking distraction and Vic can be involved in other fun stuff if and when required. Plus, when there is something major that impacts commuters, SCA Sydney listeners will know about it first.

I don’t imagine that traffic people get a lot of thank yous for all the times they get us to work on time. That perhaps manifests in the radio surveys. This is a great result for SCA as the ARN Sydney ships teeter further.

Jen Seyderhelm is a writer, editor and podcaster for Radioinfo. Email: [email protected]. You can subscribe to this publication for just $199 per annum (less for community stations, students and pensioners) and support local media. Celebrate Radioinfo in its 30th year.