Firstly, can you tell me how your radio career began? Have you always been interested in working in radio?
It’s strange to say how quickly my radio career began. I grew up in 94.3 Star FM territory (in Warragul) and listened as all kids did – whenever my parents had the radio on it the car. I always loved radio, and begged my mum to find outside broadcasts to see the announcers out and about. I remember vividly participating in a regional radio staple – the ‘Weather Wiz Kids’ – reading the weather for Stampsy & Dan and being rewarded with the brand new Ke$ha album. At the end of the segment Dan joked that I would be coming for his job before he knew it. Little did he know.
I kind of gave up on radio after that. I loved listening, but never really thought it would be something that I could do. I finished high school, went to uni, started teaching music and managing pubs.
I’m a mad St Kilda AFL fan, and so spent my weekends making a fool of myself at half time, dancing and trying to lift the spirits of my fellow long tortured Saints fans. One time that this occurred, I was filmed by a woman who I jokingly asked to tag my Instagram. They did, and it just so happened to be Dee Dee Dunleavy, who was on 3AW at the time. Dee Dee became a great mentor for me, and offered advice for radio, having rekindled a love that had all but been extinguished. 6 months later I was on the ARN Street Team in Melbourne (Jan 2024), 6 months later I was a full time Broadcast Technologist, and 12 months later again and I am now proud to say that I am the Anchor, Panel Op, and one of the 2 hosts of the Sea FM Morning Crew across the North-West Coast of Tasmania.
Aswell as being a Breakfast Host you are also an Operations Manager, what does a typical day look like for you?
I typically roll into the studios around 5, and go straight into Ops mode – the breakfast show works in splits mode for Zetta so priority number 1 is checking over the logs to make sure that the spot blocks are of identical lengths. Once I have confirmed this, I go through the log a second time to check the song selection for the day, as we have some benchmarks built around the songs in the log. By 5:30 I get into the Breakfast Host portion of my day. I ensure that my Button Bar is up to date with everything that I need for the show ahead. We often have a pre-recorded interview so I listen through that to ensure that it is clean and linear, and check all of the classic news sites to find anything funny or peculiar from across the world. My cohost arrives, and we brainstorm alternative angles for our daily talk topic. The show broadcasts from 6-10, with the hours following that fairly fluid. Some days we might have some interviews to conduct, some days we need to travel between the markets that we service to undertake social media filming, and editing of interviews and audio for the next days show.
My role as an operations manager is very well supported by my Content Director Lee Dixon, who I somewhat act as an intermediary for quick fixes and log pushes when required.
What makes a good pitch for radio? Is there particular stories you look out for or is there any stories you want to see more of?
For me, a good pitch is so subjective. Every market is so different in the things that they care about, even in a smaller state like Tasmania there are such defined lines such as between the North and South, so you have to be super careful about what you touch on. People don’t particularly care about what is happening in Hobart unless it’s for the Devils or Jackjumpers. The lens that Nathan (my cohost) and I try to look through is that the community is the star. Local musicians, local athletes, local charities and causes that matter. To be quite frank, we try to steer clear of stories that are too heavy and serious, and instead try to find pitches that can take people’s minds off how serious and scary the world can be at times.
Finally, what advice would you give someone wanting to start out in radio? What are your hopes for the future of the radio industry in Australia?
This sounds very silly coming from a 25 year old guy, but make a fool of yourself. Show people that life doesn’t have to be serious, and do whatever you can to make somebody smile today because you’ll very quickly get addicted to the feeling.
As well as this – be true to yourself. There will be people out there that are your people, if you spend all of your energy playing a character you will burn out quickly.
Ask for help – I can count on one hand the number of people in radio not interested in helping young or emerging talent develop, meanwhile I wouldn’t be able to tell you how many people have been quick to offer a hand; from CDs in regional markets to some of the biggest stars in the Country. Other stations and personalities (in a way) are not your competition, they are your colleagues in industry, and there is every chance they will legitimately be your workmates in the future – they want to see you succeed too.
There is an old saying from Maya Angelou “people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel”… I believe that the rule of ‘7 degrees of separation’ almost falls to 3 in Australian media, so choose to be kind, because being ruthless won’t get you anywhere.
As far as the wider industry? Personally, I hope that radio to a certain extent remembers its roots – Australian radio has remained the envy of the world because it has refused to follow the steps that the rest of the world took. Keep local content, keep in the community, and keep elevating the people that matter; listeners, not personalities.
I also hope that the radio industry starts to pay more attention to the regional stations – there is some truly special talent out there doing incredible things with low budget. Look at recent examples of Power FM at Murray Bridge reimaging their entire station for an April Fools joke, or Mick Cuarana at Wave 96.5 with the 100,000 cents idea. some have been grinding away in the same spots for years and years without recognition… give them a shot at something bigger, and see where it might get you.