Contract season in the radio business is a tense time filled with emotion for all involved. Management having to weigh up the content offering for the coming year versus the content providers who are wanting to remain employed. The model is unlike other freelance entertainment work in that to make a successful radio show takes [...]
"You eventually get tired of sending demos.I have completely accepted that you have to know someone in the industry in order to be hired." Towards the end of 2019 I was added to a Whatsapp group with more than fifty diverse and enthusiastic radio operators. From what I can pick up is that they hold [...]
"Stories are our way of sharing, dealing and documenting the way people behave, think and act." It’s always darkest before the dawn, according to Florence and the Machine, and in recent times you need more than a flashlight to find any positive news in the dawning of COVID-19. If there’s ever been a “water cooler [...]
Check out the following tips so, that like Mr Visage, you don't touch someone's studio! As a broadcaster, I’m sure you’ve heard that sharing headphones is more of a bacterial breading ground than swapping underwear with the same colleagues. I’m not sure of the scientific truth but have always been more comfortable with my own headphones [...]
Sometimes the original medium still has the impact and reach required. As a media trainer I spend a lot of time talking to radio people about expanding their linear platform thinking to include an all encompassing digital media plan. Now more than ever, news and content need to live in a variety of places as [...]
"Don’t be surprised if those broadcasters that return from the virus “front-lines” will be the ones telling the stories and turning a crisis into a career." Not since World War Two has the globe been as, collectively, affected by a single event. The upside to our modern bunkering down and social isolation is that there is a [...]
"If opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door” Milton Berle One of my fondest radio memories, as a ten-year old, is listening to 702 on a Saturday afternoon while lunching with my family. We would ritualistically listen to a feature called “The Reigning Brain”, which was an on-going quiz show that happened every Saturday at 1pm. [...]
"A crisis like COVID-19 is big enough to suck the oxygen out of all other news events. ALL OF THEM." Although we are not there yet, there is a point of saturation for readers, viewers or listeners in the lifecycle of a news story. The point where the angles have been exhausted, the facts shared [...]
In the last two weeks I’ve shared some thoughts on developing a media career, approaches to being a media professional and spotting the gaps in a crisis. The mantra ‘Don’t Be Kak, Be Lekker’ seems to be a great back stop to much of what I’ve observed in the last while. It could sometimes read, [...]
In 2008 I was co-hosting the breakfast show on Radio 2000 with Nicole da Silva (now on 5FM). As a build up to the 2010 World Cup, in South Africa, and as part of our public service mandate to foster a spirit around the event, we used to present a daily countdown to kickoff. It was a riveting feature that [...]
