Australia All Over is a long-running Australian weekly Sunday morning radio program produced by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

The show airs each Sunday morning from 5:30 am until 10:00 am on the ABC Local Radio network and has been continuously presented by Ian McNamara[1] since 1985.[2]

Summary

The program is known for its rural focus and distinct Australiana content, featuring discussions about Australian history and culture.[3]

The show relies heavily on everyday listeners phoning in to have an impromptu conversation with "Macca" to discuss various items of interest to the program's listeners. Each phone call begins with McNamara saying: "G'day, this is Macca...?" or "Australia All Over, hello?".

The program also regularly features Australia music, bush poetry, book readings, bird calls, interviews with special guests and the "Why I live where I live" segment when McNamara reads aloud a letter sent in by a listener describing why they have chosen to live in a specific part of Australia; 250 contributions to the segment were compiled into a book which was published in 2005.[4]

Australia All Over is also known for its theme song, "Macca on a Sunday morning", performed by Drew Forsythe.

History

The program began in 1970 under the name Always on Sunday[5] and was initiated by ABC Rural reporter Neil Inall who considered that the content ABC Radio was producing on Sunday mornings up until then was "really dull".[6] For that reason, Inall proposed to the head of the ABC's rural department Graham White that they introduce a more lively Sunday morning program for the ABC's regional listeners.[6]

It took on the name Australia All Over when McNamara assumed the role as presenter. Prior to McNamara hosting the program, the show was presented by various ABC presenters including Alex Nicol,[6] Colin Munro[7] and Mike Broadhurst.[8]

McNamara's involvement with the program began in 1981 when he hosted the program when Broadhurst went on long service leave, and suggested McNamara as his replacement.[8]

McNamara returned as the program's permanent host in 1985 when he began presenting the program live as opposed to the previous arrangements where it was pre-recorded the previous Thursday.[8]

Before his death in 2010, past presenter Colin Munro continued his involvement with the show by hosting the summer edition of the program called Summer All Over when McNamara took annual leave over the Christmas and New Year period.[7]

Despite the program originally only being broadcast on the ABC's regional stations, Australia All Over eventually began airing on the network's metropolitan stations including the ABC's Sydney, Canberra and Newcastle stations which started taking Australia All Over in March 1987.[9]

Outside broadcasts

Although chiefly presented from a studio at ABC Radio Sydney, the program is known for holding regular outside broadcasts at various Australian locations where listeners in the local area are invited to watch the program being presented live.[10][11]

An outside broadcast from the Byron Bay Lighthouse almost failed to go ahead after technicians discovered that wild goats had eaten their way through a cable that had been laid the night before. A technician's assistant managed to herd the goats into an adjacent paddock while a technical producer worked at repairing the cable, finishing with only fifteen minutes until the start of the broadcast.[12]

Critical reception

Although the program has a loyal following, particularly among the older demographics in regional areas, it has attracted harsh criticism throughout its history.[8]

Jane Clark in The Age described McNamara's interaction with the program's listeners as more patronising than friendly.[8]

In 1995, Imre Salusinszky in The Australian said Australia All Over and John Williamson both provided a sound argument for persuading the French to test their nuclear weapons in rural Australia instead of the remote South Pacific.[8]

The Sydney Morning Herald's Harry Robinson said that the program was, to any "savvy" listener, a mash of 1930s folksy corn and a dopey gnome in the ABC's garden. Robinson said that not much happens on the program apart from a lot of phone calls with little substance, consisting only of lengthy discussions about wombats, curlews, white-tailed spiders and mopokes.[8] Robinson also said that it was easy for the program to cater to "One Nation types", by telling them their world of nice, bland, decent folk is the best of all possibilities because they considered change an abomination.[8]

In a 2013 article in The Sydney Morning Herald relating to Australian radio personalities, Neil McMahon wrote that few national radio announcers "get on your goat" more than McNamara hosting Australia All Over. To illustrate his point, McMahon included actual complaints about McNamara, which included listeners criticising the way he described an Australian Federal Police officer as being "too pretty to be a geek", and the way he asked who the woman was that got "throttled" by her husband. McMahon also cited another self-proclaimed "glued-on ABC listener for 50 years" who said that he would welcome the day when McNamara retires.[13]

Former ABC managing director David Hill has said he understands why McNamara receives some vitriolic criticism as he is philosophically an old Australian working-class conservative and a real non-progressive traditionalist uncomfortable with change.[8] Despite this, it was Hill who convinced the metropolitan ABC stations to take Australia All Over, growing the program's estimated audience to 1.5 million.[8]

Awards

In 1988, a 20-minute radio documentary on the re-enactment of The First Fleet Voyage recorded aboard the Swedish barquentine, the Amorina, as it sailed from Hobart to Newcastle produced by Tasmanian Country Hour presenter Tom Murrell, won Best Special Talks and Documentary - Radio International Open for the Bicentennial Media Awards, the Paters sponsored by the Australian Academy of Broadcast Arts and Sciences.[14]

Merchandise

Since McNamara assumed the role of presenting Australia All Over, the program has spawned a number of books written by McNamara, along with a number of albums featuring music and content from the show, including songs performed by McNamara himself.

References

  1. ↑ Profile: Ian McNamara, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, first posted 23 October 2005, updated 17 August 2007. Retrieved 29 March 2017.
  2. ↑ Q&A: Ian McNamara, Jade Lazarevic, The Newcastle Herald, 20 October 2012. Retrieved 29 March 2017.
  3. ↑ Popular national bush program hits Canberra, Andree Coelli, The Canberra Times, 9 November 1987. Retrieved (via NLA) 29 March 2017.
  4. ↑ Product: Why I Live Where I Live, Harper Collins Publishers Australia website. Accessed 29 March 2017.
  5. ↑ Raising gumboot awareness, Dickson Woods, The Canberra Times, 22 November 1990. Retrieved (via NLA) 29 March 2017.
  6. 1 2 3 70 Years of ABC Rural, Tim Lee, Landline, ABC Television, 8 November 2015. Retrieved 28 December 2018.
  7. 1 2 A champion of the rural airwaves - Colin Munro 1940-2010, The Sydney Morning Herald, 11 December 2010. Retrieved 29 March 2017.
  8. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Macca all over, Mark Whittaker, The Australian, 8 December 2007. Retrieved 29 March 2017.
  9. ↑ ABC brings country culture to the city: radio for the early riser, Karen Hobson, The Canberra Times, 30 March 1987. Retrieved (via NLA) 29 March 2017.
  10. ↑ Macca's epic 'Say G'day' tour comes to an end, radioinfo, 29 April 2008. Retrieved 29 March 2017.
  11. ↑ Everywhere Man, Sue Javes, The Age, 4 June 2009. Retrieved 29 March 2017.
  12. ↑ Radio Outside Broadcasts - or the reason I am now totally mad, David Wynter, radioinfo, 29 January 2015. Retrieved 29 March 2017.
  13. ↑ "Radio's good, bad and the ugly", Neil McMahon, The Sydney Morning Herald, 26 December 2013. Retrieved 29 March 2017.
  14. ↑ Kelly, John (1995). The Swan Who's What in Western Australia 1995-96. Canning Vale: Swan Brewery Company. p. 107. ISSN 1324-6585.
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