Program profile: What's the Buzz?

Wed, 23 October 2019

2RPH has many informative and engaging programs, with equally engaging presenters! One such presenter is veteran 2RPH presenter Ken Bock OAM, who presents weekly program, What's the Buzz?

Here, 2RPH Administration Officer Danielle Hanrahan speaks to Ken.

How did you come to be involved with the program?

I was asked to do What’s the Buzz? “on the re-bound” as the saying goes. I acquired it somewhere between 15 and 20 years ago. Nic Svenson, the then Program Manager and 2 I/C to Tom Crozier, the then Station Manager, asked me one day when I was at the station to do the program that day because she was very busy. So, I did it. I was thrown in at the deep end.

The next week the same thing happened. Again, she was busy. The week after that she said she was too busy in general and asked if I would I do it permanently. The rest, as they say, is history. I have been doing it ever since!

What do you enjoy about producing and recording it?

It’s an interesting program to do. In a sense, you don’t know where next week’s scripts will come from because we need to rely on items being sent in by contributors. I need to be a scavenger and be on the alert to acquire items from any suitable source.

I have been known to “steal” publicity flyers from noticeboards in all sorts of places. Over time however, I have built up some sources who very faithfully send items in each week; the best known of these are the NSW Folk Federation and Graham Wilson at 2NUR-FM in Newcastle.

He sends a very comprehensive list on events coming up in the Newcastle and Greater Hunter Region which I like to think is very informative and helpful for our Novocastrian listeners.

I am always pleased to receive items for the program. The more, the merrier. There are a few ways of sending in items:

1. Post a flyer to 2RPH, 7/184 Glebe Point Road, Glebe NSW 2037.

2. Send event details, including contact information, to 2RPH via email on info@2rph.org.au.

3. Download the What’s the Buzz? form on the 2RPH website by clicking Whats the Buzz form.

The important thing is to set out the details in bullet-point form, not in long narratives. Long stories are entirely unsuitable for reading.

Your voice is one of the most familiar to listeners of 2RPH, what’s important to you in producing and recording a program?

WTB is a great program to present because of its lack of formality. You are telling people about things to go to and to enjoy themselves. There is no set text compared with the programs that present magazines and their set texts. It’s easy to be bright and breezy and to inject light humour here and there. Have a listen, for example, to my wind-up at the end of each episode!

Any last words you would like to share?

I particularly enjoy presenting What’s the Buzz? and the other magazine-style programs that I present on 2RPH. The important thing to remember about producing them is that radio is talking to one person – someone at home with a radio in the kitchen, the lounge room or on their bedside table. We are not talking to a hall full of people – just one person.

In my view, the greatest exponent of this on professional radio is Philip Adams on his program, ‘Late Night Live’ on ABC RN. He almost invariably refers to his audience as, “the listener” not “the listeners” and he speaks accordingly. On 2RPH, Natalie Shea in her programs quite obviously speaks in this manner and she is great.

To hear Ken present What’s the Buzz? on 2RPH, tune in on Thursdays at 2.00pm and repeated episodes on Saturdays at 7.30am.