Yes, audiences have changed. But this is destroying a core tenet of news
This is all our fault. We stopped watching Q+A. We stopped watching The Project. We've stopped appointment television unless it's the footy.
We've changed. As a result, broadcasters, in an attempt to keep audiences, change what they're offering us.
We know The Project lost its way, but believe me, when it started out, it felt young and fresh, brimming with energy.
Did we start to disengage after it lost Charlie Pickering?
Did we lose our sense of humour? Or did they lose their understanding of what we needed to know and how much that's changed?
How much have we really changed?
I'm not the right person to answer this because I listen, read and watch news all day, every day. But I've got some insights into what's going on at the ABC this week and it makes me want to cry.
This week, the ABC announced it would end its panel show Q+A after 18 years.
Sure.
Despite the fact that ratings for the program, now hosted by Patricia Karvelas, had increased.
She and her team, including the remarkable executive producer Eliza Harvey, kept trying different things.
So is it about the money? Probably.
I think about 10 people will lose their jobs from that program alone, including some who are on the ABC's notorious casual contracts cycle.
We don't need to keep the same thing forever, but it's weird that both its panel shows have now gone.
Let us hope and pray we don't get served up even more Hard Quiz or the bizarrely unentertaining House of Games, which now leads us into the news. I can't think of a less suitable entrée.
Marks continues in his email: "Upcoming initiatives in news include investing in producing additional high-impact premium news documentary programs and embedding Your Say as a permanent initiative."
Much as I love Your Say, I'm not sure it's all that. You answer various online questions and then somehow that's turned into filler, not attached to real humans.
As you know, no need to be honest with a form - and it kind of plays with us, to be more conservative, to be more progressive, to see where it lands. Is it fun? Sure. Is it truly meaningful? Doubt that so much.
Feels like phony participation. Falls far short. I remember my various editors over various decades telling me that the best way of representing what real people felt was to include real people, real names, real lives.
Anyhow, I've asked various staff members at the ABC if they can decode Marks's email to all staff. Most have backed away politely.
They say they don't really have a clue what most of it means. What they do know is that 40 staff will be made redundant, and 10 short-term contracts will be terminated early.
Weirdly, in the more detailed change proposal, the ABC is backing away from digital and dumping innovation.
Do we know any other 21st century organisation doing that?
I'm shocked Marks thinks he can embed innovation in every unit. Real inventive thinking takes time, space and quiet. It is the exact opposite of what daily media production requires.
A couple of insiders have said to me that these changes show a desire by Marks to strut his stuff. What he's doing, they say, is clawing resources (money, people) into television, something he actually knows about.
"He's building a war chest for TV," says one source.
The internal email says: "The objective is to enhance our TV slate in volume and ambition, increase our capacity to commission more high-value journalism, enable more original podcasting and put targeted resources into our metropolitan audio teams." Yeah, translated, TV war chest.
The ABC already does brilliant, high-value journalism.
Back the people you already employ. Fund more episodes of Four Corners. Give more staff to news, especially radio news and current affairs.
The audience cannot possibly tolerate the barely changed iterations of news stories on AM, The World Today and PM.
These are three flagships (and I listen as if news was my religion) and they should be treated that way.
Now, going back to Marks's email to staff. See how TV comes first in that list. He's also decided to rename the ABC's Content division as ABC Screen, which will be led by Jennifer Collins.
This might be the one bit of good news in the entire shemozzle.
Here's an array of adjectives used by ABC employees to describe Collins: respected, no bullshit, pragmatic. And, doesn't interfere in tiny decisions.
READ MORE:
Apparently, she was overlooked when they appointed Chris Oliver-Taylor (he's the one who carried the can on the Antoinette Lattouf fiasco, but there were others, there were others). Bet ABC management very sorry about that now.
Collins has had a long career at the ABC and a short career in commercial screen (as we seem to be calling television now) and has a double degree in television and psychology.
She'll need that, not just in thinking about how audiences work, but in thinking about how her boss works. So many people have described Hugh Marks to me as a micromanager who needs more trust in the people who work for him.
Speaking of micromanagers. In April, the then-newish host of the ABC's Media Watch, Linton Besser and his team, exposed Kim Williams as an apparently activist chair with no business running the most important media institution in the country. Micromanaging madly. And badly. Trying to leverage his status to influence who appeared on the national broadcaster.
At the time, Marks said: "I am vigilant to ensure the proper delineation of responsibility between the board and management, and will act appropriately to ensure the best interests of the ABC, its people and audiences as we move forward."
So far, no evidence we are moving forward. Just more bad news. More redundancies.
No evidence that any of the most senior folks at the ABC or Ten have any idea what we, the listeners and watchers, really want. Maybe we don't know either. There's only so many episodes of Shrinking.
This is all our fault. We stopped watching Q+A. We stopped watching The Project. We've stopped appointment television unless it's the footy.
We've changed. As a result, broadcasters, in an attempt to keep audiences, change what they're offering us.
We know The Project lost its way, but believe me, when it started out, it felt young and fresh, brimming with energy.
Did we start to disengage after it lost Charlie Pickering?
Did we lose our sense of humour? Or did they lose their understanding of what we needed to know and how much that's changed?
How much have we really changed?
I'm not the right person to answer this because I listen, read and watch news all day, every day. But I've got some insights into what's going on at the ABC this week and it makes me want to cry.
This week, the ABC announced it would end its panel show Q+A after 18 years.
Sure.
Despite the fact that ratings for the program, now hosted by Patricia Karvelas, had increased.
She and her team, including the remarkable executive producer Eliza Harvey, kept trying different things.
So is it about the money? Probably.
I think about 10 people will lose their jobs from that program alone, including some who are on the ABC's notorious casual contracts cycle.
We don't need to keep the same thing forever, but it's weird that both its panel shows have now gone.
Let us hope and pray we don't get served up even more Hard Quiz or the bizarrely unentertaining House of Games, which now leads us into the news. I can't think of a less suitable entrée.
Marks continues in his email: "Upcoming initiatives in news include investing in producing additional high-impact premium news documentary programs and embedding Your Say as a permanent initiative."
Much as I love Your Say, I'm not sure it's all that. You answer various online questions and then somehow that's turned into filler, not attached to real humans.
As you know, no need to be honest with a form - and it kind of plays with us, to be more conservative, to be more progressive, to see where it lands. Is it fun? Sure. Is it truly meaningful? Doubt that so much.
Feels like phony participation. Falls far short. I remember my various editors over various decades telling me that the best way of representing what real people felt was to include real people, real names, real lives.
Anyhow, I've asked various staff members at the ABC if they can decode Marks's email to all staff. Most have backed away politely.
They say they don't really have a clue what most of it means. What they do know is that 40 staff will be made redundant, and 10 short-term contracts will be terminated early.
Weirdly, in the more detailed change proposal, the ABC is backing away from digital and dumping innovation.
Do we know any other 21st century organisation doing that?
I'm shocked Marks thinks he can embed innovation in every unit. Real inventive thinking takes time, space and quiet. It is the exact opposite of what daily media production requires.
A couple of insiders have said to me that these changes show a desire by Marks to strut his stuff. What he's doing, they say, is clawing resources (money, people) into television, something he actually knows about.
"He's building a war chest for TV," says one source.
The internal email says: "The objective is to enhance our TV slate in volume and ambition, increase our capacity to commission more high-value journalism, enable more original podcasting and put targeted resources into our metropolitan audio teams." Yeah, translated, TV war chest.
The ABC already does brilliant, high-value journalism.
Back the people you already employ. Fund more episodes of Four Corners. Give more staff to news, especially radio news and current affairs.
The audience cannot possibly tolerate the barely changed iterations of news stories on AM, The World Today and PM.
These are three flagships (and I listen as if news was my religion) and they should be treated that way.
Now, going back to Marks's email to staff. See how TV comes first in that list. He's also decided to rename the ABC's Content division as ABC Screen, which will be led by Jennifer Collins.
This might be the one bit of good news in the entire shemozzle.
Here's an array of adjectives used by ABC employees to describe Collins: respected, no bullshit, pragmatic. And, doesn't interfere in tiny decisions.
READ MORE:
Apparently, she was overlooked when they appointed Chris Oliver-Taylor (he's the one who carried the can on the Antoinette Lattouf fiasco, but there were others, there were others). Bet ABC management very sorry about that now.
Collins has had a long career at the ABC and a short career in commercial screen (as we seem to be calling television now) and has a double degree in television and psychology.
She'll need that, not just in thinking about how audiences work, but in thinking about how her boss works. So many people have described Hugh Marks to me as a micromanager who needs more trust in the people who work for him.
Speaking of micromanagers. In April, the then-newish host of the ABC's Media Watch, Linton Besser and his team, exposed Kim Williams as an apparently activist chair with no business running the most important media institution in the country. Micromanaging madly. And badly. Trying to leverage his status to influence who appeared on the national broadcaster.
At the time, Marks said: "I am vigilant to ensure the proper delineation of responsibility between the board and management, and will act appropriately to ensure the best interests of the ABC, its people and audiences as we move forward."
So far, no evidence we are moving forward. Just more bad news. More redundancies.
No evidence that any of the most senior folks at the ABC or Ten have any idea what we, the listeners and watchers, really want. Maybe we don't know either. There's only so many episodes of Shrinking.
This is all our fault. We stopped watching Q+A. We stopped watching The Project. We've stopped appointment television unless it's the footy.
We've changed. As a result, broadcasters, in an attempt to keep audiences, change what they're offering us.
We know The Project lost its way, but believe me, when it started out, it felt young and fresh, brimming with energy.
Did we start to disengage after it lost Charlie Pickering?
Did we lose our sense of humour? Or did they lose their understanding of what we needed to know and how much that's changed?
How much have we really changed?
I'm not the right person to answer this because I listen, read and watch news all day, every day. But I've got some insights into what's going on at the ABC this week and it makes me want to cry.
This week, the ABC announced it would end its panel show Q+A after 18 years.
Sure.
Despite the fact that ratings for the program, now hosted by Patricia Karvelas, had increased.
She and her team, including the remarkable executive producer Eliza Harvey, kept trying different things.
So is it about the money? Probably.
I think about 10 people will lose their jobs from that program alone, including some who are on the ABC's notorious casual contracts cycle.
We don't need to keep the same thing forever, but it's weird that both its panel shows have now gone.
Let us hope and pray we don't get served up even more Hard Quiz or the bizarrely unentertaining House of Games, which now leads us into the news. I can't think of a less suitable entrée.
Marks continues in his email: "Upcoming initiatives in news include investing in producing additional high-impact premium news documentary programs and embedding Your Say as a permanent initiative."
Much as I love Your Say, I'm not sure it's all that. You answer various online questions and then somehow that's turned into filler, not attached to real humans.
As you know, no need to be honest with a form - and it kind of plays with us, to be more conservative, to be more progressive, to see where it lands. Is it fun? Sure. Is it truly meaningful? Doubt that so much.
Feels like phony participation. Falls far short. I remember my various editors over various decades telling me that the best way of representing what real people felt was to include real people, real names, real lives.
Anyhow, I've asked various staff members at the ABC if they can decode Marks's email to all staff. Most have backed away politely.
They say they don't really have a clue what most of it means. What they do know is that 40 staff will be made redundant, and 10 short-term contracts will be terminated early.
Weirdly, in the more detailed change proposal, the ABC is backing away from digital and dumping innovation.
Do we know any other 21st century organisation doing that?
I'm shocked Marks thinks he can embed innovation in every unit. Real inventive thinking takes time, space and quiet. It is the exact opposite of what daily media production requires.
A couple of insiders have said to me that these changes show a desire by Marks to strut his stuff. What he's doing, they say, is clawing resources (money, people) into television, something he actually knows about.
"He's building a war chest for TV," says one source.
The internal email says: "The objective is to enhance our TV slate in volume and ambition, increase our capacity to commission more high-value journalism, enable more original podcasting and put targeted resources into our metropolitan audio teams." Yeah, translated, TV war chest.
The ABC already does brilliant, high-value journalism.
Back the people you already employ. Fund more episodes of Four Corners. Give more staff to news, especially radio news and current affairs.
The audience cannot possibly tolerate the barely changed iterations of news stories on AM, The World Today and PM.
These are three flagships (and I listen as if news was my religion) and they should be treated that way.
Now, going back to Marks's email to staff. See how TV comes first in that list. He's also decided to rename the ABC's Content division as ABC Screen, which will be led by Jennifer Collins.
This might be the one bit of good news in the entire shemozzle.
Here's an array of adjectives used by ABC employees to describe Collins: respected, no bullshit, pragmatic. And, doesn't interfere in tiny decisions.
READ MORE:
Apparently, she was overlooked when they appointed Chris Oliver-Taylor (he's the one who carried the can on the Antoinette Lattouf fiasco, but there were others, there were others). Bet ABC management very sorry about that now.
Collins has had a long career at the ABC and a short career in commercial screen (as we seem to be calling television now) and has a double degree in television and psychology.
She'll need that, not just in thinking about how audiences work, but in thinking about how her boss works. So many people have described Hugh Marks to me as a micromanager who needs more trust in the people who work for him.
Speaking of micromanagers. In April, the then-newish host of the ABC's Media Watch, Linton Besser and his team, exposed Kim Williams as an apparently activist chair with no business running the most important media institution in the country. Micromanaging madly. And badly. Trying to leverage his status to influence who appeared on the national broadcaster.
At the time, Marks said: "I am vigilant to ensure the proper delineation of responsibility between the board and management, and will act appropriately to ensure the best interests of the ABC, its people and audiences as we move forward."
So far, no evidence we are moving forward. Just more bad news. More redundancies.
No evidence that any of the most senior folks at the ABC or Ten have any idea what we, the listeners and watchers, really want. Maybe we don't know either. There's only so many episodes of Shrinking.
This is all our fault. We stopped watching Q+A. We stopped watching The Project. We've stopped appointment television unless it's the footy.
We've changed. As a result, broadcasters, in an attempt to keep audiences, change what they're offering us.
We know The Project lost its way, but believe me, when it started out, it felt young and fresh, brimming with energy.
Did we start to disengage after it lost Charlie Pickering?
Did we lose our sense of humour? Or did they lose their understanding of what we needed to know and how much that's changed?
How much have we really changed?
I'm not the right person to answer this because I listen, read and watch news all day, every day. But I've got some insights into what's going on at the ABC this week and it makes me want to cry.
This week, the ABC announced it would end its panel show Q+A after 18 years.
Sure.
Despite the fact that ratings for the program, now hosted by Patricia Karvelas, had increased.
She and her team, including the remarkable executive producer Eliza Harvey, kept trying different things.
So is it about the money? Probably.
I think about 10 people will lose their jobs from that program alone, including some who are on the ABC's notorious casual contracts cycle.
We don't need to keep the same thing forever, but it's weird that both its panel shows have now gone.
Let us hope and pray we don't get served up even more Hard Quiz or the bizarrely unentertaining House of Games, which now leads us into the news. I can't think of a less suitable entrée.
Marks continues in his email: "Upcoming initiatives in news include investing in producing additional high-impact premium news documentary programs and embedding Your Say as a permanent initiative."
Much as I love Your Say, I'm not sure it's all that. You answer various online questions and then somehow that's turned into filler, not attached to real humans.
As you know, no need to be honest with a form - and it kind of plays with us, to be more conservative, to be more progressive, to see where it lands. Is it fun? Sure. Is it truly meaningful? Doubt that so much.
Feels like phony participation. Falls far short. I remember my various editors over various decades telling me that the best way of representing what real people felt was to include real people, real names, real lives.
Anyhow, I've asked various staff members at the ABC if they can decode Marks's email to all staff. Most have backed away politely.
They say they don't really have a clue what most of it means. What they do know is that 40 staff will be made redundant, and 10 short-term contracts will be terminated early.
Weirdly, in the more detailed change proposal, the ABC is backing away from digital and dumping innovation.
Do we know any other 21st century organisation doing that?
I'm shocked Marks thinks he can embed innovation in every unit. Real inventive thinking takes time, space and quiet. It is the exact opposite of what daily media production requires.
A couple of insiders have said to me that these changes show a desire by Marks to strut his stuff. What he's doing, they say, is clawing resources (money, people) into television, something he actually knows about.
"He's building a war chest for TV," says one source.
The internal email says: "The objective is to enhance our TV slate in volume and ambition, increase our capacity to commission more high-value journalism, enable more original podcasting and put targeted resources into our metropolitan audio teams." Yeah, translated, TV war chest.
The ABC already does brilliant, high-value journalism.
Back the people you already employ. Fund more episodes of Four Corners. Give more staff to news, especially radio news and current affairs.
The audience cannot possibly tolerate the barely changed iterations of news stories on AM, The World Today and PM.
These are three flagships (and I listen as if news was my religion) and they should be treated that way.
Now, going back to Marks's email to staff. See how TV comes first in that list. He's also decided to rename the ABC's Content division as ABC Screen, which will be led by Jennifer Collins.
This might be the one bit of good news in the entire shemozzle.
Here's an array of adjectives used by ABC employees to describe Collins: respected, no bullshit, pragmatic. And, doesn't interfere in tiny decisions.
READ MORE:
Apparently, she was overlooked when they appointed Chris Oliver-Taylor (he's the one who carried the can on the Antoinette Lattouf fiasco, but there were others, there were others). Bet ABC management very sorry about that now.
Collins has had a long career at the ABC and a short career in commercial screen (as we seem to be calling television now) and has a double degree in television and psychology.
She'll need that, not just in thinking about how audiences work, but in thinking about how her boss works. So many people have described Hugh Marks to me as a micromanager who needs more trust in the people who work for him.
Speaking of micromanagers. In April, the then-newish host of the ABC's Media Watch, Linton Besser and his team, exposed Kim Williams as an apparently activist chair with no business running the most important media institution in the country. Micromanaging madly. And badly. Trying to leverage his status to influence who appeared on the national broadcaster.
At the time, Marks said: "I am vigilant to ensure the proper delineation of responsibility between the board and management, and will act appropriately to ensure the best interests of the ABC, its people and audiences as we move forward."
So far, no evidence we are moving forward. Just more bad news. More redundancies.
No evidence that any of the most senior folks at the ABC or Ten have any idea what we, the listeners and watchers, really want. Maybe we don't know either. There's only so many episodes of Shrinking.
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The Age
39 minutes ago
- The Age
Want to ditch screens? Here are the top podcasts for kids
A few years back, I was Team Velociraptor by a large margin, curled up listening to a podcast with my T-Rex-loving grandson. Sucked in by the set-up. A race between two dinosaur species through weird terrains of all kinds. Over 14 or so minutes, University of Queensland palaeontologist Tim Richards and ABC sports editor Amanda Shalala call the contest, like it was happening before their eyes. Survivor for the ears, but 200 times more thrilling. Fart jokes, puns, actual palaeontological facts, bone length, permutations of teeth and a script which sounds like it was written by a football commentator. No wonder it gets fan mail and the reward of nearly seven million downloads. This is ABC Kids' Dino Dome. At the end of June, a new season drops. Not that I don't love listening to T versus V for the umpteenth time or the explanation of why reptiles are not dinosaurs and pterodactyls can't fly. But I'm ready for new racers. From June 26, it's a special 'knock-out' format. Listeners will know the competing dinosaurs ahead of time as they face off in a round-robin. They won't tell me who is in the first round, but Richards says this season they will race Australia's most complete pterosaur. And what's the mystery? 'It's really hard to know when pterosaurs went to the bathroom because they have a silent p.' Dinosaur jokes. Works for me. How did I end up being obsessed with a kids' podcast? Grandkids. Obviously. There doesn't seem to be any curated guides to the best children's podcasts, so I'm sharing what I found, what I love, and what others suggested. All of them, the kind you can listen to with little ones, big ones or even by yourself. So what's on my list besides dinosaurs? Nature. History. Difficult life questions. Unless you possess superhuman patience, it is not possible to keep reading books to your kids/grandkids/small humans in your care until they have had their fill. They have never had enough. Podcasts fill the gap. Kyla Slaven, a former UTS radio lecturer and then parent of a 10-year-old, had a wild idea about a decade ago: to create podcasts for kids. I thought she was completely mad, especially when she pitched Short and Curly (ABC), an ethics podcast. Yet, her foresight proved true. The very first episode in 2016, Can you trust a robot?, now seems eerily prescient. Podcasts, Slaven says, enable family listening in a way that live radio can't. When I asked Helen Adam about the value of podcasts for children, her response went beyond simply filling a void in the market. Adam, an Associate Professor at Edith Cowan University and the president of the Primary English Teachers Association of Australia, has dedicated 42 years to researching how children learn to read. She says podcasts serve as a 'bridge into reading and loving books'. Crucially, this bridge leads away from video clips and cartoons – which, despite their undeniable charm (love you Bingo, on behalf of all younger sisters), ultimately only lead back to more screen time. 'When you are watching, you are just a viewer. When you are reading or listening, you become those characters. It builds kids' background in patterns of language in how texts are put together, storylines, words, phrases. These are great benefits for language acquisition for kids,' says Adam. 'When you read, the neural pathways are similar to actually living that experience. And when you listen, it develops language comprehension.' Turns out, podcasters could tell there was a need. Ann Jones, host of Noisy By Nature (ABC), says parents want engaging content without turning kids into zombies . Parents want lots of choice because kids are repeat listeners (as my velociraptor vs T-rex experience reveals). Loading Children, it seems, form an immediate bond with podcasts. Jones now experiences people approaching her on the street, and parents send her videos of their children mimicking her. Her favourite episode Noi-SEA: Humming Continental Shelf stars a dugong sounding like a cow, what sounds like a vacuum cleaner and the best real underwater sounds you've ever heard. Jones says kids start consuming media almost from birth, highlighting the crucial juncture when media literacy must begin. What's true? What's not? And what powers our imaginations? New research also shows that podcasts for children often feature an even wider vocabulary than those aimed at adults, thereby stretching the word stocks of kids too. Also, the heartstrings. Take this. 'Hey, how do you remember your family back home?' Trust me, your eyes will start to prickle with tears when you hear this question – about whether kids who were convicts stayed in touch with their families – in Hey History! (UTS, Latrobe, HTA NSW and Impact Studios) Many adult podcasts boil down to a couple of old mates having a laughing competition. Not that there's anything wrong with that. However, many of the children's podcasts recommended to me by various adults, children, and teachers would never neatly fit into the 'entertainment' category. Anna Clark, a history professor, mother to Hey History!'s narrator Axel, and granddaughter of Australia's eminent historian Manning Clark, has for two decades been driven to reform how history is taught. Hey History!, which won gold at this year's NYF Radio Awards for Best Children's Program, is her latest tool. She is executive producer of the podcast alongside Professor Clare Wright. Drawing on decades of research in history education, she wanted to create a resource for primary teachers (most of whom have done little or no Australian history since their own Year 10). When I read the word resource, I cringe. Not this time. And that's partly due to narrator Axel, 15, a persuasive actor. The podcast's producer asked Axel to audition and offered him the role, for which he gets paid. (I ask him to tell me the worst thing about working with his mother. I assure him her feelings won't get hurt. 'She can take it,' I say. 'I know she can't,' he deadpans.) Loading Most of these podcasts are what Lulu Miller, queen of children's podcasts and host of Radiolab's Terrestrials, calls intergenerational. Anyone can listen and love what they are hearing. Here's how Miller describes the premise for Terrestrials: 'We are scouring the earth to bring very narrative stories which seem like fairytales, that seem like adventure stories about episode is fact-checked, it's 100 per cent true.' You have to listen to the episode on the silence of the bees. 'Is it a new disease? Is it because of pesticides? Maybe it's the cell phones!' Spoiler alert: it's not the mobile phones. But around 2006, farmers across the US opened their beehives to find them empty. Terrestrials delves into why, featuring experts, didgeridoos, and genuine narrative tension. Turns out most children's podcasts do a brilliant job of bringing it altogether: the tension, the narration, the music, and enough real experts to help us all understand and inspire further learning. Want more suggestions? Museum Victoria's The Fact Detectives (now out of production but loads of episodes still). National Geographic's Greeking Out, Theo and Matt (a truly sweet father-reading-to-his-child dynamic), and Imagine This (ABC).
Sydney Morning Herald
39 minutes ago
- Sydney Morning Herald
Want to ditch screens? Here are the top podcasts for kids
A few years back, I was Team Velociraptor by a large margin, curled up listening to a podcast with my T-Rex-loving grandson. Sucked in by the set-up. A race between two dinosaur species through weird terrains of all kinds. Over 14 or so minutes, University of Queensland palaeontologist Tim Richards and ABC sports editor Amanda Shalala call the contest, like it was happening before their eyes. Survivor for the ears, but 200 times more thrilling. Fart jokes, puns, actual palaeontological facts, bone length, permutations of teeth and a script which sounds like it was written by a football commentator. No wonder it gets fan mail and the reward of nearly seven million downloads. This is ABC Kids' Dino Dome. At the end of June, a new season drops. Not that I don't love listening to T versus V for the umpteenth time or the explanation of why reptiles are not dinosaurs and pterodactyls can't fly. But I'm ready for new racers. From June 26, it's a special 'knock-out' format. Listeners will know the competing dinosaurs ahead of time as they face off in a round-robin. They won't tell me who is in the first round, but Richards says this season they will race Australia's most complete pterosaur. And what's the mystery? 'It's really hard to know when pterosaurs went to the bathroom because they have a silent p.' Dinosaur jokes. Works for me. How did I end up being obsessed with a kids' podcast? Grandkids. Obviously. There doesn't seem to be any curated guides to the best children's podcasts, so I'm sharing what I found, what I love, and what others suggested. All of them, the kind you can listen to with little ones, big ones or even by yourself. So what's on my list besides dinosaurs? Nature. History. Difficult life questions. Unless you possess superhuman patience, it is not possible to keep reading books to your kids/grandkids/small humans in your care until they have had their fill. They have never had enough. Podcasts fill the gap. Kyla Slaven, a former UTS radio lecturer and then parent of a 10-year-old, had a wild idea about a decade ago: to create podcasts for kids. I thought she was completely mad, especially when she pitched Short and Curly (ABC), an ethics podcast. Yet, her foresight proved true. The very first episode in 2016, Can you trust a robot?, now seems eerily prescient. Podcasts, Slaven says, enable family listening in a way that live radio can't. When I asked Helen Adam about the value of podcasts for children, her response went beyond simply filling a void in the market. Adam, an Associate Professor at Edith Cowan University and the president of the Primary English Teachers Association of Australia, has dedicated 42 years to researching how children learn to read. She says podcasts serve as a 'bridge into reading and loving books'. Crucially, this bridge leads away from video clips and cartoons – which, despite their undeniable charm (love you Bingo, on behalf of all younger sisters), ultimately only lead back to more screen time. 'When you are watching, you are just a viewer. When you are reading or listening, you become those characters. It builds kids' background in patterns of language in how texts are put together, storylines, words, phrases. These are great benefits for language acquisition for kids,' says Adam. 'When you read, the neural pathways are similar to actually living that experience. And when you listen, it develops language comprehension.' Turns out, podcasters could tell there was a need. Ann Jones, host of Noisy By Nature (ABC), says parents want engaging content without turning kids into zombies . Parents want lots of choice because kids are repeat listeners (as my velociraptor vs T-rex experience reveals). Loading Children, it seems, form an immediate bond with podcasts. Jones now experiences people approaching her on the street, and parents send her videos of their children mimicking her. Her favourite episode Noi-SEA: Humming Continental Shelf stars a dugong sounding like a cow, what sounds like a vacuum cleaner and the best real underwater sounds you've ever heard. Jones says kids start consuming media almost from birth, highlighting the crucial juncture when media literacy must begin. What's true? What's not? And what powers our imaginations? New research also shows that podcasts for children often feature an even wider vocabulary than those aimed at adults, thereby stretching the word stocks of kids too. Also, the heartstrings. Take this. 'Hey, how do you remember your family back home?' Trust me, your eyes will start to prickle with tears when you hear this question – about whether kids who were convicts stayed in touch with their families – in Hey History! (UTS, Latrobe, HTA NSW and Impact Studios) Many adult podcasts boil down to a couple of old mates having a laughing competition. Not that there's anything wrong with that. However, many of the children's podcasts recommended to me by various adults, children, and teachers would never neatly fit into the 'entertainment' category. Anna Clark, a history professor, mother to Hey History!'s narrator Axel, and granddaughter of Australia's eminent historian Manning Clark, has for two decades been driven to reform how history is taught. Hey History!, which won gold at this year's NYF Radio Awards for Best Children's Program, is her latest tool. She is executive producer of the podcast alongside Professor Clare Wright. Drawing on decades of research in history education, she wanted to create a resource for primary teachers (most of whom have done little or no Australian history since their own Year 10). When I read the word resource, I cringe. Not this time. And that's partly due to narrator Axel, 15, a persuasive actor. The podcast's producer asked Axel to audition and offered him the role, for which he gets paid. (I ask him to tell me the worst thing about working with his mother. I assure him her feelings won't get hurt. 'She can take it,' I say. 'I know she can't,' he deadpans.) Loading Most of these podcasts are what Lulu Miller, queen of children's podcasts and host of Radiolab's Terrestrials, calls intergenerational. Anyone can listen and love what they are hearing. Here's how Miller describes the premise for Terrestrials: 'We are scouring the earth to bring very narrative stories which seem like fairytales, that seem like adventure stories about episode is fact-checked, it's 100 per cent true.' You have to listen to the episode on the silence of the bees. 'Is it a new disease? Is it because of pesticides? Maybe it's the cell phones!' Spoiler alert: it's not the mobile phones. But around 2006, farmers across the US opened their beehives to find them empty. Terrestrials delves into why, featuring experts, didgeridoos, and genuine narrative tension. Turns out most children's podcasts do a brilliant job of bringing it altogether: the tension, the narration, the music, and enough real experts to help us all understand and inspire further learning. Want more suggestions? Museum Victoria's The Fact Detectives (now out of production but loads of episodes still). National Geographic's Greeking Out, Theo and Matt (a truly sweet father-reading-to-his-child dynamic), and Imagine This (ABC).
7NEWS
an hour ago
- 7NEWS
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle hire former The Crown executive to help boost their public image
In yet another move that will throw fuel on the fiery feud between King Charles, Prince William and his brother Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex and his wife Meghan Markle have hired a former TV producer from The Crown to help boost their image. The woman responsible for the publicity of the hugely popular Netflix series during seasons three through six, Emily Robinson, has ironically been parachuted in by the Sussexes to try and help turn around their disastrous public persona. Netflix had been accused of taking creative licence too far when addressing some story lines in The Crown, which reportedly enraged members of the royal family. Ms Robinson was responsible for depicting the episodes as based on actual events, even though there were large chunks of the overall series that had clearly been left to script writers and producers to use their creative licence. Prince Harry's notorious Nazi costume scandal and the most sensitive Princess Diana moments in the program were all content that Ms Robinson was employed to promote. Royal commentators have likened the decision to hire Ms Robinson with 'sticking in the knife'. The Netflix series touched on all the controversial moments for the King and his sons over the years. 'In the circumstances, it's almost beyond belief that Harry and Meghan would hire someone straight from The Crown,' the Daily Mail quoted a royal insider as saying. Prince Harry has previously spoken about The Crown and said the show had not concerned him at all. 'They don't pretend to be news. It's fiction. But it's loosely based on the truth. Of course, it's not strictly accurate,' he told James Cordern in 2021. 'I'm way more comfortable with The Crown than I am seeing the stories written about my family, or my wife, or myself.' When asked by Stephen Colbert on his talk show in the US in 2023 if he had watched the show and if he did any fact checking, the Prince responded 'Yes, I have actually watched The Crown'. 'Yes, I do, actually (fact check). Which, by the way, is another reason why it's so important that history has it right.' The Netflix brand is one the Sussexes are particularly aligned with after the streaming service paid them a staggering $US100 million to produce a range of programs over a five year period including a Harry & Meghan documentary series. The infamous docu-series included Prince Harry's claim that his family suffered from 'unconscious racial bias', and that they were conspiring against him and his wife. Although the decision will undoubtedly push the royal brothers further apart, Prince Harry and Meghan have pushed on and hired the former Netflix exec who has also held a number of senior publicity roles around the world. Ms Robinson has worked in various roles at the A&E Networks, Discovery/TLC, VH1, and Bravo and is expected to only increase the couple's profile and build on Meghan Markle's recent foray's into podcasting and lifestyle programming including her with her show - With Love, Meghan.
