It seems that the last major bastion of true independent “live and local” radio, 2BS Bathurst, has fallen. Like a modern day Custer, Ron Camplin, the veteran owner of 1053 2BS Gold and its FM sister station B-Rock has stood firm against the tide of networking in defiance of the trend that has consumed the rest of the commercial industry in regional markets. Finally in the face of the sudden departures by at least four presenters in quick succession, necessity and pragmatism overtook principle and local listeners are now hearing 2GB’s relay of Ray Hadley and Chris Smith between 9 am and 3 pm broadcasting live from harbour side Pyrmont in Sydney.

“This decision [to take the syndicated programs] was taken over a long period,” Mr Camplin told the Western Advocate who took up the cudgel against their local media competitors, running several articles over the past few weeks attacking the radio stations.

It has been a long time since networking was a major issue among radioinfo readers. It probably reached its peak in 2004 with the merger of DMG and RG Capital to form the Macquarie Network, the forerunner to Southern Cross Media. At the time it seemed that the sky would fall in. Thousands of jobs would be lost while local listeners and advertisers would desert their historic stations in droves as this behemoth of a network served up a daily diet of city based schlock with little regard for local news or character.

Seven years on, with the help of an onerous regulation regime enforced by the ACMA, those forecasts seem wildly overstated. And as is often the case, the research does not match the reality. While most people in regional markets would agree, when asked, that they prefer live and local programming to networked shows, in practice they prefer quality programming regardless of where it comes from.

Indeed, even in the Western Advocate the majority of comments over recent weeks are in favour the new 2GB feed of Hadley and Smith on 2BS.  The stations own tracking suggest a 75% approval of the changes to programming.

Does that mean that networking has been a huge success? Or is it just a consequence of radio in a new age that we’ve simply had to learn to live with?