What's New July 16, 2014

Is “Silence is golden for women in radio” ?

Earlier this week Fairfax Media’s Sydney Morning Herald published a story “Silence is golden for women in radio” – you can read the full story here.

To some degree the article was sparked by the recent Triple M Melbourne All Male Marketing tweet,

To quote SMH's Madeleine Heffernan:

"25 male presenters – and not one woman".

Naturally there is more to the story.

That is, the LACK of Female Talent

The article went on to say:

“Listeners don't want to hear them? They're too sensible or don't want the job? Whatever your theory on why there are so few women radio presenters, few would deny men dominate our airwaves.”

“Women comprise just 17 per cent of presenters for the major metro talkback stations on weekdays, according to media monitoring company iSentia. Five stations, including Sydney's 2GB, Melbourne's SEN and Perth's 6PR, have none.”

In the story, the ABC comes out a little better:

"The split for ABC metros (excluding Hobart and Darwin) is 14 women, 24 men, or 37 per cent. Melbourne easily has the highest number of female talkback presenters, with six, while Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth and Canberra have two each."

Flipping to a Commercial Music Focussed brand – SCA’s Chief Content Officer chimes in with:

"We're building two brands – one targets men, one targets women. If they [women] come knocking, and they're exceptional talent, then bang."

Perhaps fair enough, perhaps not?

"Dobson said it was women who were sexist when it came to presenters. He said radio research showed that men would listen to both genders, but women were women's "harshest critics".

At RadioToday, we revealed The Top 27 Influential Women In Radio back in 2012

That list included on-air talent, management, senior executives, directors and owners who influence the airwaves and the business of radio. It brought robust debate and comment… all good stuff.

But here we are in 2014 – Has the Glass Ceiling been broken?