We have learned many things from the Air Heads Podcast over 100 Episodes and one of the key takeaways for me came in Episode 7 with Fyona Smith from AFTRS.
“Learn from the best I would strongly encourage anyone who’s hoping to have a career in radio is to find those people that you admire, listen to their content, watch how they work, get in touch with them, find out if you can – maybe go and spend some time with them. If that’s not available then just when you’re listening to the radio content or looking at what they’re putting out on platforms, analyze it, think about what it is that they’re doing that’s making it so successful and how you can take that and put it into your own style with your own approach.”
“Learn from the worst. Well, I have to say that having worked in the radio industry for quite a number of years over a few decades now, there’s some things that you’ll observe from people that you do work with along the way that isn’t the most useful set of skills. Could be that someone has a leadership style that really doesn’t align with your core values. It might not be the best approach, but you’ll be able to know that by seeing how it’s done badly and you can really use that as a positive and develop your own style of what works for you and also the kind of person and broadcaster that you want to be.
It’s funny I reckon it’s easier to remember the things that don’t work as apposed to the things that do in Radio. I’m not sure why that is but for some reason those things just stick with you. As you progress in your career and you are faced with similar situations you find yourself re-counting those things that you watched go wrong in the past and the first thing that springs to mind is “Well I’m not going to do it that way”.
I remember a number of Content Director’s that I have had along the way some I have really enjoyed working with along the journey, others not so much. The positive thing about every one of them is I’ve always walked away learning some pretty important lessons about this industry and without them I wouldn’t be the broadcaster/ Content Director I am today.
