Monday, December 23, 2013

Hanging Up The Headphones Happily

It's been a year of broadcasting fuck-ups (eg: the right Royal Aussie Dial-A-Dickhead incident and the Willie Jackson/John Tamihere Let's-Ridicule-Rape phonecall).
So it's pleasing to see two of NZ's longer-serving radio personalities retiring with heads held high…rather than having been decapitated.
"Deaks"
After 13½ years, Murray Deaker stepped down from the Sunday with Deaker show on Radio Sport, while on National Radio, Chris Laidlaw presented the Sunday Morning programme for the last time after 11 years.
Both men have left their jobs at the top of their game. Former Labour MP, All Black and race relations commissioner, Laidlaw held 14% of the Sunday morning radio audience. Meanwhile the fiery and often controversial Deaker won Sports Broadcaster of the year in 2012, and was a finalist
Laidlaw
in 2013.
Unlike too many of today's so-called on-air "professionals", these two rarely put a foot wrong, delivering quality entertainment and information, and hang up their headphones with pride.
Deaker's replacement on Radio Sport will be the partner-bashing Tony Veitch, and Wallace Chapman takes over the Sunday Morning programme on Radio NZ.

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