I've been travelling europe so when I couldn't get a stream I'll listen to MMM on the radio. Been real good so far.
Last season when I was back home I'd listen to MMM on a monday night and grandstand most other times. Use to love as a kid listening to 2GB on the way home from the footy, but now I realise there is little to no footy talk. Can't tell you the last time I did listen to them.
The only time I ever liked listening to 2GB was during 2000/01 when Hadley lost the radio rights. Jon Harker (2000) - aka the Napisan guy - and Peter Wilkins (2001) were both great callers and their cohesion with the other commentators like John Gibbs was good. Dunno what happened to Jon Harker. Besides the Napisan ads and that year he called for 2GB, he used to call surf-lifesaving competitions on Ch7. That's the last I remember of him.
Although, I must say that I did like the Continuous Call Team and used to listen to them nearly every Sunday back in the late '90s on 2UE. Fantastic to listen to Chippy Frilingos (one of the last reputable, non-PC RL journos at the Daily Telegraph. Guys like Slothfield aren't even deserving of being called a "journalist" and goes to show how far the standards have slipped since Chippy passed away). They talked RL more than 90% of the time back then, Ray did a very good call of the game, and none of this stupid marriage counselling, wearing women's underwear, the Big Marn starting off with the sentence "Ray, I'M OUTRAGED! LAST TUESDAY, I WENT TO......." crap talk back in those days. I mean, who bloody CARES what some fatarse bastard got up to during their private time? And oh the hypocrisy of Hadley taking potshots at the Footy Show for so many years on his radio program after he got sacked and hammered them on all the things like cross-dressing, toilet humour, no-RL talk, making fun of disabled/ethnic people etc. when his CCT show slowly evolved into the radio equivalent of The Footy Show when he started calling games again in 2002
The big difference is back then, Ray didn't have a talk-back radio show (he only occasionally filled in for John Laws when he was sick or on holidays) and rugby league was all he knew. He was only known to the mainstream as a RL caller and one of the inaugural pannelists on The Footy Show. I noticed the big difference in mentality and ego came when he moved to 2GB in 2002 and furthermore, got his own weekday show. That's where the dynamics of the CCT program changed, his motivation and passion for league took a back seat to his more preferable Monday-Friday show and all this idle talk about non-RL issues became commonplace.
And yes, his Saturday 12-5pm (12-7pm during Origin rounds) "rugby league" show rates well because the audience is mostly the same 55+ yr old mob who comprise the majority of his listeners on his weekday show, not RL fans.
