For 35 years, many Greek Australians have been waking up to the voice of Alexis Doudoulakis reading the morning news or having their Greek coffee listening to one of his many programs on SBS radio.
He is a well known voice that has been informing the community for over three decades, having gone from a newsreader at what was once the main source of information for first generations of Greek migrants, to a favourite presenter for ageing Greek community members.
Today, he can’t even remember how many different technologies and systems he learned to use over the years. But if he was to stay just a little bit longer, he claims would do so just to be able to use the new digital radio that, as he puts it, he has only had time to try as ‘meze’.
There was no shortage of tributes from the whole community when recently Alexis Doudoulakis announced he is stepping down from his radio presenter role.
“I can’t say I am happy that I left, nor I can say I am disappointed with my decision. The feelings are mixed.
“It was a beautiful experience; I couldn’t have predicted that I will have the opportunity and the luck to endure on this long journey. Along the way I met many beautiful people and significant personalities, I made many good friends and even better audience,” Mr Doudoulakis tells Neos Kosmos.
To witness the devotion and the responsibility with which Alexis Doudoulakis worked at SBS Greek radio program, it is enough to say in his own words that never, in 35 years, has he entered the studio without a bit of positive fear and jitters.
“After so many years, many thought that doing a program wasn’t a big deal anymore. But, for me, it always was. Once I told myself – if you ever enter this studio calm, you better take your bag, get up and leave. But I have never reached that point, fortunately. Even at the farewell program, I felt the same way. I just wanted everything to go smoothly.”
The differences in the community Mr Doudoulakis served over three decades have been reflected in the content of the Greek radio program. For the first generations, the SBS Greek radio program contained the communities’ main news sources.
“When I joined SBS, the needs of an average Greek were big. They had no language knowledge and very little knowledge about the Australian system in general. The programs had to be more informative – where to go, who to speak to, whom to ask for help, what has changed in the legal system, everything.
“They didn’t have the same benefits that the immigrants of today have when they settle in Australia,” he explains.
With the established Greek community, the program was facing different needs; just to change with the wave of new Greek immigrants that started four years ago. The program, Doudoulakis says, now has to serve both “the youth of yesterday” and “the youth of today”, as he refers to his diverse audience metaphorically.
“The youth of yesterday is not youth anymore, and the youth of today has different needs and requirements. And when I say youth of today, I refer to newly arrived immigrants from Greece.
“Also, there is youth in terms of age that we have to look at from a different perspective, in a sense of keeping them close to the Greek element for as long as possible, having them to appreciate what they inherited from their parents – for their own good, but also for the good of the homeland they live in and the homeland they may have never seen or visited before.”
With the retirement of one of its longest serving presenters Alexis Doudoulakis, a page has been turned in the history of the Greek SBS radio program. But he is optimistic that the Greek program will continue.
Doudoulakis says: “The program survives not because there are 100 people that listen to it, but because there is a certain number of Greek people in the community it’s aimed at.
“The danger we were about to face as a community has been prevented in some way with the newly arrived immigrants. What will save the Greek program is the number of Greek people it addresses, its audience. Another thing our community should pay attention to is the issue of merging of ABC with SBS that is being discussed again. Should it happen, our community should be there to support SBS as a radio unique in the whole world.”