Radio Ratings: Triple M on the decline and Hamish McLachlan?

[footyman]

Triple M's abysmal Saturday night and Sunday ratings figures in the recent survey indicate one thing - that fans don't enjoy listening to Hamish McLachlan.

In fact, Triple M's commentary teams on both Saturday night and Sunday afternoons are appauling.

While I don't mind Mike McLean on a Saturday night, McLachlan and often a recently retired player in special comments doesn't really work and Sunday's D-grade team of Quartermain, McLachlan, Dunstall and Crawford doesn't gel together either. Not even the "fried rice" episode and the attached promotion has helped them.

Shane Crawford's an interesting one. I don't think fans can take Shane seriously and his 'insights' into footy are not much better than the average fan on Bigfooty. He didn't even last a season as a special comments guy on 3AW two seasons ago before getting the flick, now on Triple M he's part of a team whose ratings are sliding faster than a kid on a waterslide.

What can Triple M do to improve the ratings? Clearly they need to tinker with a few things.

 

[On the bench]

First thing i would do is not have the trio of Q,The Chief & Crawf calling Hawthorn games paid barracking at its best & an instant turn off!

 

[angel baby]

very ordinary performance fromTriple M again .. McGlaughlin was suppossed to be the great white hope and he has only taken the joint backwards

 

[m0nty]

There is a steep drop off from the A team to the B and C teams in most radio calling stables, but it's most noticeable at MMM because the A team is so good. My main criticism of the Saturday night crew is that they just don't work as hard at the fundamentals, like matchups and coaching moves. They don't have to have the comedic rapport of BT and the lads, but all I would ask is that they at least give a minimum effort at calling the one-on-ones and being accurate, as well as keeping somewhere near as up to date on injury status as Doc Larkins does. As it is, they too often get lazy about the basics of footy calling.

As for the Sunday crew, I don't rate Quarters as a football caller at all, he puts you to sleep with the lack of enthusiasm he shows. On the rare occasions that he does fire up he's good, but he seems to be like Port Power: when the game lifts him by its quality he's alright, but if the game's no great shakes then he loses interest and calls it like it's a set of accounting figures. This is most noticeable on Channel 10 but he's not much better on MMM. Say what you like about Rex but he's a showman, he'll try his darnedest to make a dull tankfest between bottom four teams sound interesting. Piggy is a fine special comments man, but Crawf also needs to buckle down and be a little more serious at times, as part of the appeal of getting him is that he's not long out of the game, so he should have currency with his insights into tactical analysis.

 

[greatman]

MMMs A team as posted by Monty is very good, IMO the best in the business. The right balance is achieved with humour, knowledge, good calling and chemistry in the box.
The other teams suffer. I would not renew Crawfords contract he is a tryhard, I would put the acid on Quarters and tell him to liven up and inject humour if the game is poor. Chief is ok we will leave him there. McLachlan can go now.
I would recruit Wayne Schwass back. Good knowledge and a pretty good caller. I would also get Tim Gossage over from Perth who is a caller in the MMM mould, excitable and funny. I hate the man but maybe Grant Thomas has to be looked at also.
Use magic and Chuck Berry for games up North and keep the current Sth Australian A Team who aren't too bad.

 

[Strawbs]

Triple MMM ratings down - maybe bogan numbers are declining. As for the criticism of Crawford, he's an ex-footballer. Of course there is no point to him being part of the broadcast. McLachlan is a classic example of 'who you know not what you know.' Smarmy has never rated well (with the possible exception of Brayshaw, Lyon and Newman).

 

[MarkJohnson#1]

Agree with Monty here. Saturday's A Team is just so easy to listen to and get involved in. The rest, well...

 

[Supermercado]

I would also get Tim Gossage over from Perth who is a caller in the MMM mould, excitable and funny.

For god's sake no. Do you want to hear four quarters of who he's got in his dream team? It's all the idiot ever talks about on the SEN games.

 

[Registered User]

Triple M's abysmal Saturday night and Sunday ratings figures in the recent survey indicate one thing - that fans don't enjoy listening to Hamish McLachlan.

In fact, Triple M's commentary teams on both Saturday night and Sunday afternoons are appauling.

It's not like the good old days when Sam was on Fri, Sat and Sun. I still miss Sam on there, but I reckon without him dominating, the other guys have come out of their shells a lot.

I don't think Triple M would be worrying a whole lot, because, as Anderson said in The Hun, they apparently won every slot amongst under-55 listeners.

Yep, their Sat night team is a REAL d-grade collection, hey! I don't even know who some of them are. Also, am I right in thinking they tend to do the interstate game, where 3AW usually do the local match? This would obviously effect local ratings.

I don't even know who Hamish McLachlan is. The first I heard of him was this year on Triple M. He's got a crap voice for radio. Is he the same guy who hosted the CH7 review show after the Monday game?

I don't mind Crawford, but I reckon he struggles a bit with special comments. Such comments have usually gotta be delivered quickly and succinctly, but he stumbles with some "ums" and "ahs". I reckon he's a classic example of someone who's got by his whole life on his looks, 'personality', and footy ability, and has never had to put a sentence together until this year. Check him out on The Footy Show when he tries to be serious; he fumbles with lots of 'ums' -- not that I'd do any better, but I ain't on telly.

 

[evertonfc]

Some good calls here.

They're a bit like St Kilda of a few years back. Great first team, but with no depth.

Just can't get excited about any team headed by Michael McLean or Hamish McLaughlin. McLean tries a bit hard to pretend he's "MMM-Style" and McLaughlin is the opposite - far too straight and boring.

They are probably decent guys away from the box but radio is a very personal thing - we like what we like.

Schwass is definitely on the upgrade/recall radar. Really like him. Don't mind Quatermain, but only when he gets paired with types who can stir him up. As others have said, he needs to fire up.

Again, the A-team is just so good that it really does hurt the reserves.

 

[hoggy34]

Unfortunately I couldn't be in front of a TV and had to listen to MMM for the final 1/4 as I could only access FM reception. I know that it was an extremely intense game but McLachlan and Quatermain (to a lesser extent) were terrible to listen to.

McLachlan could not seem to generate any excitment in the call and often would pause as he was unsure which player had the ball. He even called Byrnes for the Stokes goal that levelled the score. When Gardiner took the match winning mark he almost missed it all together, pretty average stuff.

Quatermain is OK but just seems to plod along at one pace without getting too fired up, he also missed a number of players. It's easy to tell when they have trouble with Player ID when they call a play as "the Saints clear the footy" or "Geelong with the ball on half-back".

Crawford and Dunstall were OK in special comments but the calling was amateur...

 

[The Sultan]

i was at the game and only listened to MMM for the first quarter then switched to 3AW, as mentioned above the call was not what you want for such a game, they should have had their A team, hard when BT is on foxtel sundays.

 

[footyman]

i was at the game and only listened to MMM for the first quarter then switched to 3AW, as mentioned above the call was not what you want for such a game, they should have had their A team, hard when BT is on foxtel sundays.

JB should have been dragged out on Sunday to do that game, perhaps they could have had JB and Quarters with Dunstall and Lyon.

And on Saturday had BT and McLauchlan with Crawf and Frawley.

Whatever happens they need to fix it. If they get Eddie McGuire back to do a morning show on MMM, then you can slot him straight in for Sunday arvo footy.