2ser: 30 Years On

With 2ser’s 30th birthday celebrations in full swing, SHAUN PRESCOTT speaks to three presenters about where Sydney’s longest running community station is headed.

2ser is Sydney’s longest running community radio broadcaster. First transmitted in October 1979, the station is currently celebrating its 30th birthday with a slew of live shows, an annual Radiothon and a big fuck-off cake.

Powered by the ethos that 2ser 107.3 follows “the music, not the music industry”, the station’s music director Andrew Khedoori, with the help of program manager Anthony Dockrill and Kurt Eckardt, took the time to answer some niggling questions regarding the direction of the station, how to keep the airwaves fresh, and the challenges community radio faces in the age of easy access to free music and transmissions from abroad. We also hear, by the by, of some steamy in-studio shenanigans and how Bob Dylan brought shame to a presenter.

Andrew Khedoori, Music Director

How long have you been involved with 2ser?
It’s 20 years at the end of this one! I’ve been the music director for eight. I went travelling through the US when I was 19 with a swag of independent Australian bands’ records and every town I’d hit I’d look up their college station and see if they wanted me to present the music and talk about the bands on one of their shows. I did quite a few of these and recorded them, not knowing exactly what I’d do with them but I was keen on doing something with radio. When I got home I discovered 2ser soon after – they had a long-running Australian independent music show called Zootime on Saturdays. Richard Kingsmill was a host at one time. I ended up filing records on a Saturday partly so I could meet the Zootime crew and eventually I got involved in presenting the show. With Zootime and 2SER, I saw this real parallel with what I gathered through the States and its college network – even though the landscape has changed a lot – it’s still a basic constant for me today.

A number of changes have occurred at the station throughout its history. Can you outline what these changes were and why they came about?
Every so often 2ser has program reviews that are station-wide for us to take stock of what we’re doing. Generally speaking we look at what we have going, what we don’t have going and whether there are changes we can make to what we broadcast as well as when. It’s about trying to get the balance between diversity and cohesiveness as well as the best listenability, considering the immense patchwork of programs we have at 2ser. It’s about moving forward and staying fresh without messing with the essential nature of the place. I was a volunteer presenter at the time the decision was made to have the electronic/dance music focus (mid-’90s). I thought at the time it was a bad move and not true to the nature of the station or community radio in general. It seemed overly faddish to me. When new management came in around 2001, they wanted to expand the station’s programming once again and offer listeners more.

Are there limits to what 2ser would do? For example, how open are you to a weekly crabcore/mallcore program? Reckon Sydneysiders would get behind that?
I’d say there are limits sure, in the way we need to have parameters by which to define 2ser and maintain an identity. 2ser might offer a lot of different listening day to day but we can’t try and be all things to all people otherwise things get a little too fragmented and messy. Plus there’s only 24 hours in the day. Radio listening shouldn’t be confined to the one station anyway, checking out and discovering various things along the dial each week is one of the pleasures of radio listening itself.

“Radio listening shouldn’t be confined to the one station anyway, checking out and discovering various things along the dial each week is one of the pleasures of radio listening itself.”

Regarding the non-specialist programs, are these playlisted to any extent? What are your thoughts on playlisting?
We have a “Feature Album” every week and our breakfast and drive presenters are asked to play tracks from that album. I act as a kind of filter for the music that comes into the station and see what might sit in the ballpark of our programming as well as ask all presenters to consider what they play in terms of what 2ser is out to do. I think there are pros and cons for both playlisting and non-playlisting. You make your choice and take the good with the bad that way. Whatever the case, I think you need some kind of process to helm and maintain things when you have a divergent mass of people and various ideas in the one place.

Given the access we have to international radio via the internet, as well as the popularity of file sharing, do you think the role of community radio in disseminating left-of-centre music has diminished somewhat?
I think it’s just part of a bigger network and the more options the better. It works well for both community radio and bloggers in that you’re getting passionate people doing both and discovering music via both means, so to me they’re complementary in the end. However, listening to a good radio show - sitting down and soaking up a range of sounds brought to you by passionate voices going directly into your earholes - is much more of an experience than checking regularly on blogs. Not that they’re any less passionate, but radio has that ability to be stimulating and imaginative in a particular way that makes it still vital today.

Give me your favourite presenter story.
During a graveyard shift one time in the mid-’90s, there was a couple who’d finished up and went into the newsroom to make … well, not news. We had monitors in the studio that showed into other areas of the station at the time and the following presenters got some morning glory they weren’t expecting.

Kurt Eckardt, Marketing Manager

How do you see 2ser contributing to Sydney’s live music and club scenes into the future? 2ser’s contribution to Sydney’s live and club music for the past 30 years has been invaluable – from its very early support of hip-hop music and club culture to its coverage of the most obscure music events and club nights. The station will continue to play an important role in providing information about live and club music events well into the future through on-air and online gig lists, features and interviews.

On top of this, I think that 2ser’s role will move to include a more interactive element. With the advent of digital broadcasting, there will be more and more room for special broadcasts and 2ser is in an excellent position to be able to record and broadcast live music and DJ sets. The possibility already exists via its FM broadcast, and through its Podcast service, and occasionally we do feature live music events on air. I believe this will become more and more common.

What’s your funniest recollection?
During an announcement promoting our annual Bob Dylan marathon last year, one of our presenters had left the mic on and was caught singing along to a live version of ‘Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door’. I managed to get a recording of it and played it at our Christmas party to the absolute horror of the presenter.

Anthony Dockrill, Program Manager

Where do you think community radio is heading? What are your predictions for 30 more years into the future?
Community radio is about to head into an interesting phase. Digital platforms are giving people more choices and while radio in general may not be seen as trendy or even relevant in such an environment it will continue to thrive because radio meets some key needs. Community radio offers a true local focus with people who are passionate and well informed about their field. Try having a relationship with a search algorithm on iTunes. I think the other aspect about radio that will remain relevant is that, in general, it offers both a passive and active experience that is something digital platforms don't do as easily. Try using MySpace while driving. So I believe that 30 years from now people will still be waking up with radio and using radio throughout their day. I also predict that in 30 years 2ser will still be playing vinyl.

In the days when triple j was a Sydney-only station, how was 2ser different?
As someone who listened to a lot of triple j when it was a Sydney only station I think what marked 2SER as different during this period was our diversity. While the triple j of that period was a more eclectic beast then it is now it was still in radio terms a reasonably tightly formatted station. 2ser as a community station has the freedom and the mission to cover more material from a more diverse group of people. Not being as tightly formatted as triple j has also meant that 2ser was able to respond more quickly to local movements such as homegrown hip-hop or grassroots environmentalism. Finally, 2ser is a bit more politically active then triple j. While triple j may find itself being regularly complained about in Parliament, in reality as an ABC station its pretty much neutral. 2ser, on the other hand, is unapologetic about picking up causes and taking a stand outside of the general mainstream.

How has the introduction of FBi affected the focus and ethos of 2ser?
My feelings have always been that the introduction of FBI has been a positive thing for 2ser. For one thing the size and profile of the community radio sector in Sydney has increased which can only be good thing for all community stations - from metropolitan stations like 2ser to smaller sub-metros like 2RRR. Also FBi having a well-defined youth focus has meant that 2ser has been able to concentrate on its broad range of programs aimed at discerning listeners and also continue to concentrate on areas regarding social justice.

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Shaun Prescott co-hosts We Come From Garageland, Thursdays 10.30pm, on 2ser. For more information on 2ser’s 30th birthday celebrations click here.