Clues about the future for 4BC Brisbane listeners from Tapt Media's website?
This is a longer story from Radioland, my radio trends newsletter.
Welcome to Tapt Media, the new owner of a number of talk radio stations across Australia as of May 1. The company is owned by Craig Laundy, who spoke to 4BC’s Jason Matthews. It’s great to see new people interested and excited about the opportunities that local talk radio can bring.
They have a new website, pictured above, which looks modern and interesting. I always like looking at websites for new companies, since they’re the cleanest exploration of corporate strategy before the complicated bit of actually doing it starts.
In the past, some previous owners of 4BC, Tapt’s station in Brisbane, have felt it worthwhile to just close the Brisbane station entirely and rebroadcast 2GB from Sydney, 572 miles (and sometimes a whole timezone) away. We don’t want that to happen again; relevant, connected voices are important to any city.
Tapt Media says on its website that it’s “live, local, trusted”, and given that, the video on the front of the website is worthy of examination. Learning who they promote in the glossy video probably points us to understanding what their thinking is. It’ll be annoying to recut a video like this, so who are they promoting, and who aren’t they?
Let’s look carefully at the video (here’s a direct link to it). The video was uploaded on Tues Apr 14.
:00 - Sydney Harbour Bridge
:01 - Ben Fordham, Sydney 2GB
:03 - Flinders Street Station, Melbourne
:04 - Ross and Russ, Melbourne 3AW
:07 - A sign saying Perth
:09 - Millsy and Karl, 6PR (with a moving piece of blue shade)
:13 - a plane landing at Brisbane airport
:15 - a drone shot of Brisbane’s CBD (with a moving piece of blue shade)
:16 - an aerial shot of the Showgrounds Interchange, looking south.
:17 - the first woman of the video, a mid-30s blonde dressed in pink, with pink earbuds, plugged into an iPhone
:18 - an aerial shot of this section of Parramatta near Sydney, looking east.
:20 - Ben Fordham, 2GB
:24 - a late 20s asian woman, inserting pastel blue wireless headphones (with a moving piece of blue shade)
:25 - Jacqui Felgate, 3AW’s drive host
:26 - Tom from mornings on 3AW
:28 - Tony Moclair from afternoons on 3AW
:31 - A night-time drone shot of Perth’s Elizabeth Quay
:32 - Millsy and Karl, 6PR (with a moving piece of blue shade)
The video shows the entire 3AW daytime team; but only the breakfast team from Sydney and Perth; and not a single shot of any Brisbane on-air staff. The 4BC breakfast team at 4BC - Dean Miller and Sofie Formica - are not in the video at all. Formica, an accomplished TV presenter since the 1990s, has been with the station since Oct 2021.
Sofie’s appearance might have been helpful, because the lack of female on-air voices - Jacqui Felgate is the only one pictured - has had to be balanced-out by two, out-of-demo, stock images of women listening to the radio. The woman dressed in pink and listening to pink earbuds, above, is probably using an iPhone 5s, which was available between Sep 2013 and March 2016, making this stock video shot around ten years old. It was the last iPhone to have the headphone jack and circular volume buttons that are visible in this shot. (Perhaps the woman is now in 2GB’s target demo, ten years later?)
While there are no images of any Brisbane radio personalities, there is some stock footage of Brisbane, so that’s… OK? Not quite. Because, to add insult to injury to Queenslanders, I can reveal that the shot of Brisbane airport is fake.
The aeroplane that is apparently landing is un-painted, without a Qantas or Virgin Australia livery. That raised my suspicion. In fact, the entire image is a 3D render. Here it is at Shutterstock, apparently showing gate 10 at Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport. Or, perhaps, gate 1 at Taiwan Taoyuan International Aiport. Or, maybe gate 9 of the Aeroporto di Milano Malpensa. Or gate 8 of Shanghai Pudong International Airport.
One thing is for certain: it’s not Brisbane airport. In spite of “Gate 9” appearing conspicuously in-shot, Brisbane airport doesn’t have a Gate 9.
Tapt Media claims it’s “live, local, trusted”.
For Brisbane listeners, perhaps the evidence from this video is that it might not be local, given that none of 4BC’s local presenters make the cut; in spite of Sofie Formica’s five years at the station.
A spokesperson for Tapt Media tells me: “It was a tight turnaround so our video team used existing footage that we had on file in the interim before we get a brand new suite of marketing assets shot. Given there is a relatively fresh lineup at 4BC we didn’t have the footage of presenters to include (only still shots). That is in no way reflective of our commitment to 4BC and the 100% live and local content strategy in the Brisbane market. They will be front and centre once the new assets go to market.”
I asked Tapt Media whether the shot of Brisbane airport was taken there. They didn’t answer that question. But if the company is prepared to fake an image of Brisbane airport, their claim to be “trusted” is also up for debate.