After working for a commercial radio station for more than 15 years, sports broadcaster Andrew Moore jumped ship and moved to a public broadcaster in 2015. Moore has hosted ABC Grandstand’s NRL coverage for two years now with the 2017 season being his third.
Even during his time with Macquarie Media’s 2GB, Moore was a routine consumer of ABC Grandstand, he admitted. Having worked at the Sydney commercial broadcaster for a long time and now at the ABC, Moore is well placed to comment on the audience crossover between the two stations.
Being a public broadcaster, the ABC doesn’t carry advertising. Therefore, it doesn’t use the radio survey results to attract ad dollars. Moore said he still keeps a keen eye on the movements each survey. As to why, he said: “For me there is a fight to win the ratings. Whether it’s on the charter of the ABC to worry about the ratings or not, I don’t know. For me, I want to be talking to more people than the opposition.
“There’s no point doing a product that is not good enough and is not going to be competitive. I was really proud of what we achieved last year. We won a couple of Sundays in Sydney, which is very tough up against 2GB, which has dominated for the last three decades.
Contrary to its competitors Triple M and 2GB, ABC Grandstand has the broadcast rights for all the NRL games this season. This could be a drawcard for listeners who choose to keep up with the live action via radio. However, there are times when all three of the stations are calling the games at the same time. When this happens, ABC Grandstand’s coverage of the game is not only competing with the two other stations, but also the coverage the sport gets on Fox Sports, Nine, NRL.com.au, and social media.
“At the end you have to hope that people try your product,” Moore said. “In terms of winning listeners over, it’s a little bit difficult. We don’t have an advertising budget. You have your promos being played throughout the day and week [and that’s really it].
With the minimal ad budgets for ABC Grandstand, Moore has taken on some of the responsibility for marketing his work. Before working for the ABC, Moore had no public presence on social media.
“I joined Twitter – that’s the only social media platform I have engaged in,” Moore said. “In terms of content, we do four or five videos from the ground every week with the rugby commentary team.
Asked if he would call himself a marketer, as well as a journalist, Moore replied, smiling: “I wouldn’t go that far, but it is a part of it.
“If we forget to do a video one day or everyone is tired after a broadcast and goes home early, you get your backside kicked for not doing the social media stuff.
At this stage of the NRL competition, Moore can be heard on ABC Grandstand from Thursday to Sunday. The pre-game show depends on the scheduling of each game.
As the rights holder for NRL, ABC Grandstand has the same access to talent and executives from the sport as anyone else. When it comes to the ease of access to the talent, that depends on the individual clubs. Some are harder to deal with than others, Moore revealed.
“The players are outstanding. Getting through to media managers is a running battle with all media at the moment,” Moore said.
However, Moore said that more media managers have been helpful this season than in previous years.
Asked about his thoughts on clubs making it more difficult for media to get access to players, Moore replied: “I sat down with a chief executive of one of the NRL clubs very early this season talking about this issue. We had a problem with that club and the media manager the week before. He was telling me that the players almost have every 15 minutes of their day documented by the coach. So a lot of this comes back to the coach.
“North Queensland Cowboys have star players like Johnathan Thurston, Matthew Scott, Michael Morgan and Lachlan Coote and are one of the most accessible clubs that we deal with. This is the same with Cronulla Sharks, who are the premiership winners and have heaps of star talent. The clubs that actually treat their players like adults and let them make decisions for themselves end up doing the club a great service.
Moore was previously employed by Macquarie Media’s 2GB. He worked there for more than 15 years. He was the station’s sports reporter and presenter of Wake Up Australia. He would also fill in for Alan Jones’ breakfast show during survey breaks and holidays.
Jones had come out in Moore’s defence at that time. During Moore’s last shift at 2GB on 16 January 2015, Jones and another high-profile presenter at the station, Ben Fordham, rang in to thank and farewell him on air.