Comments on: Me. v. Adelaide radio host Peter Goers

By: Kate Eltham

Kate Eltham — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 07:15:45 +0000

I love the way he introduces the show at the beginning: “NOT! QUITE! ART!”

What’s this curious thing, eh, wot?

By: bosley

bosley — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 01:05:05 +0000

tuck your shirt in, son!

By: tanya

tanya — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 22:30:54 +0000

hilarious marcus. Peter must have felt much lighter after having unloaded 10 years of pent up frustration on you. although, he also appeared increasingly confused. I am wanting to watch the program now…

By: Daniel

Daniel — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 05:30:45 +0000

I recently spoke to my Mum, and thought I should pass on that although she’s never seen an episode of Not Quite Art, she heard the interview live on the radio and was apparently so incensed by it that she was yelling at Peter Goers through the radio in the bathroom. Who says that radio isn’t a participatory medium?

By: Fergus Pitt

Fergus Pitt — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 23:40:13 +0000

Amazing interview.

Disclosure: I work for the ABC, but these views are my own.

With regard to getting publicity. It’s probably telling that Goers didn’t seem to have heard of the first series. It might be that that’s the only reason his producers lined up the interview.

As you said the other day, using the same title for the series makes it harder to pitch as something new… but there’s a also digital/internet media theory angle here: Most of the people who watched the first series would probably be interested in seeing a second series.

There’s a continuity in individual NQA fans interest which is not matched by radio producers’ perception of mass audience tastes: The prevailing wisdom in most broadcast and mass-targeted media is that something new is more interesting than a repeated event (even if there’s an update).

What’s new is the emergence of devices (like Tivo) and systems (like podcasts and RSS feeds) that allow people to subscribe or be notified of something like a second series of NQA. Mind you, the systems still have to be used properly so that the second series is on the same xml file as the first series (for example).

Those devices will continue to change our idea of news values, scheduling, and the role of publicists, because we are getting more control to consume information that is relevant to us. At the moment in Australia you really have to care a lot to bother exerting that control; enough to set up a feed reader or subscribe to podcasts. We don’t have Tivo in any serious sense and a huge amount of audio is not available as podcasts or on-demand. But (perhaps after our current downturn) more refined and developed systems and devices will become more common and you won’t just have to rely on a pugnacious radio host for publicity.

By: Daniel

Daniel — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 14:18:16 +0000

That’s… quite something. Resisting the urge to criticise the interviewer (an admittedly strong urge, though somewhat lessened by his marginally embarrassed post-script), the most interesting thing is that surely, you must be doing something right if people react that strongly to your series. I’m going to assume that he’s the type of guy who probably wouldn’t have watched the show if he didn’t have to for interviewing you, so in that case, it’s interesting to be reminded of what those who don’t watch arts shows at 10pm think.

I suspect Mr Goer’s apparent familiarity with the internet means he probably won’t read this post, so I feel free in suggesting that Yahtzee’s opinion of old people and technology from the first episode, in this case, probably applies.

At least you can’t say that the ABC has an over-the-top approach to cross-promotion.