Star Stuff
| Company type | Radio program |
|---|---|
| Industry | Broadcasting, Science communication |
| Founded | 1998 |
| Founder | Stuart Gary |
| Defunct | 2015 |
| Fate | Cancelled by ABC; relaunched independently as SpaceTime |
| Headquarters | Australia |
Key people | Stuart Gary (host and producer) |
| Parent | ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) |
StarStuff was a weekly 30-minute program centered on space and science topics, broadcast on Australia's ABC network. The show was both hosted and produced by Stuart Gary from its inception in 1998 until its conclusion in December 2015.
History
Stuart Gary started his professional journey in commercial radio before transitioning to ABC as a news journalist in 1989. In 1994, he played a key role in launching ABC’s continuous news service, initially named PNN and later rebranded as ABC NewsRadio. There, he served as the evening program anchor for sixteen years. Alongside this role, Gary created popular science segments, which led to his appointment as NewsRadio Science Editor and the development of StarStuff, a weekly hour-long science news broadcast named after a phrase famously coined by Carl Sagan.
StarStuff delivered a succinct weekly summary of scientific breakthroughs using a strict news bulletin approach that was unparalleled in Australian science media. Gary oversaw every facet of the production, gathering content from ABC news sources, syndicated wire services, and peer-reviewed scientific journals. The program aired every Sunday on NewsRadio from 1998 through 2010 and consistently captured approximately 9% of the metropolitan national audience—well above the network’s average of 2.5%.
After management restructuring in 2010, NewsRadio pivoted towards sports content, resulting in StarStuff’s cancellation despite its robust ratings performance. The budget previously allocated to StarStuff was redirected to launch Weekend Half Time, a new sports program that ultimately did not succeed. Nevertheless, StarStuff persisted as an online podcast under ABC Science Online, averaging over one million downloads annually and also being broadcast on the U.S.-based Science 360 Radio platform.
In July 2015, ABC Science Online was integrated into Radio National. By December of that year, although StarStuff achieved 1.3 million downloads annually and produced more than 500 radio segments each year—ranking it as ABC’s twentieth most popular show—the program was discontinued due to purportedly insufficient audience figures. Gary publicly criticized this decision, arguing that the management’s comparison metrics were unfair.
Although ABC offered Gary an alternative position within the organization, he chose to resign in order to continue producing the show independently. However, ABC required him to relinquish all rights to the StarStuff brand before his departure. As a result, Gary relaunched the program under the new name SpaceTime.
SpaceTime preserves the original format and production quality established by StarStuff and is now available as a free twice-weekly podcast distributed through platforms such as iTunes, Stitcher, Pocketcasts, SoundCloud, Bitesz.com, Audio Boom, and spacetimewithstuartgary.com. The show also continues its broadcasts on Science 360 Radio in the United States and has exceeded previous download milestones, attaining over 63,000 downloads per week by July 2017.
Cancellation and relaunch
In December 2015, Stuart Gary announced via the official StarStuff Twitter account that he had been made redundant by ABC. The final episode was broadcast on 16 December 2015; budget reductions were cited as a contributing factor to the cancellation. Additionally, the StarStuff blog hosted at starstuffblog.tumblr.com was discontinued.
Ben Watt from ABC Multi-platform indicated that low audience numbers contributed to the decision to end StarStuff.
Format
The program focused on current developments in space exploration and scientific fields including astronomy, astrophysics, cosmology, aerospace engineering, rocket technology, and the history of human spaceflight. Regular updates covered missions such as NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity and the Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn.
Stuart Gary also authored news stories and feature articles related to astronomy and general science for ABC Science.