Craig Bruce & Jay Mueller On Understanding Your Audience & Team

Craig: The Daily Talk Show.

Josh: It's The Daily Talk Show, episode 499.

Tommy: Happy Monday and welcome to the show. Craig Bruce once again.

Craig: Hello.

Tommy: And Joe Mueller for the first time.

Jay: Thank you.

Craig: Got my name right this time.

Tommy: I stuffed it up last time.

Josh: Sorry, I've got it on a loop.

Tommy: Actually, no, it's— I stuffed it up earlier. I called you Harps because our mate Craig— I'm just so used to calling Craig Harps.

Josh: Yeah.

Tommy: Anyway, welcome back.

Craig: It shouldn't be that difficult, should it, for a host of a podcast to get that sort of stuff right? But that's all right, Tommy, I love you.

Jay: 499. So 500 tomorrow. Are you ready? Live event?

Josh: Yeah, at AU79, just around the corner.

Jay: You're just having coffee.

Josh: Yeah.

Tommy: And so is that where you were?

Jay: We were just there.

Josh: It's got a lot of greenery.

Tommy: Yeah, out the back, that's where it's going to go down, right? And when you say, are you ready? Uh, we'll be ready tomorrow.

Jay: Yeah. Well, so, Josh, I think in the, the weekend banter you were talking about how you're going to meet everybody who turns up.

Josh: Yeah.

Jay: And whether or not— and you want to make it a good experience for them, right?

Josh: Yeah, definitely.

Jay: And I think if I remember correctly, you said you were worried about remembering people's names. Have you considered Daily Show, daily talk show name tags?

Josh: I did think that. Do they feel too much like a conference? It could be a networking event.

Jay: Embrace it.

Tommy: I mean, there's nothing— I mean, I'm sort of doing some of that admin, so I could go and get us some, just some flat-out name tags, and it's like, it's all for Josh.

Jay: I appreciate it.

Tommy: I always just— I like it at networking events, or not that I go to those, but things you just look down and you just It's easy. You feel like you can build a bit more rapport if you just, hey, Steven, how are you, mate?

Josh: Well, we fucked it because we did, we went to an event the other week and we did first and last name. Just too much for people to take in.

Tommy: And then we did from the Daily Talk Show, our 7-day-a-week podcast. Now you guys have just come off the back of your live event. I was listening last night walking around the park.

Craig: Oh, thank you.

Tommy: It's, um, what I took from it was that we're in trouble because we haven't planned, because you sound like you planned. Did you plan how the structure and how what you were saying?

Craig: What, for that particular event? Oh God, yeah. I mean, I'm terrible off the cuff. I'm not a great ad-libber, so I spend months on events like that or presentations like that. And so yeah, I imagine the audience being similar to the podcast audience. And I don't know whether actually Jay can tell me if we've got the numbers right in terms of demographics, but I assume that the audience are young radio people wanting to learn about radio and broadcast and communication in general. So I sort of pitched the live event at young regional breakfast hosts, a young Tommy starting out in Shepparton, what does he need to know. And yeah, you need to plan if you want to be any good, you got to do the backend work. And there's this theory that if you're on the air for 3 hours, you need to be doing at least 3 hours of prep to kind of match the output. So, yeah, it's super important. Really important.

Josh: Is there a modern-day version of the whiteboard or does it just remain the same?

Craig: Well, I like seeing— I mean, this is just a personal thing and, you know, Jay does it differently in terms of the digital side of it, but I just like seeing ideas in front of me. I just feel like as soon as you have a moment, write it somewhere and then it just, it feels more communal. You've got your thoughts captured somewhere.

Josh: Yeah. So, what are you doing, Jay, for your show?

Jay: —We— so on Kennedy Malloy on Tribolum, we do WhatsApp. So we've got a WhatsApp group for producers and a WhatsApp group for Mick and Jane. So we sort of filter things through the producer group first. Here's some ideas, here's something we saw, here's what's going on. And then we consolidate all of that, and James, our producer, puts that all through into the WhatsApp channel for Mick and Jane. They then go through it, and we come back, and we just sort of create things through that and bring them all together.

Tommy: Craig, you said you're not an ad-lib guy. Uh, you've worked with Eddie Maguire, Jay, for many years. What is he? Is he an ad-lib guy? I can't even say the fucking word.

Jay: He's a great mix of both. He's incredibly smart, incredibly fast, and is constantly thinking, um, but also can be prepared. And if he knows that, okay, we need to— I need to get a particular message across, he'll prepare what it is he has to say. So he'll know that, okay, I've I have to get these 3 things across, then the rest will be all ad-libbed. And it's one of his great strengths, you know. He doesn't need a lot of preparation. He just needs, here are the highlights, here are the bullet points, this is the, the big splash, as they say, and then he goes out and does it.

Craig: So it's not as—

Tommy: it's under— have you seen anyone wing it? Anyone actually good at winging it? You said at the conference, don't wing it.

Craig: You'll— yeah, um, there would be some that do it. I mean, Marty Sheargold probably doesn't do a lot of written prep.

Tommy: I mean, he reads the newspaper and it's the funniest thing on earth when he's just reading out the story. It's like he's read it for the first time because he's like, oh my God.

Craig: Yeah, it's just all in the cadence, in the delivery. And he's just got this, you know, as soon as he opens his mouth, he's funny. I guess if you're really sharp and fast on your feet, then, and you have that kind of natural ability to be able to react quickly, I mean, Kyle wings it. I mean, Kyle, I guess in a way the show happens to him and he reacts as the audience would react. So he's hearing the content often for the first time. And, you know, so that works for him because he's really, you know, he's unique in that way. But you would hate to take the exception to the rule and go, okay, well, let's put that across every single young show. I mean, you know, Kyle turns up at 1 minute to 6 as well. And but that works. It works because he's in a headspace where, as I said, the The content is happening to him. He's reacting in the moment. It's all natural. And he's got this incredible co-host on the other side of the desk who is essentially managing the show in her head. And he's just working with her. So every situation is different, but I think as a starting point to have some kind of sense of what you're doing and where you're going. And as you kind of move back from, so there's the on-air component of what are we doing in this next break and what is happening in this next 3 minutes. But I think it's just as you step back and look at, well, there's the break and here's the show and here's my career and here's what I want the next 5 years to look like. I think the more you can kind of verbalise and visualise some of that thinking, the better chance you've got of having some success. That would be my general thought on that. I'm not sure what you guys do in that respect, but did you have a 500 show plan? I rocked up 1 minute before today.

Josh: No, no, no. I think most of our time is spent like cleaning the kitchen.

Tommy: No, I think it's— I think it's— It'd be giving someone too much credit to say they wing it and they haven't thought about anything other than it when it comes to the moment. I think we live in it, the 7-day-a-week thing, meaning we're constantly digesting, thinking about what we're doing, arcs that are happening. So it's like where you submerge yourself in a world and that world is what we share. And so we're not— I think some— for me, sometimes the winging it comes from the uncomfortableness of having to delve into some kind of prep or research, which I don't think I do that well. Yeah. But then I'm giving myself too much credit to think that I can just wing it because I think a lot about everything.

Craig: Yeah. But I mean, prep and research is listening to my podcast last night and to get a sense of what we are doing together with Game Changers. That's preparation. But to answer your question, plenty of shows wing it. Plenty of shows go, "Meh, that'll do. Yeah, I think we're pretty close and fingers crossed. Let's see if we can get that right." And that can can work if you're unbelievably talented, and then there are plenty, you know, probably 8 times out of 10 where it's not going to go as well as you would like. Yeah.

Josh: Where do you think you guys have differing opinions when it comes to content?

Craig: Uh, um, just in and around Game Changers, or—

Josh: no, I think like in, in general, if like how shows are done, are there certain things where it's like Jay does something very different to the way that Craig would do it?

Craig: Um, I've always been aligned with Jay, I think. I mean, you know, different producers do things differently in terms of the backend system process approach. But I mean, from the moment Jay came on board at SCA, it was just obvious that this guy knows what he's doing. So, you know, I know I don't think I've ever had a fundamental— Could some people—

Josh: I guess some producers, maybe they lean on phone calls more or they lean on like, you know, on-air talent. Are there being certain Does everyone have a certain taste or flavour on the things that they sort of— or what's in their toolkit?

Jay: Some do. I mean, I think everybody's got a toolkit, to continue that metaphor, of various degrees and sizes and those sorts of things. But I always think that you've got to have multiple options. And for me, the, you know, the content— getting back to your idea about planning, you are— if you plan and you plan the effort, that is the thing I think you need to be most willing to do is to abandon the plan. And to go with where you're at at that moment. The best shows that we had on the Hot Breakfast were the shows that we would get together at 5 o'clock in the morning and go, okay, this is what we think we're going to cover today, and by 8 o'clock in the morning we haven't done any of it because a whole bunch of other things came up and we went in that direction. And I think a lot of times you need to plan, and you need to plan in a very flexible and fluid way that allows you to change directions when the moment calls for it. And callers, I think, are a bonus. I don't think they should ever be the, the primary focus of that piece of content. I think that if, you know, the callers are there and they contribute to it, great. Um, but otherwise, you know, everybody who's working on that show is responsible for the content. And I think that you make that plan and then you are willing to say, okay, you know, we're at a different time now. We don't need to do that story. Yeah, we spent a day planning it. We spent all that time doing it. Having the willingness to leave it out when the time comes, that I think is the most important aspect of planning. And it's the same way if you're doing a presentation in front of a live audience. You can have something— you have to have that ability to read the room and to say, okay, this is working or it isn't working. And what I have spent all this time developing, I'm now going to move past. I'm not going to spend 2 minutes on it. I'm going to touch on it in 20 seconds and I'm going to move on. Because that's what this audience needs. And I think that as long as you have the audience right in the centre of your thought process, then your actions will follow, and then you will have the appearance of being well planned or have the appearance of being spontaneous. But it's about the audience, and it's about what you want to give them in that moment.

Josh: How do you remember about the audience when you're in a studio?

Jay: I don't think you can ever stop thinking about them. I mean, you have to get to a point— you don't want to be so focused on a particular person or that sort of thing. I mean, we had a Triple M— I remember when I started Triple M, we were told, okay, your audience is a guy, he lives about 45 minutes outside of Melbourne, he's got to commute every day. His primary focus is he wants to take his family on a domestic holiday. He wants to go somewhere with the kids.

Josh: Uh, any more. Yeah, Hamilton.

Tommy: Oh yeah, no, I reckon that's fine.

Jay: If you can even, you know, it— for, for some it's, it's, um, Wilson's Prom, you know, it's those— it's like entrance family time with the kids, getting away from suburban life and getting out and spending time with family. And, you know, we had that sort of research, and so you would sort of think, okay, our goal was always what is that one guy when he gets to where he's going at the end of his commute What is the thing that he's going to go share with the people he sees next? So we wanted to have content in the show that when they get to where they're going, they go, hey, did you hear what Mick Malloy said on the hot breakfast this morning? Did you hear what Eddie was talking about? Did you hear what Luke Darcy was talking about? Did you hear what Rosie was talking about? That for us was the win. Unfortunately, there's no way to measure that. Yeah, you know, I mean, that's, it's a very sort of nebulous space to be in. You want to have that content that somebody's going to say Hey, Josh, did you listen to Hot Breakfast this morning?

Josh: And so if you're a CD, I guess an executive producer is closer to the action. They're in that sort of thing. Content directors, in say the metro market, how close are they into the actual content and how do you make sure that those things are happening?

Craig: I look, I mean, the further away you can be, the better, the more objective and dispassionate you can be. And look, you know, a lot of content directors think that and, you know, we talk about it in the book that this idea of the amount of ideas that I generate for the show equates to, you know, the title that I have and this is the work that I need to be doing. But, you know, shows like Eddie, and I remember whether I've told you guys, but we had— so we had these off-air trials for Eddie's show. This is 10 years ago when the show started. Is it 10 years? It's almost 10 years, isn't it?

Jay: Just 10 years in September.

Craig: So when we did the off-air trials, we— on the final day of the off-air trials, we piped the show into the staff area so the people in the office could hear the show to kind of just give them a sense of what what was coming up on the Monday. So this is on the Friday. We've done our last, our last trial and the staff have heard the show as they would hear it on the Monday. And so the show finishes and we get off the air and Eddie comes out of the studio and the sort of the staff gather around him. It just was sort of one of these moments where he's kind of in a semicircle. It's almost like the coach of a football team, right? It's, you know, three-quarter time. Triple M's a 3-share. We're getting our asses kicked. How do we turn this thing around? And he spoke for the next 10, 15 minutes with such absolute clarity and certainty around what the show would be from Monday and how it would sound and what it wouldn't do. This idea of— I heard someone speak about it the other day— the, the process of elimination is a really good place to start in the creative process. You know, what don't we want to be? What aren't we going to do? What are the things that we're going to say no to? And he was so clear and so descriptive on how the show would affect and perform for its audience. And you could hear this collective sigh of relief, you know, 25, 30 staff surrounding him and looking at him going, yeah, you've got a plan. Clearly you've got a plan. So when you're an EP or a content director of a show like that, you just get out of their way. You just go, okay, well, here's roughly the boundaries. You're talking to roughly this person. We need you to play X number of songs. And now we didn't ever have any discussions with Eddie or Mick or Luke around their content choices necessarily. It was more about where you were placing them. And, you know, we liked to think if we could get the show on time at the top of the hour, it meant that we were, you know, reasonably consistent throughout the course of the hour. So if we were running 5 minutes late, it meant that we were talking too much. So we had some basic things like that in place. But yeah, with great performers, you, you want to get to a point where the show has worked out its sense of itself. And then for you, it's really just a case of catching them when they're doing what they were planning on doing or designing to do. Do you know what I mean? So that's, that to me is where you get that, that great symbiotic role where a content director can just be— it's a, it's a strengths replay. It's to come in at 5 past 9 if it's a breakfast show and go, that at a quarter past 8, that's the show. And, and if you can capture that and hear that, and, and it's, it's, you know, for performers who are really talented, they can just take that information and go, right, more of that. Less of this.

Josh: How much is it spending time listening to your competitors? I guess that idea of the elimination game of we're not this and we're not that. How much of it is, okay, we've got to listen to everything to really understand what we want to do?

Craig: I think in the early stages it's good to get a sense of the market because, you know, you do want to know if you heard the full podcast from yesterday, Tommy, this idea of where are you positioned in the market is really important. So, you know, where are you positioned in the context of your competitors? And I think Eddie talked about it when the Hot Breakfast started out, which was along the lines of what isn't happening on Melbourne radio that we can fill a gap for. And so, yeah, you do need context and you need to go, right, well, you know, if we're going to be the comedy show in Melbourne, who are we competing against? Because if we're competing against Martin Malloy, we're going to get our asses handed to us. So, you know, let's not do that. Or yeah, so you do have to have a sense of who you're up against.

Josh: I think, Jay, switching between podcasting and radio, Is it a different posture in regards to how you produce?

Jay: A little bit. I, I just want to get back to one of the things that I've, I've never told Craig this, but I was always told you need to listen to, uh, you know, you need to know what everybody is doing. And when we started the Hot Breakfast, it was Husey and Kate, it was Matt and Joe, it was, um, Chrissy and Jane were on as well when we started. And there were all these shows, right? I didn't listen to any of them. And people say, oh, what'd you think of— what'd you think of Matt and Joe this morning? I said, you know what, I'm not sure it's a show for our audience, but you know, they seem to be doing good things because the ratings were indicating that they were doing good things, right? I am of the belief that, you know, spend the time— I need to know what's going on, I need to have an idea of what's happening out there, but I would much rather spend the time on my show. You know, an hour that I spend listening to somebody else's show is an hour that I'm not putting onto my show. And that is where my sole focus is. Uh, coming back into Triple M to take over and produce Kennedy Malloy and, and work on, uh, Mick and Jane's show, um, I haven't listened to Hughesy and Ed. I haven't listened to Kate, Tim, and Marty. I haven't listened to any of the other shows that are out there. Maybe that's a negative, I don't know. Maybe we'd be better if I did. No, but I doubt it. Yeah, you know, I— and because I think that We've got a limited amount of energy and time, and I want to put everything I've got into that show, that one particular thing. In regards to podcasting, it's, it's interesting because I think that you, again, you don't have a real sense of the audience while you're starting. You get the audience after you started to put things out. So you're creating a whole bunch of things where you can go, okay, well, who do we think is going to listen to this? You know, who did we think was going to listen to Game Changers when we started? People who are new in their careers, you know. But what we found out is, yep, there are people who are new in their careers, there are people who are already established in their careers, and then there are people who are just fans of the people who we are talking to. And so before that though, you don't know that. You don't know until you already— you make it and then you put it out there and you go, well, here it is, this is the podcast. And then you get the feedback and then you understand, okay, who's listening? And even then, the metrics on, on podcasting are, you know, they're not great. It's, it's not a huge deep dive into it. You can tell what sort of device they're listening on, what part of the world they're listening in, and a few other little, you know, demographic information. But you're not getting the real detailed information unless they are actively connecting with you.

Tommy: Uh, Craig, you in your talk were talking about, which resonated with me, the broadcast narrowcast. Yep. And I think Josh and I have spoken about this a lot for creators. They can be quite, you know, like they could think they can't find a narrow thing to cast if that's, you know, or a niche.

Josh: They can't find the niche. They can't find the niche.

Tommy: Right. Because it's almost like paralyzing. Yeah. Trying to go, I'm not actually into that. I'm not into that. And so for Josh and I, we, you could say broadcast, we went broad. We created something, a show that we really enjoyed doing every single day. And Lately we've been thinking, imagine like if we win, win meaning grow this huge audience from doing the thing, the show that we wanted, which went a bit broader, I'd be more satisfied than that, than doing a show which was super narrow. Yeah. And so it plays into you start by casting it quite broad and then slowly narrowing in. What have been the learnings coming from radio where it is a broadcast, but then you've identified the audience to really having to work it out from scratch? You said the feedback process this? What else can you do to really understand who you're speaking to?

Jay: Well, I, I think again with, with podcasting, most people are doing a podcast, they are doing something that they're really into. You guys are doing The Daily Talk Show— excuse me, I've got a cough this morning. That's right. You guys are doing The Daily Talk Show because it, it scratches your itches. It's something you want to do. It is something that you're into, and you are I'm presuming, hopeful that your enthusiasm for the project is going to capture your audience and they're going to resonate with and they're going to connect with it. It's going to provide value to them. And I think with podcasting, everything that we do now is transactional, whether time or money or attention. And so what you're ultimately doing is you're saying, okay, we're going to make this show on the basis that we are going to provide value to you over the 45 minutes or an hour that you're going to listen to us. You're going to get something out of it that you can then put into your day, whether it's entertainment, information, or a connection on some level. And that's what I think the— that the podcasting does is it allows you to go, okay, hey, we've made this, we're going to give it to you because we think it's going to add to your experience.

Tommy: Well, I mean, we got an email from Troy. Troy Jones, was it? Yeah. He's a farmer up in Queensland and he drives the tractor and he listens to us every single day. Yeah, right. Fucking blew my mind. It's like, how'd you find us for one? What an amazing sort of thing you're doing and we're keeping you company.

Josh: And then we've got the doctor in Princeton. Yeah. And you know, they're working on all this technology. So like we've got, yeah, there is that interesting sort of spectrum that you start to—

Craig: I think for you guys, it's that the format is, is the daily element. So the unique point of difference is, is, I mean, there might be other daily podcasts happening in Australia, but none that have done 500 in a row. And so I think that is the point of difference and that, that's the mimic of radio, which is the fact that you're there every day for this audience and you clearly you will build a relationship and rapport with the audience and they'll sort of grow with you. And then I think you've got this kind of like-minded group of friends and a, a through line in terms of the style of people that you talk to and the kinds of conversations you're having, which is, you know, one of the things I was talking to someone about this the other day. When you're in a corporation, when you're working for a company, you don't get to choose the people that you collaborate with. But, you know, one of the great things for me, having, you know, been away from the day-to-day of corporate radio, is that I get to work with people like Jay who, you know, we share very similar values. You met Kate Mead. Our friend a couple of weeks ago, Kate's going to help us with the live events. Kate shares our values. So you get to pick and choose these things. And from a podcast perspective, you know, I get a sense that the people you have on this show are— you don't all think the same. That would be boring. But there's a value proposition there in terms of the kinds of people you want to talk to and the sorts of experiences that they've had. And then you have those regulars that come back, you know, people like Jules and Craig and others that are a part of the show that really kind of anchor the show's tone and personality. So That to me is a format. And I think that a lot of podcasters, podcasters turn the mic on, talk for an hour, turn the mic off, and that's that. And I think that what, you know, every good podcast has is some kind of format, which, you know, we understand from a radio perspective. And it's, you know, the format for Game Changers was it's a life in chronological order. So it's a career in let's start with your first job and finish here. And so, you know, we stepped that through. That was the format. And whether people heard it that way or not, I'm not sure. But that was, that was the format in my head. I started at the start and I finished at the, at where they're at right now. And then all of the kind of the lessons and the different elements that work their way through. So I don't think enough podcasters do that sort of work, which is what happens at the start of the show? What do we do in the middle? What do we do at the end? Just some basic kind of formatting I think is really, really useful.

Josh: With that, Mr. 97, he's our producer. It's his first ever producing job. He— how many months did you do at marketing school in uni? Uh, about 6 months. Okay. Yeah. And then he ended up leaving, and so he's come on board. He's worked full-time here. What are some questions that you would ask Mr. 97 to get a sense of where we're going and sort of coaching us from a show perspective through, through the lens of him. He's actually just run off.

Tommy: Oh my God.

Jay: I guess, you know, when in dealing with talent, right, I always want to know that you don't want to have to force— there's no point forcing you to talk about something that you have no interest in whatsoever. So I think the thing is, is to know, have a real solid understanding of what motivates Josh, what motivates Tommy, how you can then find the, you know, if there's a Venn diagram of the two of you, where is the overlap? What, what is the content that fits into that space that both of them are going to go, I can get into that? Or something that, you know, Josh is going to be really into, Tommy's not going to know anything about it, so he can just ask questions and bounce off of that. But also, you know, knowing what it is that they're into. And so, you know, what can you tell me about their interests? You know, what can you tell me about what gets them interested in doing the show? Because it's— I, I don't think shows that are successful ever work by a producer saying, this is the storey you're going to do, here's the playbook.

Josh: Yeah, yeah, it's interesting. I think the other thing too is like we're taking that modern approach to a producer where he's at the start of his career. And so a lot of it is the day-to-day getting the show going and all that sort of thing. And we want to see over the 10 years that we're doing the show that it evolves into that real EP type of, type of role.

Tommy: Do those habits start by literally creating a list? It could be just a private list. Yeah, I think so. Here's Tommy's shit, here's Josh's shit.

Craig: Well, there's that certainly in terms of roles and, you know, definition around who's doing what on a day-to-day basis. Processes. But that concept of, you know, I'm sure— and, you know, we saw, we were lucky enough to see Hamish Nandy up close over a number of years, um, and, you know, they were the benchmark for communication off the air, communication on the air. The two go hand in hand. The teams that talk more about what they're doing— and, and that this is not just radio or podcasting, I'm assuming this would be any team sport— the more you're talking about, uh, um, the, the format of whatever it is that you're trying to create the closer you're going to get to delivering it in a way that's, you know, clear in your head. So, yeah, I think it's that just constant ongoing conversation around how do we make this thing better and where are we, you know, what are we learning and what are we, what are we improving in every day? And, and if he's in on those conversations, the more he knows, the more he can help you from a producing perspective.

Tommy: So there's— sorry, I was just going to ask Mr.

Jay: 97 a question, which is that do you know what Josh and Tommy's goal is for this show?

Mason: I think they, they want to build, um, sort of an audience around the ideas and the values and interests that they have.

Jay: So it's a cult they want to create. Yes, yes, exactly.

Tommy: It's not his words, but that was yours.

Mason: That's okay. Yeah, but I think, I think, I think Tommy and Josh see an importance of bringing people along, uh, on a journey of their— through their daily life. And I think instead of focusing on stuff that's happening in the news, focusing on stuff that's relevant to them and things that they love and bringing the audience in on that is super important. Well answered.

Jay: And how often are you having conversations with them about where, where they're at? Because I mean, this— I remember I, I knew that you guys were doing a daily talk show and I knew every— a little bit that was happening. And then I came to see the office and visit and sat down And Josh told me, no, this is part of a 10-year plan. We're doing— we are doing this for 10 years. And it blew me away. How do you have those conversations where, you know, and do you have those conversations where you go, hey, you know what, obviously you're, you're not as into it today as you have been. How do you talk to them about those sorts of things? Yeah, sure.

Mason: Uh, well, I think, I think that's an area where I'm just starting to move into. So Josh was mentioning we're like in the day-to-day sort of stuff at the moment. So that's, I think, one of the next progressions. But there, there is the, the sort of checking in, uh, in terms of what's going on. But yeah, that's probably the next step.

Tommy: Yeah. How do you, Jay, as someone who's started and, you know, great, built your way up to, you know, quite high in the producing world, how do you encourage a young person to feel uncomfortable but have the conversations? Like, how do you get through that?

Jay: I think the, the thing is, is that, you know, we're working with people and we're trying to build relationships. Your show is going to be as strong as your best relationships. And, you know, you have to have good relationships. Doesn't mean you have to be friends with, with everybody and do everything together, but it means you have to understand what Josh is going through, what Tommy's going through, but also have a real awareness of what you're going through. You know, you have to have that ability to go, okay, well, this is where I'm at right now. You know, what's going to happen to Mr. 97 when he decides at 6 years in, you know what, I've done 6 years and I now have this other show that I want to do. You can't leave Cult.

Tommy: We follow you with cameras for the rest of your life.

Josh: We're content creators, so we're really onto it as well.

Tommy: Yeah, we can get away with it. We're just making vlogs.

Craig: Yeah, I reckon it's a good question though, Tommy, because, you know, no one likes confrontation. No one likes to tell, you know, in a situation where you're running your own race, you know, where are you getting feedback from and where are you, you know, you do need objective ears and, you know, who's playing that role. And certainly for young producers starting out, most young producers will find themselves in a situation where just based on the age gap, you know, you deal, if you're working in a metro environment, you know, you've got a 26, 27-year-old producer dealing with a 38 to 45-year-old co-host.

Tommy: And not to mention the status of them, right?

Craig: Totally. Their fame. Yeah.

Josh: So if you've got people like Eddie who's doing the game, who's doing the presentation, doing all that sort of thing, I think that adds the extra level, which is like, like the point around Jackie O, these people are actually the EPs within their shows as well.

Craig: But I think you can build respect up over time and do the work to get to a point where you're valued within the team and that value will then feed into your view and perspective on how the show is sounding. I mean, Sarah Fayol is a great example of that. Sarah worked with Jay on Eddie's show and she was just so brilliant at it. You know, how old would she have been? 20s? What is she now?

Jay: Late 20s, early 30s.

Craig: She's in her 30s now. Yeah. And just so brilliant at her job and so efficient and just an awesome team member. And I'm sure she was brought in on conversations around, okay, well, what are we doing and where we're at? Because that relationship been built up over time.

Jay: Absolutely. And I think with, um, dealing with, with people, ask them how they want to be dealt with. Yeah, you know, I mean, Josh may have the ability to take things— you seem like a guy that if you and I need to have a conversation, we could just cut out any of the fluff and just have a very direct conversation that requires yes or no answers both ways, and that'd be it, and that'd be fine. It wouldn't need to be any emotional connection or anything of it at all. It would just be here's the situation, this is what we're going to do to fix it, this is how we're going to move on. Is that accurate? Yeah. Yeah.

Tommy: And you've missed the patting of the shoulder.

Josh: Yeah, I think I'm a, I'm a big baby who, but also that likes to, uh, go deep and have the conversation. And realising Tommy's always talks about like, I'm a dot connector as well, so I'll connect the dots. I'll say, yeah, hey, there's these 6— not that I'm keeping score, but definitely it's like these 6 things happened. I probably wait until that point where I'm like, Okay, I'm here. This is what we're— this is what we're talking about. So positive affirmation would also—

Jay: yeah. And I feel like that conversation we'd be able to have just, just sitting here was— I feel like with Tommy, if we were gonna have a conversation, I feel like, hey, let's go for a walk. Let's, let's go walk down the street. Because I feel like that's— I don't know, I have no idea if that— yeah, we're gonna get a coffee. Coffee's good. Yeah, exactly. So we're just gonna wander down the street.

Tommy: I'll pay.

Jay: But it takes time. We're gonna do a runner.

Josh: Everyone takes time, like processing-wise takes time too, right? So like, I think that the dynamic of duos is really interesting. It's something that's been an important part of a lot of radio shows. From your perspective, doing The Partnership, what I'm interested in is the— with The Game Changers, you hit episode 100. Yep. There's a decision made. This is how I played it. I love creating storeys in my head. Craig's sort of a bit done with it, but Jay sees potential opportunities. They've got a book. Yeah. Uh, finally, uh, they're like, Jay brings a great case together. You have a, a bunch of team discussions. It's like we're doing this together as a team. And then, uh, you guys put together the book and then the event starts. You know, you find that new groove. It's like, it doesn't have to be a fucking podcast. Let's do the events. Let's make that a thing. Yeah, I love creating a good fucking story. Yeah, how was that one? Yeah, how was, how was that one?

Craig: Well, look, the thing with the It's a funny storey with the 100th episode. So we'd been sitting on 99 for a while and I had been in conversations with Bean from Kevin and Bean, Gene Baxter. That was a great chat, by the way.

Josh: I went down a rabbit hole of listening to them.

Craig: He's a lovely, lovely man. Amazing guy.

Josh: The annoying thing is I find out when it finishes, fucking—

Craig: Yeah, yeah, he's heading back to the UK. So we had— I'd been in conversation with him for ages, 6 months, sort of, and just, you know, not, not harassing him, but just going, hey, whenever you want to come on. And, and, and I'm in a meeting and someone had asked me about the podcast, and I, I said, well, I'm sitting on 99, I'm going to do 100, I just need a, I need a good way to finish it at 100. And within 30 seconds after— I'm telling you, within 30 seconds after me saying that, Bean's text message, I'm ready to go. That's so freaky. Anyway, so we do that. Here's the thing with the podcast, the, the, um, I would do I would do it every day if I had A-listers to talk to every day. And so the initial 3, the first 3 years where we talked to Eddie and Hamish and Denton and Kyle and, you know, we pretty well ticked every, every name that was on that initial list we got through and then some. And that was the promise of the podcast, which is, you know, really successful presenters when you hear them on the radio, how do they get to become so good? That's the essence of it, right? And I just wanted to understand what makes makes you really good at your job. And as soon as we started going down that list, whilst the next 40 interviews from 60 to 100 were brilliant in various different ways.

Josh: Once you got to Tommy and Josh on a podcast in fucking Abbotsford, you knew it was probably time to tell it.

Craig: But I didn't want it to be a generic radio podcast. I wanted it to be, you know, a kind of an event every time, you know, we turned the mics on. So I ran out of people. Yeah, it's finite.

Josh: Like, I guess that's one of the interesting things. There's a great book, Finite and Infinite Games, and Simon Sinek's got a book, The Infinite Game, which is sort of a take on that one. And it's— I think what we're trying to do is the infinite game. And so by doing— and some of the things mean we're getting people on multiple times, like we're wanting to create that community. Yeah, exactly. But I guess there's the infinite game for you outside of the podcast, which is all these other things that ways of providing service to the radio industry. Yeah, well, that's it.

Craig: And so Jay had the idea for the book and had to really twist my arm on that because I just didn't think the world needed another radio book. But we kind of made it more anecdotal and storytelling than just a sort of standard, hey, here's how to turn a mic on and here's how to, you know, turn your headphones on. It's more sort of storeys about— well, it's obviously storeys from the podcast and then a little bit about me. And so, so there's that. And I've always had the idea of the live event. So the podcast was based on the Actors Studio. Which is the show on— I think it's still on Foxhill somewhere. That concept of, you know, famous actor gets to talk about acting, not about how many Instagram followers he or she has. It's nothing about pop culture or anything like that. It's just about the, the, the, the skill of acting in front of an actor studio. So young people who are learning. So I love that concept. And so that's to me, that was always sort of an end goal, which is eventually to do that as a regular live event, because for young people In Australia, I think that my very good friend of mine has a radio school in Adelaide, but I think he's the last of the radio school. And, you know, if you want to learn about radio, where do you go? Well, I can tell you where you go. You listen to my podcast because 90% of the feedback I would get from people is I don't— I wouldn't even know where to start other than to listen to this podcast. So we think there's an opportunity for it to be, yes, about broadcast, but but about podcasting, about how do you create something like what you guys have done and are doing, you know, talking to people like Tanya Hennessy and Rachel Corbett, who's got the Mamma Mia content role and just getting a broader sense of what does media look like and how, what role can you play under the Game Changers banner. So it's still about communication, but I think that's, that's in my head, that's, that's, that's what I would like to do. You might remember we had a thing called the Grad School at SCA.

Tommy: Yeah, yeah. I was just thinking, I wonder, like, I wish there was podcast around then. There was nothing. No, you guys are still so in it at that point. Yeah. And so, you know, it's as you get down the chain, I think podcasting is this funny one because radio, you work in regional market, you get paid a token amount, but it, it, the money is the exchange and the responsibility and the promise that you're making in return because you're like, this is my job. Whereas the new landscape of like Josh and I, what we're doing no one's paying us our paycheck. We're making our promises to ourselves, which I think people break promises to themselves much easier and quicker than they do to someone when you're having a job. What do you think the, the sort of things you can take from the promises you make when you're employed by a radio station and sort of deploy them on a creative project that isn't being funded, that relies entirely on yourself? So it could be the structure of the way you're doing it or the team dynamic that you have to form. What is something that you could take from the promises that we keep as an employee?

Craig: And it's funny, I spoke to Jay about this the other day. I mean, the reality is that very few people— I mean, Jay is producing the podcast and has for the last 4 years, Jay and his partner Astrid, and their generosity has been extraordinary because when people hear the podcast, they just hear me. And it's promoted my business and it's promoted, you know, my brand, whatever you want to call it, if you want to use that word. And Jay's in the background and has never once said, you know, this— what's in it for me? You guys are in the same situation as us. We've shared one or two sponsorship cheques in the four years that we've done it. We will be able to buy a dinner with the book. You've got to go to the fucking bank for checks.

Josh: Yeah, we might.

Tommy: The Americans still doing checks, isn't it? That's right.

Josh: We might make a little bit of money.

Craig: Money from the— who knows? But we're not— it's not a commercial exercise. So therefore, what's in it for Jay? And I said to him the other day, I just can't find another— couldn't think of another human being that would so generously just put me forward and help in it, because none of it would have happened without Jay and Astrid. And now Kate's the same. Kate Mead is in that situation where she's going, this is really good work and I want to be involved in it. And so we haven't had any formal arrangements other than Jay liked the initial idea, and I guess we trusted each other enough that for as long as we were both passionate about it, we would continue to do it. How do you kind of—

Josh: yeah, why do you do it, Jay?

Jay: Well, I mean, I always wanted to do— I always wanted to do more, and I think that's something that, you know, you spend any amount of time with Eddie and he will get you fired up to do as much as you possibly can.

Craig: Fired up. Has he trademarked that?

Josh: Yeah, he It would be fun. Could you imagine the lawyers on that case from Ash's side? Slater and Gordon.

Jay: There'll be some, some dude who met in a sauna who come and serve me with papers. So the, uh, the thing with, you know, why do we do this? So I mean, I had other things that I wanted to do that weren't, you know, Triple M wasn't going to do them. They weren't going to do an NFL show necessarily, and they weren't going to do some of the other things that I wanted to explore.. And also, you know, Bad Producers started out with, um, I was doing media training, I was doing some voiceover, I was doing a whole bunch of other little bits and pieces, and I needed to, to bring that in somewhere so it was all consolidated and it had some structure around it, because otherwise I would have just lost track with everything and not known, well, what am I doing, what do I, how do I do it, and those sorts of things. And so we started Bad Producer Productions, which I named it after Mick Malloy. He used to always say to me, if something went wrong, whether it was my fault or not his fault, he would just look at me and he would say, "That's bad producing. You're a bad producer." And so I was like, "Well, that's gonna be the name of my company." And so Bad Producer Productions was born out of that, out of just the desire to do other little bits and pieces. And from that, we started The Garrett, which is, Astrid hosts that podcast, writers talking about their writing process. Craig was, you know, literally the first email that we received, you know, hey, congratulations, saw it, I've got an idea for a podcast, we would love to be involved, you know. It— all of those things, the thing that, you know, what's in it for us is that it has forced me to do the work. There's accountability there. So we started the company, we didn't have gear, like we didn't have anything, and then we get the email from Craig Hey, do you want to do a podcast? Yeah, we do want to do a podcast. And then we talked, we agreed we were going to do it. It's like, okay, now we have to buy gear. Now we've got to go— we actually have to go get this stuff. We actually have to go do these things. And so with the book, you know, it, it dragged on. And I'm embarrassed that the book took as long as it did, because with the Garrett Podcast, that's writers talking about the writing process. And I recorded, like, physically at the state library, recorded about 65 of those episodes. And I would have heard 50 of those people talk about that if you think a book is going to take you a year, plan on 2 years because everything takes longer than you think it is going to take. And I would hear that. And then I said to Craig, when I said, yeah, I've got this idea for a book, I think we can have it done by April. April came and went, and you know, we're not even anywhere near being done.

Josh: Well, I'm rewriting Seth Godin's book, and that was meant to happen years— we actually had a night where, uh, Tommy, like a bunch of people came around and were filming me do it and all that sort of thing.

Tommy: And then I secretly said to Mr.

Josh: 97, I said, mate, for episode 500, I'm going to have it ready. Anyway, I tried on the weekend. I'm at 60%. It's not fucking happening.

Tommy: There's no surprise happening. Maybe 60% for half a year.

Josh: Well, it takes— yeah, it takes a long time. So I can only imagine coming up with words.

Jay: Well, and so this, this will get back to the question you asked about, you know, making the promises. And so eventually what happened there is just as agreeing with Craig, okay, we're going to do your podcast and we're going to do this together. Forced us to go out and get the gear, do all these different things. Writing the book forced us to do a whole bunch of things, but then looking at it and going, okay, how are we going to sell this thing? How are we going to do this? How are we actually going to get it out there? And I always had it in my head that, you know, the podcast would be continuing. And I can still remember, you know, you talked about the conversation. Yeah, the conversation was we had a conference call on what's next, what's the status of the book, where are things going to go. And it's me and it's Kate Mead, who is a force of nature by the way.

Josh: And Craig, her emails are so impressive, by the way. It puts us to shame because she sends these really eloquent, great emails, really thoughtful. But then we all panic because we're like, now we've got to fucking come back with something thoughtful. And so, and then, yeah, we always get back to her as well.

Jay: She also sends them at times that you go, should I be working at 9 o'clock on a Sunday night too? This arrived in my inbox. But But I remember, and we— so we started it, and Craig's like, okay guys, before we go, um, episode 100 is going to be the last episode. And I'm just like, and I remember writing on my notes, shit, book, exclamation point, exclamation. I was just like, all right, well, we've gotta, you know, we've got to sell this. But, um, you know, it actually all worked out because then that forced us to go, okay, podcast is ramping up, what do we do? All right, Commercial Radio Awards is happening, there's an audience there that we think week is listening to this podcast. So can we get in front of them? And then we work backwards from then. Okay, if we want to sell the book up to that week, when does it need to be available? All right, if we— it needs to be available on that date, how long does it take to have it edited? So we hired an editor, a woman named Lorna Hendry, who, uh, who was fantastic. I did a great job on the book. And, you know, she needed like 3 weeks or a month or something like that. They were like, okay, in order to get at that point, how much time do we need for Craig to review it, for me to review it, to make changes again? And then suddenly it was like, okay, great, now we actually have some serious deadlines. And the fact that we are now going into this thing, we're hiring a professional, we're giving a date to Commercial Radio Australia, suddenly we have promises that we've made to each other, but now we're involving other people who we are now accountable for. And I think How do you keep promises in that, that space? It's just, you know, who are you accountable to? Because I know that if I'm accountable to just me, good luck. I'm not doing any of this stuff. Yeah, I'm the kind of guy, I want to do— I want to be fit and healthy and learn and do all these things by never leaving my couch. You know, I want to produce podcasts and radio shows and do that stuff by just absolutely not having to leave my apartment. You know, I want all of those things without having to do any of the work. Work. And it doesn't work that way. You know, you have to get up and you have to get out there and do it. And so you've got to have accountability on some level, because if it's just up to me, none of this stuff is happening.

Josh: Was that the appeal? Because I feel like I've definitely done a lot in, uh, my career. And I've— it was just catching up with a friend last week where it's sort of this cycle of being an employee and then being like, fuck it, I'm gonna go out on my own. And then if you're on a good wicket or a good opportunity comes up it is a hard road doing the self-employed sort of thing. What is your thoughts on, uh, being self-employed versus working for a business?

Jay: Well, it depends on, I think, what is— what's your main motivation. And I remember it'd be about 6 years ago now, and I was driving with Fitzy from Triple M down to see Eddie for a meeting before the year started. And he said, you know, what, what's your plan? What do you want to do? And I remember my plan at the time, and it's still my plan, is I want to work on good projects with good people. That's it. I want to work on things that people go, you know what, this is a good idea. So whether or not it's the Game Changers or the Garrett or the Greatest Season That Was or Team Effort or any of those things I want to work with the people I want to work with. Now, can I do that on my own and pay my rent, pay my mortgage, pay for my things, you know, for the family and all that sort of stuff? Or can I do that with other people? And this is another thing that I learned from Eddie, you know, if you can do it for multiple people, then go for it. You know, it is certainly easier to have a big company like Southern Cross Osteria paying you a wage. That comes with compromises, and it comes with, you know, forced collaboration on things that, you know, they may not be the thing that drives you, but it certainly takes that pressure off of you. But at the same time, you know, pressure's okay. I mean, if you've got to go out and sell it to make a living and to feed your family, well, nothing wrong with that.

Tommy: Craig, you were at one of the top jobs in radio earning some good coin. Good coin. Was it— Geez. Was it— was money on your mind then? Like then? Then. But yeah, you're getting the paycheck. Are you thinking like, I'm in this for the money or you just—

Craig: Never. No, because it doesn't— you can, you can make a lot of money and you will pay a price in that role. I mean, you know, you get to the end of a 70-hour work week and you've had some, you know, serious conversations with CEOs and content directors. And, you know, I was never going to where the good news was happening. I was going to where the fires were. So it's the money didn't make me feel any better about the work. And, and I, you know, I quickly got to it. And it's, it's funny, you kind of— it's nice to go through that experience of earning a lot of money and realising it doesn't actually make any difference at all to your state of happiness or, or your sense of worth. It really doesn't. It lasts for about 5 minutes and then and then you kind of move on. So it's never ever been a motivator, and certainly it wasn't at that time.

Tommy: Well, I think, what about early days? Like, I think most people are concerned about how much money they make. Sure.

Josh: What is it? Yeah, I guess, what is it? But like, what's our relationship with money? Like, I think for us it's not paying ourselves much for potentially a bigger payday at some point, right? So it's investing in this thing, but maybe that, you know, I don't know if that's a positive way of looking at it. Like, what when we get to that point, when we start making that, what does that mean for a show? I guess we, the way that we rationalise money is we think, okay, for Metro radio persons making, let's just say, $800,000 a year or whatever, yeah, breakfast, on air, we could run our entire business on $800K, pay us okay, have a lease, do all that sort of thing.

Tommy: Have a team.

Josh: Yeah. And nothing crazy, just being able to pull in $100 grand a year or whatever and be pretty happy, be able to buy a place. What's your thoughts on it, Jay? How much are you thinking about that sort of stuff?

Jay: I have a relationship with money that I think is in some ways really positive in that I don't worry about it all that much because I always feel like no matter what, I'm gonna work. Yeah, I'm gonna work. And whether that is doing the things that I want to do— podcasts and writing and, you know, producing different pieces of content— or, you know, going to get a job somewhere to, to pay the bills. So I've just always looked at it and I go, okay, this didn't work out, or that doesn't work out. I mean, I left, I left, um, the Fox Television Network break at the age of 30 to come here and paint houses and fences in Australia. He didn't use a ladder, you know, he was that tall. That's right, corners, fine. And so, you know what, I mean, I didn't have anything lined up and then did work experience at 3AW for a month and then had a part-time job answering phones for Neil Mitchell in the mornings and then would go in the afternoons and do these painting gigs all over Melbourne, you know. So there's people who have really poor paint jobs thanks to me because I had no idea what I was doing. But I mean, that's— so I just always look at it and I go, well, okay, if you're taking a job for the money, you just have to ask you yourself, well, what— why? And there could be a very good reason that you are taking that job for the money, and you know, more power to you, and that is what you have to do. There's nothing wrong with that. Um, but if you are in a position where you can say, you know what, I'm taking this job because I want to do this work I want to do this work, and I would be doing this work whether or not there was a paycheck attached to it or not. You guys are doing this. You've made a commitment to do it for 10 years. Okay. If it gets to a point where you're having to record this not in a great studio, but you've got to record it in a second bedroom—

Tommy: liquid hours of calm. Yeah.

Jay: You know, because, you know, things— the runway ended.

Tommy: Yeah, we fucked it. I get it.

Jay: Are you still going to do this?

Josh: Yeah. I think that's what we constantly talk about, which is like if it was the worst case scenario is that we're working for other people and we every evening, like we did that for a long time where we recorded late at night or things like that. But it does, I guess I have like a romanticism to idleness. There's part of me which I have this dream of. I went to Stanley in Tasmania once and I've got this sort of warped perception of what it's like. People have written in saying it's actually a bit of a dump. But it's, but I remember it being really sort of like, like a lot of nature and all that sort of thing. And there's like the, what is it called? The nut. The nut is like the nut where you walk around. So I had this vision of at some point being like whatever the new technology is where it's like ISDN line on steroids type of thing where you can get a really good camera, you can do the show, and then throughout the day you like walk around. Yeah, sure. Do all that sort of shit. So I've got that like vision in my mind. But then my girlfriend Bree always says, well, you haven't mentioned me in the plan. That's the first thing. But then also she's like, I think that would be fucking boring. Like, don't you think that would be a bit boring? Do you guys lean towards or romanticise idleness?

Craig: No, not for me. I love working, always have. And I love feeling needed by someone. It's a very primal, tribal thing that, you know, And certainly in the role that I was in previously at SEA, when you're in the centre and people, there are so many people that need you for various different reasons. I took a lot from that. And now, yeah, same. It's the more shows I can help, the more people I can mentor, the more teams I can get involved with, the better. I'd rather, I don't feel like I'm any closer to my brain slowing down in that respect.

Josh: What's the comfort like? Is it at home? Are you like, have you got a nice space at home where you do it all? Yeah, I move around a bit.

Craig: I mean, I work out of coffee shops a lot. Sometimes I just like the ambient noise in the background or have the headphones in and get into it. But yeah, for me, a good day for me is getting 5 or 6 calls from people either asking for help or can you listen to this or I need some advice on X. That to me is where I really like to play and building those relationships to a point where I feel like I've got a a, you know, really strong trust with either with the presenters on the air or the content directors. That for me is, you know, what it's all about.

Tommy: While we're talking money, Kyle and Jackie O. Yeah. Just signed one of the biggest deals in radio history. The biggest deal. How much was that? I think it was 30—

Craig: they were saying $39 million.

Tommy: Well, I heard you talk about that with Bruno, but then I saw in the paper $50 million or something.

Craig: Yeah, it was $50 million. Well, sorry, I saw in the paper, but—

Jay: Yeah, so I think the technical term is it's a lot.

Tommy: It's a shitload of money. Yeah.

Craig: So $8 million each, is that what it That's is? what it looks like. That's what they say.

Tommy: For most people that aren't in radio circles, they're not in the bubble, they live in Sydney or they in Melbourne, they hear that. Are they worth it?

Craig: Well, I mean, the equation would be with it. And I don't know the specific numbers of where Today FM is at right now from a revenue perspective, but let's say it was earning $50 million a year in revenue 10 years ago and it might be earning, I don't know, maybe $12 to $15 million now, possibly. So that's a $40 million difference. That money's on KISS now. So let's assume when the day before Kyle and Jack started at KISS, they were Mix and they had been Mix FM for 10 years and they had been a 3 share for 10 years, much the same way that 2 Days Now and the 4s and 5s. So Mix may have been making $10 million, $12 million, and they would be turning over close to $50. So over 5 years, it's $200 million. You've got to give $80 to the talent. It's worth every cent. And what it does, it also guarantees that there is no possible— I can't think of a world where Today or Nova can get around Kyle and Jack whilst they remain strong and healthy and committed to each other. That audience is absolutely rusted on in the same way that 38% of Trump's voting audience is rusted on. It wouldn't matter what they did or what they said, they're in for the long haul. And so when you get to that point where you have a relationship with an audience that is so, so deep and it drives a revenue number that, yeah, as I said, I'm guessing on what those numbers would be, but they, you know, it's, it's, they're essentially sharing maybe 1 out of every 3 revenue dollars with Kyle and Jack.

Tommy: I mean, Josh and I driving in Sydney along the highway last Monday. Yeah. And I, you know, we'd heard news of this $50 million or whatever it is. And then you see a billboard from Southern Cross Austereo, wake up with music for breakfast.

Josh: Yeah, that would hurt. Yeah, it's a complete shift in, yeah, like I guess strategy because everything, if you think about how important talent is. Yeah.

Tommy: There's some hard calls to make. That's a very hard shift and someone has to be behind it.

Josh: Do we think that the, if we look at like the future of media, you see the success of of what Shameless have done with their podcast and, you know, two girls who have just built something from nothing. Yeah. Not with the help of, you know, like the Mamma Mias or the bigger sort of networks. Do we think that the future will— where do we think that it's going to sit in relation to big media versus these smaller up-and-comers?

Craig: Well, I mean, it looks like big media is running at 100 miles an hour podcasting in various different forms, from Spotify to Apple to all of the big radio companies here and iHeart in the US. And it makes perfect sense. And then clearly they're seeing what, whatever data is coming out of, you know, the consumer research. The point I made in Brisbane the other week, we are living in a narrowcast world and, you know, you get to choose exactly what you want to listen to when you want to listen to it. And, and media companies radio companies assume that because they can make radio, they can make podcasts. And, you know, they're certainly in the box seat to be able to do that. And the various companies here in Australia are sort of tooling up to prepare for what's coming down the track. So yeah, but I think that for every, you know, successful SCA or Nova partnership podcast, there will be ones that break through on their own. And I think that's the beauty of it. It's you can come at it from a whole bunch of different directions. You don't have to align yourself with the company. Um, you know, you've got to have the talent and you've got to have the idea and you've got to commit to the work. I mean, let's not— none of it's easy. There's always the fundamentals. Yeah, all of that's there. But, but if you have— or if you tick those 3 boxes and you commit to it and you're consistent and you do 500 shows in a row and all of those sorts of things, then you've got a chance. Um, you know, 10 years ago you had no chance. There was no microphone, there was no audience unless you were aligned with a a major media company. And so I just think it makes the world so much more interesting. And there's no one better way, I don't think. Is, you know, it's not like you, you, you're destined to have to work for an SEA or an OVA or an ARN partnership at some point. You can do it whatever way you want to do it.

Jay: And I think that as the, the generation that has grown up, you know, the digital natives, right, YouTube and streaming and Twitch and all of these things, that is in their DNA. As they start to get the jobs in the agencies, then you'll really start to see, well, where is this going to play out? Yeah, because right now there are the, there are the success storeys like Shameless, and there's the success storeys like Bill Simmons and The Ringer, and there is, you know, then there are the, uh, SCAs of the world and Podcast Ones and all of these companies that are still going to try to find a way to remain relevant and to remain competitive in a market that is getting more and more competitive and is leaning more and more towards the audience having a lot of say in, in who gets pushed to the top. So right now you got Kyle and Jackie O is the highest paid radio programme in Australia. You know, in 20 years' time, when somebody who's running an agency is willing to start, you know, looking at paying comparable rates to a podcaster or to a YouTuber or something along those lines, then you'll start to see, well, okay, how does this really start to shake out? Because right now I think that the thing that's holding back podcasts is agencies are expecting radio numbers and they're expecting that same return on investment that doesn't exist in the podcasting world at this point. It does for some, but not for, not for everybody, because I think that it is still new and developing. And so people who are making the decisions of where are we gonna spend our advertising dollars they don't quite get it at this point or haven't looked at it in a new way. And I think until you get people in positions that are able to make those decisions and go, okay, now actually we understand what the Daily Talk Show is doing, we understand why they're doing it, who their audience is, so we will invest accordingly. Because right now I think if you opened up the Daily Talk Show to agencies and say, hey, we're open for business, have your clients come to us and, and broadcast, the cost per thousand they're going to offer you is probably going to be pretty low. Yeah. Yeah, I would think, and sometimes shockingly low, you know, and we've had those conversations on Game Changers and things.

Josh: And even I think like for us, we tried to take CPM off completely, like trying not to make it part of the conversation. This is a brand play. This is more than that. It's a different type of audience. I mean, if you were to call bullshit on what Tommy and I are doing in regards to, I guess our perspective is I need to be walked around the block.

Tommy: Yeah, exactly.

Josh: We need to get coffee. Strong three-quarter. If we're thinking about, so what are some of the objections, Tommy, that we have from going to one of the bigger networks?

Tommy: As far as partnering or?

Josh: No, as in say, like say if PodcastOne was to say, hey, here's a chunk of cash, come on board, do your show.

Tommy: I just think the exchange of money isn't of the value that we think we're working towards.

Josh: And so whatever money, it depends on Well, so they give a bunch of cash. I guess like part of it for me where I think of it is what independence gives us. And so independence in regards to saying shit that might not go down well within the organisational setting, not being, I guess if we're playing the infinite game rather than the finite game, we're not being compared in regards to, like I think about regional radio, I think like like Kate Mead is a great example of someone who's pushing the boundaries where she was able to go to the US from a regional show. But I always talk to Tommy about, it's like, the shit that we're doing, the processes for him to get that through on a Shepparton market would have been really hard. Absolutely. And so part of it is like, we don't want to be compared to— if we say, if we went into a network, it's like, okay, how are you comparing to H&A? How are you comparing to these 3 other shows that we have. Yeah. How— if you were to call bullshit on it and do the other side of the coin saying, hey, this is, this is why you should be looking at a network, this is what they could bring, what do you think that would be?

Jay: I would think that, you know, right now you're placing a higher value on independence and creative control on your product than you are a financial value, right? But I would think that, you know, if you were to go with an SCA you have, uh, the studio availability, but you guys have that. You have, you know, video availability, you have the audio availability, you have production capability, you've got everything that SEA can offer in that space. But the thing that these other big companies can offer you is the human resources, you know, the absolute number of people who could then be dedicated to putting your show out there.

Tommy: The fourth P. That's it.

Craig: Yeah. Promotion.

Tommy: Yeah, promotion.

Craig: Yeah, that's the thing. You've got a, you've got a small audience that knows you and a large audience who doesn't. And if mainstream media was to come to you and say, hey, do your podcast, no holds barred, do it as you are, we're not, you know, and I think PodcastOne would, that's a conversation they could have with you, which is you do the podcast exactly the way you want. And by the way, come and do Saturday and Sunday mornings and we'll expose you to a half a million national audience every week and will promote the podcast through that national audience, then, then you— it's probably a conversation worth having.

Josh: Do you think networks have learned from like the ancient— like, I remember being at Fox and seeing like the conversations around Hamish and Andy. It's sort of like, oh, I remember the radio station constantly having their hands tied around what they could do from the digital assets point of view. Yeah. And I remember taking away from that If I was to ever do anything, I love that they've got control. Yeah. Do you think that networks have gotten savvy to this of like, hang on, if we don't own this shit, we can't— What do we own? We don't own anything.

Craig: Yeah. It depends on the show. I mean, you know, Hamish and Andy brought an audience. Kyle and Jack bring an audience, so they own the content. There would be some other shows in them around Australia. I'm not sure which ones, but there would be ownership of content with some. Just based on the fact that it's, it's a fight worth having, but it's not a fight worth losing. You're not going to lose a Marty Sheargold or a Tim Blackwell or a Hamish Nandy over, over content rights. I would think it's certainly that was the case 5 years ago. It's just not— the risk isn't worth taking.

Tommy: And so new shows, maybe new shows, they're going to spend millions of dollars on advertising and make— yeah, they're the ones that are going to be owned by the station, which makes sense, I think.

Craig: Yeah, it does. Yeah. There's, there's a relationship there that I think that, you know, the heavy lifting is being done by the, the company. And there are plenty of, you know, all three radio companies have had their own success in terms of developing shows and developing, you know, people as, as brands. And, and, um, you know, yes, there is success on both sides in that equation, but, um, you know, these companies, they, they invest a lot in marketing and the resource and support and all of the things that you need that, you know, you guys are having to do that on your own. And, um, yeah, it does change the game.

Josh: So Game Changers, you bought, uh On Amazon, it's—

Jay: is it Kindle? So yes, but you know, the Kindle app is free, so you can put that on any device and read the book. But it's available on Amazon right now.

Josh: And so chapters-wise, have you got a favourite chapter out of the book?

Craig: Um, I think it's funny, there's a video posted today just about, um, uh, Was That Okay, which is a conversation that is funny. Um, in the early stages of the podcast, uh, we would do the interview and and take the headphones off, and the person on the other side of the desk would say to me, hey, yeah, yeah, that was great, was that okay? And I'm thinking, wow, I've just been speaking to Eddie McGuire for an hour and he's asking me whether that was okay. And it would happen more often than not, not all of them, and it— but it would just reminded me that it doesn't matter how successful you look and how smart you might be and how funny you might be, that there, there is still, certainly for performers, there's a degree of uncertainty that they deal with every day in that performance space. And understanding that, I think, you know, certainly from a content director's perspective and from a producer's perspective, when you put yourself out there, even a comedic sense, particularly, you know, certainly in the radio sense, you know, you can do something funny on the air and have no idea whether it worked or not. I remember Matt Tilley saying on the podcast, you know, I still, you know, I've been doing this for 20 years. I've been successful. Fulfill for 20 years and I still come in every morning wondering whether the spot I've got locked in for 8:10 whether it's going to land or not. I just don't know. So I think that, that it's funny. We posted the video yesterday and Tanya Hennessy replied, you know, saying that it kind of, you know, spoke to her. And I think a lot of presenters are in that sort of constant space of, am I— is this working? What am I doing? Is this really, you know, connecting in a way that I'm hoping it will?

Tommy: Well, it's funny because I think we're getting a lot of feedback now. Now in feedback meeting, people just interacting. Yeah. And sometimes I feel like we're not at our best and I'm like, is this any good? We're just doing our thing. Yeah. But obviously there is, there's a feedback system happening, but it's counter to how I sometimes feel. Yeah. So then it's like, are my feelings, they're incorrect all the time? Or when do I listen?

Josh: Like, it feels like there's a bigger responsibility as podcasters rather than radio broadcasters maybe to do that. Like, I feel the pressure that we are Somehow creating our audience through the content that we make versus I guess if we were on a radio station, there's maybe a, there's an audience there that we're then performing for. Yeah, right.

Craig: They're there for the music and a whole bunch of different reasons. No, you're right. And there's probably something in that, that was that okay? I'm hoping that interview was what you wanted and hopefully that's good content for your podcast. There might be some of that, but I think there's also just a, just let me know, just recognise Guys, did— how did that go?

Tommy: We all just want to cuddle.

Josh: What about for you, Jay? What was your favorite?

Jay: I think that the thing that we tried to do with the book was identify the themes that were consistent across all the different interviews that Craig did. And the one that, that I really like is, is on writing and the, the importance of, of writing. Um, because, you know, the biggest names in radio and the people who shared their story, they all talk about, you know, how they write and, and what they do. And, and I really love that because it's not the thing that you think of when you think of radio immediately. You think of radio as, you know, microphones and talking, but so much of it is, is about what is written before the mics are turned on and how that is used in the creative process, you know, just writing down ideas and those sorts of things. And so I really enjoy revisiting those stories, you know. And I love the, you know, Tony and Mick in their individual episodes, but both sharing the same sort of idea that, you know, they wrote and wrote and wrote and wrote in the days of Martin Malloy, to a point where, you know, people would turn up to see the show and, and I think it was Tony who said, you know, it's just two guys sitting there reading out of Spirex notebooks. And, you know, and you can do so much with the written word and Ultimately, that's what we're in. We're, you know, we're in the game of telling storeys in a way that we think the audience is going to like. And I think that, you know, the difference between radio and podcast— one of the great things about radio is that it's quick and it's temporary. You know, if you miss today's Hot Breakfast, tomorrow's going to be a new show. You can listen to that and you get that there. If you miss, um, there will be people— I don't know who they're going to be— but there will be people who will go, you know what, I'm going to listen subscribing to all 500 episodes of the Daily Talk Show because they want to go back and they'll still discover it. People will discover episode 100 tomorrow as you put out episode 500. They won't even know that you've done 500. For some reason, they'll discover episode 101 or 78 or, you know, whatever. And I think that's the same way with podcasting, is that these are not temporary things. Craig's interview with, um, Christian O'Connell and Sam Kavanaugh and creativity, which I think is almost 3 years old now, will be as relevant next year as it will be in 5 years, you know. So I think there's that timeless element of podcasting, which is very, very cool. What do we—

Josh: what do you think the misconception of, uh, everything that's happening right now, what's like a, a common thing that you hear and you just don't believe? Believe to be true? It may have even been something that you thought was true. About radio? Yeah, about creating content, about audience building, about radio.

Craig: I think that there's an idea that it can happen quickly and that, you know, you can have success in a reasonably short amount of time. I know that a young girl, Paris Humphrey, I think her surname is, has spent a couple of years in Tamworth, was part of a radio school in Adelaide, got her first job in breakfast radio and has had a couple of years in regional radio and is now taking a producer job at Jason PJ here in Melbourne. Great show, by the way. And Paris would be in her early 20s, really, really talented. And I don't know her, but I wonder whether she's had a couple of years in Tamworth and gone, I don't know whether I can do this for the next 8 years being in a regional market. I think I want to be closer to where the real world is. And that's okay. But I think there's is certainly for young presenters that are starting out in radio and doing breakfast radio, you get better the older you get. And the ones that eventually make it are the ones that go the distance. So this assumption that you can go into a market, any market, and go, right, I've got a 3-year plan or a 5-year plan, you just got to take it off the table because it just, it will happen in its own sweet time. And yeah, so I think that's probably, you know, the good ones make it look easy and you forget about it. And one of the great things with the podcast every single successful presenter has had this really long and winding road that never ever looks as straight and as narrow as it does from the outside. You know, there's bumps along the way and I missed out on that job and I got sacked here and I got back up and, and then we just see them on a billboard and listen to them at 7 o'clock in the morning thinking, how sweet's this? But, you know, the sacrifice and the effort and, you know, spending years in regional markets, you know what that's like, Tommy. It's really hard. You go, what does the end look like? Like here.

Tommy: What am I doing? You can't see anything. You can't see it. Yeah.

Josh: So you— Yeah. And Jay, watching like Ringer and seeing what they were building, were you surprised at how slow from a podcasting point of view, you doing your stuff, it is taking to build? It takes time.

Jay: And I think that's the thing, you know, what do I think? There's no formula and there's no hack, you know, there's no creative or content hack, right? It's— you have to do it if you're going to produce. You know, Mr. 97 is going to edit this podcast, right? There's no hack for him to do that. There's no AI, not yet anyway, that's going to be able to do that.

Tommy: Not with blonde tips. No. Or as much charisma.

Jay: Yeah, he's gonna have to sit down and do that, you know. And there's no— you know, this episode took time to, to sit down and record, right? So there's there's no hack, there's no shortcut, and there's no— nothing gets done, whether it's radio, podcasting, TV, or anything, without a lot of hard work and the ability to work with other people. And those are the things that I think we get lulled into this idea that we're gonna be the next influencer or whoever it's gonna be because I'm gonna, you know, do all these things. Well, you know, the people that you see that you consider a successful influencer have got teams of people around them. They're not doing those things just on their own, you You know, there are people who do manage it, and there are people who do working together. You know, you mentioned Shameless, right? Like, that's a small team. It's a small, you know, couple of people, right?

Josh: And Genevieve Day, their manager, does a lot of the, you know, connecting with brands.

Jay: And, and, you know, eventually when they, when they get to that level, it's your ability to work with other people is going to be crucial, whether it's in digital space or virtual space or in real space. You have to be able to work with other people, and that's going to be the key to, I think, whatever you're going to create and wherever that's going to be, whether or not it's going to have any impact on other people's lives. When do you know to quit?

Craig: That's a great question. We, we tossed it— well, I tossed that around for a while with the Game Changers podcast and getting to 100. And, um, you know, we had a really— we have a really strong audience, we've got a great subscriber base. All of the things that you work really hard for, we ended up with. And, and, um, so for me as a performer, I just thought, I'm not going to be able to make make the quality of, of content that I have previously. Um, so that was my, that was my point where I knew that I had to, had to either find another iteration of Game Changers, which we've thankfully started to move towards. And, you know, we had a conversation today, we might be able to reconnect to the podcast in a way that is slightly different to what we did previously, but just with some different approaches. But, um, yeah, that was, uh, but it would have been easy just to continue to roll out episodes but not really deliver on the initial promise, which is here's I want to find out everything I can about them. So as much as, you know, when you have an audience and they're expecting a product from you, it's really hard to walk away from. But I think we did the right thing at that moment.

Josh: Do you think it's intoxicating? I guess there's something about starting and launching. Do you think there's something just as intoxicating about finishing up? Like, I know that— Oh, the announcement. The announcement. So I know, like, if episode 500 was our final show, the energy that it would bring, it would give us that sort of thing. Like, did you find that it was exciting finishing up and then everyone moves, moves on with their life and you're like, yeah, I don't have this podcast anymore?

Craig: Well, we kind of moved from series, so we had series in the early stages and then we moved to weekly and we kind of didn't really have a set sort of timing issue that you guys, you know, you're making a daily commitment. So we sort of ended up, you know, you know, easing our way out of that, you know, expectation that the audience was going to get some product every, every couple of days. Um, to a degree, there was a sense of, that's done, it's about as much as I can do with the kind of raw material that I had to work with, which is the best of the best. I mean, there'd be 30 people I would talk to for the podcast, but I'm not, you know, I've already put those feelers out and some will say yes and some will say no. So, um, Yeah. So there was a sense of, okay, that's done. Now I can start worrying about other things. But I mean, I like the— I want to move it away from radio as much as I can as well. As much as we've talked about that over the last hour and a half, the radio. But I'm— What is the next thing then?

Josh: If it is content in general, just content in general.

Craig: I mean, content, storytelling. I want to— I just— I'm interested in why people want to express themselves and how they do it and how they do it in a way that's really effective and the storeys behind that. And I'm not sure, I don't know what that looks like. I just know that I'm interested in that, so I'll sort of chase that wherever that might go.

Tommy: For some reason I've got a vision of you speaking at Google. Yeah, yeah, just like Google. Yeah, just the content. Yeah, content guy.

Josh: Tight turtleneck, like black turtleneck. No, that's Craig Bruce.

Tommy: Yeah, that's it. And just steaming around the office.

Josh: Uh, just before you go, podcasts that you're listening to, any that are outside of what you create that you enjoy and like?

Craig: Scott Galloway, I think, is the most talented podcaster in the world at the moment. What's his show? Scott Galloway is on a show with Pivot is the name of the show with— it's a tech show and he's, he's a professor at one of the universities in New York and he is sharp as— he's got a book called The Fourth which is the inner workings of—

Josh: yeah, have you read it? Yeah, I've got the audiobook.

Craig: Yeah, Scott Galloway. Yeah, Preet Bharara is the other one. Preet Bharara's, um, podcast, which is called, um, uh, Coming Up, I think it's called. Uh, what was the name? Stay tuned. Stay tuned. Yeah, Preet Bharara, um, was the head of the, um, Southern District of New York, um, Justice Department, sacked by Trump about a month afterwards. And he's unbelievably really good.

Josh: Yeah, they produced podcasts, like what sort of sensations?

Craig: Yeah, yeah. So, uh, I mean, Preet's mostly, um, mostly politics, but he just has just done an interview with Cameron Douglas, Michael Douglas's son, who's just come out of jail, had 10 years in jail, um, you know, was a drug dealer and all the rest of it, and has written a book. Um, he's just a brilliant, brilliant communicator. You know, anyone in that law space, they've just got that sharpness of mind. You go, man, that's so good. So yeah, they're the two. Yeah, Scott Galloway is really sharp, funny. If you're interested in tech, he's the one, I reckon. And then Preet Bharara is really good too.

Tommy: Seb's gonna put them in the air. Yeah, shout out.

Jay: What about you, Jay? The Press Box, which is a ringer podcast, which is about media in America and worldwide, hosted by a guy named Brian Curtis, who he— I just, I like the way he thinks. I like the way he writes. And it's always interesting. And I love one of the production things that they do at the end is their editor edits together a minute to sometimes a minute and a half of all of these different things out of context and creates a whole sort of conversation between Brian and his co-host that makes no sense.

Tommy: But it's just very, very funny. Yeah. How's this happened?

Josh: Yeah, that's it.

Jay: So I love the out of context edits at the end.

Craig: Can I make a point on that? That's called format, right? So that's a thing that the show does that a listener has gone, I love that bit that happens right at the end. So that's about formatting. It's about just thinking about, okay, well, yes, we could talk for the next hour, but what's our, how do we make this unique? I'm always bringing it back to training.

Tommy: We've got our format. I probably won't be that impressive, but LA Fact of the Day, Mr. 97, as we lead up to our trip this Thursday.

Mason: Today's LA Fact of the Day, in LA's downtown industrial zone, it's illegal to grow pickles. Really? Why?

Jay: Illegal to grow pickles? It's illegal to grow pickles.

Josh: Well, so you only, you don't grow pickles, you have to pickle the pickles.— We get more info. Yeah.

Mason: So, you can't manufacture them. You have to go out into the surrounding areas. What about a cucumber that you don't pickle?

Josh: You're going to need more cheese houses. That's tomorrow. That's episode 500. This is how we get content, as you can see. Have you got any LA facts?

Tommy: I'm assuming because you're American, you've spent time, much time in LA. Any factual information you have for LA?

Jay: I was really excited when I moved to Phoenix in 1996. I was really excited that the billboards gave the distance to LA because I grew up in St. Louis, Missouri, which is the Midwest. And so you had billboards that said Kansas City or Indianapolis. I was like, ah, you know, but I'm in Phoenix in the middle of the desert and I've got the billboards. I can go to LA or San Diego. How cool is this? Uh, in LA— LA fact, what a good question. I do love the fact that at the, uh, Reagan Presidential Museum or Library, I think it is, uh, they have a photo of Reagan from one of his films with a chimpanzee. So they've got all these different things. They've got the plane that he flew on, they've got different documents that he signed, they've got all these different things. And the thing that I remember is a photo of Ronald Reagan, the former president of the United States, hugging a chimpanzee. It's got cutthroat. Yeah, yeah.

Tommy: Well, boys, thank you very much for coming on the show. Thank you, Tommy.

Josh: Thank you, Josh.

Craig: Good luck for tomorrow, 500 shows.

Tommy: Yeah, any tips for Any tips for a live show? It's our first official live show.

Craig: Oh right, any tips for a live show? God, not— I mean, isn't this live now? Yeah, but in terms of an audience.

Tommy: Yeah, there's gonna be people. Like anything you realise with Grain Tax. With Grain Tax.

Craig: Look, I mean, I would think, you know, having watched Hamish and Andy up close, just make sure you give the audience a really good personal experience to shake their hands. If they have anyone that wants to come along and say hi, make sure you give them the time.

Jay: I think you should, you know, within the first 90 seconds throw somebody out just to set the tone.

Tommy: What about this, uh, anyone in the room hasn't ever listened to a show? Because I think there's gonna be some friends of friends. Oh yeah, yeah, get the fuck out. I feel like that's a Tommy move.

Josh: This is an inside show, so everyone out.

Tommy: I like it.

Josh: Uh, Game Changers, you can can just search on Apple Podcasts and also on Amazon as well.

Jay: Also, we have radiogamechangers.com. Awesome.

Josh: Thanks, guys. It's a Daily Talk Show. hi@thedailytalkshow.com is the email address. Craig, are you allowing people to— have you got a personal email if there's someone who's listening and they're a regional presenter and they're wanting some feedback?

Craig: Yeah, if you go to the craigbrucecoaching.com website, it's just being rebuilt at the moment, but you'll be able to get in there and send me anything you need.

Josh: Awesome. That's The Daily Talk Show. See you tomorrow for 500. And say, guys, that's probably— that's quite a weird end. We'll see you tomorrow. See you tomorrow.

Mason: Catch you guys.