Ahron Young, Ticker TV

Josh: The Daily Talk Show. It's The Daily Talk Show, episode 575.

Tommy: We've got Aaron Young in the building.

Ahron: Why did it take 575 people to get to me?

Josh: Oh yeah, your people weren't responding to us.

Tommy: Real question here, where were you 575 days ago, mate?

Ahron: Uh, yeah, I don't know.

Josh: It was because you were live streaming, and when you're live streaming, you can't take phone calls.

Tommy: Yeah, you would have been at Sky still.

Ahron: Sky News. Yeah, 100%.

Tommy: So you've, uh, I mean, you You've spent some time in front of the camera.

Ahron: A fair bit of time. I think it was like 30 hours a week.

Josh: Wow.

Ahron: On air in front of a camera. Yeah. You do like 6, 7-hour shifts at once on a weekend and then the Qantas News on either side of that and you get home. Well, you wouldn't even get home. You'd be— you'd lose your voice halfway through the shift.

Josh: And makeup.

Ahron: You do it yourself.

Josh: Yeah. And doing Ticker. So now you've got a company called Ticker where you're doing streaming. Do you bring all of these things like makeup to a streaming service?

Ahron: Yeah, like you always chuck it on beforehand, but usually like you're in such a hurry that this morning I had sweat like running down my face because we were, why isn't the audio working? 10 seconds before.

Tommy: Oh no.

Ahron: So all that fun basically that goes on with a startup.

Tommy: Well, I think there's a glamour that people think is a part of the live television or seeing TV and even news. So you were a reporter. Is that what the job requires?

Ahron: Reporter, anchor, you know, bureau chief. So it was a bit of everything.

Tommy: I always—

Josh: I—

Tommy: did you know I worked in Shepparton, Josh?

Josh: Yeah, yeah, you worked. Did you, Josh?

Tommy: I worked in radio in Shepparton, but I was employed as an announcer. But I think it's just so they could shuffle around if they— because they couldn't like fire you, or they could put you into a different role, which would have been horrible. So they called it an announcer rather than the breakfast announcer specific to that role. So, so yeah, across the board. You've spent time—

Ahron: you're old, we won't put your exact title. Exactly, because then if we remove that, yeah, it doesn't fit That was a lesson I've learned for Ticker. Really hiring people, you are just a person.

Tommy: So you've spent time in Afghanistan.

Ahron: Yeah, I have actually. Yeah, that was an incredible experience and a bizarre experience in the sense that I got a call from my boss saying, hey, we have this programme with the ADF and we think you should go. And from that point it was in like December and you don't know when you're going to get the call. So it wasn't until July the following year that I got a call saying tomorrow.

Josh: What happens with visas?

Ahron: Oh, we had done the visa. Oh, that was— I could spend 5 years telling you about the visa process trying to get into Afghanistan. Well, it was just backwards and forwards, and I was on air doing one of these crazy shifts and my visa suddenly was available. And when you work in cable TV, I think like most places, there's no one to replace you if you have to suddenly depart to go and pick up your visa because you're about to fly to Afghanistan. So we we had this system of people pretending to be me to go and pick up this visa, basically, to get across. And otherwise it was going to go. It was one of those, if this doesn't work, I'm not going to Afghanistan moments.

Tommy: It's like a hot deal. The Afghani embassy's just like, yeah, expires in 3 hours, you better be here.

Josh: What embassy did you have to go to?

Ahron: Uh, it was the Afghan embassy. Yeah, that was it. And as well as the US embassy, there was a lot going on to get there. You don't just fly on in.

Tommy: So you work out you're going to Afghanistan the next day. You're a reporter who's been used to being behind a nice, you know, bench anchoring and—

Ahron: Oh, not necessarily. My first major overseas job was going to the Thailand tsunami in 2004-05. That was like my second ever time overseas. I'd gone on a holiday to London, which was great. And the next thing I'm arriving at a place where a quarter of a million people have been killed. That's crazy. That was— yeah, that was— and I was like 21 years old. So scared, like doing live cross. I was working for 3AW at the time, doing live crosses back to Australia in the back of a taxi, knowing that if I stuffed this up, it was the end of my media career. Like, you know, when you've got that, that fright, like it's, it's great, but you just, it's terrifying at the same time. And that mix of terror, anxiety, excitement, your first big story, something that's also really emotional and really sad.

Tommy: Yeah.

Ahron: But yeah, that's journalism.

Tommy: And so I mean, putting your boots on to go to somewhere like Afghanistan, you understand what's going on there, but it's a different thing than going to somewhere like Thailand where the devastation's happened and you— and there's, you know, it's not happening anymore. It's happened and it's severe.

Josh: A natural disaster versus a war zone. Oh yeah.

Tommy: Well, you don't know if there's going to be missiles flying down at you.

Ahron: Well, I'll tell you, like, what happens is you get on a plane and you fly over there on this white unmarked plane and it's full of soldiers and you get off the plane at this base in Dubai.

Tommy: What's the banter on the plane like, or is it no banter?

Ahron: Everyone's asleep. Yeah, everyone is asleep, 100%. Everyone was asleep. No entertainment on the plane. It's like the charter service from hell.

Josh: So it wasn't like your Qantas— you weren't seeing yourself doing—

Ahron: I'm still waiting for my complaints to be handled by the airline on that one. But, uh, no. So you arrive at like 4 in the morning, first thing, at this base. It's where all of the internationals are.

Josh: Where did you fly from?

Ahron: From Melbourne to Sydney to Darwin to pick up a lot of troops, and then straight the 15 hours direct.

Josh: Wow.

Ahron: Yeah. And then you go, you get your luggage, it all comes off in this military way. And like, I'm not used to military world at all. Like, you, you're like, where is my porter?

Josh: Yeah, where's the priority? Where's my priority tag?

Ahron: You're going into your bunk beds, mate. And so you get to your bunk beds, and then, um, you all you have time to do is drop your stuff, and you go into these 12 4-hour sessions for 4 days to train you, to train everyone about what it's like, what's an IED. I got to fire weapons just in case we're in a convoy that gets taken, and I'd never fired a gun before, so I was looking at it.

Tommy: And so they want you to be able to pick things up and actually fight back?

Ahron: 100%. Yeah, you were taught how to put tourniquets on people if they're shot, the whole checklist of how everything works. It was incredible to watch them train And then to be part of that because they for 4 days treated me, I guess I had to, like I was one of them because I was going into their workplace.

Josh: How many journalists are there?

Ahron: The ADF would take in one every now and then. So it was, to be honest, you know, there was a lot of publicity aspect to it as well. They want to show what's happening. But as we— again, one day they just say, all right, today's the day you're flying in. So you go to this C-130 Hercules and you sit there forever waiting like You think Jetstar and Tiger are bad, just wait until you fly the ADF. You do not know when you're going to get picked up or how it works. I'm sure there's method to its madness. And you get on the plane, and I remember, you know, it was like a 4-hour journey, and I was lucky enough to actually be in the cockpit. They don't usually let people in the cockpit because everything's really secretive. They fly, you know, certain paths and things, and you're sitting there watching, and, and they're always, always— the pilots are in constant communication with the tower. So I always had a media monitor with me. And as I went back to go sit down, kind of pointed— you sit on these red seats horizontally, you know, you don't sit the way you sit on a plane, you're actually more sideways. And I looked in the seat next to me, had all these holes in it. And I said to the guy, you know, what's going on here? And he's like, well, they're bullet holes. It literally went through someone just recently as we were coming in to land. And you don't know if they're joking or not, if this is some sick army humour to deal with what they're dealing with. Or whether it's real, but it was actually real. And the way the plane actually comes in to land, it's vertical. It's not like your 20-minute, we're going to come in to land soon in Sydney, guys. They come out of, you know, 20,000 feet or whatever these propeller planes fly and just drop straight nose. Like I'm in the cockpit looking at the ground. Then they just quickly pull up and land because that's the quickest way to avoid being fired at.

Tommy: Minimize time flying low.

Ahron: Yes.

Tommy: All right.

Josh: Yeah. We've had Andrea Clarke on who talked, talked about that. A similar experience. The, uh, war and news, uh, there's obviously when there's a war, it seems like, uh, I spend more time looking at my phone trying to keep up with what's happening. What is your perspective having reported on these types of things? How do you see war?

Ahron: I will be honest that after all of my years reporting, it's the things you don't see that we never hear about that are the things that you that unfortunately occur, that I think we all kind of feel that way. But the secrecy acts and all of the stuff like Australia, even ADF, as much as I love them, we are very, very protected from what goes on out there. More so. And I've asked people why and they say, well, you can blame Murdoch for it. And I said, what, Rupert? And they're like, no, no, no, Sir Keith. Because when he was famously in Turkey, in Gallipoli, he reported back what was actually going on. And from that moment on, the ADF became very secretive. Many, many journalists these days are really concerned about the secretive nature of what happens with our defence force, more so than the United States. In fact, I had someone who was telling me that an Australian cameraman was over in Afghanistan shortly before I was there, and, uh, he filmed the American soldiers, uh, basically burning the Quran. He filmed it, and he went back to base afterwards, and he was about to destroy his tape thinking, they're never going to allow me to to show this? And they said, no, of course you can, you have to. That's the role of the media. That was not my experience.

Josh: Yeah. And so when you see things in the news, you see things, you know, like Iran and the escalations there. Where does your perspective land? How can you look at these things in a critical manner?

Ahron: Well, the Iran situation's been going on for 40 years. They do not get along, and it's been something that's, you know, I think we've all seen that film Argo that does a great job of explaining how long it's been going on for and the tensions and the cultural differences, etc. I had a hairdresser actually a little while ago who was Iranian.

Josh: Was this at Emporium?

Ahron: No, no, no, no.

Josh: Because at the Emporium I had a Persian dude who was my hairdresser and we had some good banter about Persian food. Anyway, Kashkhan Badam Jun is my favorite.

Ahron: Did you win $50? No, no, no, no, no.

Josh: No money one.

Ahron: And, uh, he, you know, I was asking him about it just as if you met someone from Iraq, you know, given what's happened, or Afghanistan, you'd be like, you know, what's, what's it actually like for you? And their response to— well, his response to me was, well, it's like any country really. We hate the government. They don't represent us. And so you have to remember it, that not many people support Trump in America. Not many people support Scott Morrison in Australia. It's not everybody. And so the governments in places like that are so far away from the people that essentially it's just a regime that you're fighting against, not a country. And I think that when we use the term Iran or Iraq or many of those countries, we're forgetting that they're really good people who aren't that dissimilar to us, caught up with a government who just don't like ours. That's how I look at it.

Tommy: Just sort of coming back to the people don't like Trump or Scott Morrison, the noise that we hear about people who don't like Trump and Scott Morrison is very loud. The reason Trump's in his presidency is because people like him. Is that like— am I simplifying it too little?

Ahron: Well, obviously he's the president and won the popular vote, you know, there's no doubt about that. Um, but my point is, is the people who are against— particularly when conservative people are in power— and this is— I lived in Russia and that really taught me a lot about the way the world looks at the world, because we look at Russia, you know, always with that kind of half an eye of suspicion. But that's not how they look at themselves and that's not how they see themselves on the world stage. And everyone's got a storey to tell. And it actually taught me when they would say, well, we want to be like CNN and BBC. And I'm like, but wait a minute, the BBC and CNN are these proper great news organizations. But now I'm living in Australia and I watch the BBC and the CNN through the lens of I've lived overseas in Russia, I've seen how they see the world. And actually they are just basically pushing the viewpoint of the people of those countries. It doesn't necessarily make it perfect or right.

Josh: So how do you consume news in a sceptical way?

Ahron: Well, I make sure that I follow people that I don't agree with. I think that we are at great risk at the moment of, uh, as the media has become for you, and that's what we're all claiming to be these days, as the media has become— you can go here if you have this viewpoint, or here if you have this viewpoint, whether it be climate change or whatever. You can end up only perhaps deliberately or not deliberately listening to the people you agree with. And I go out of my way not to be enraged at all, but to constantly challenge my views by listening to people who truly believe what they believe and to try and find out why. And one of the greatest things about being a journo is you get to be this constant pain in the ass. You know, you're always, always trying to question people who have strong beliefs as to why they believe that, whether they're religious leaders or even police officers. Your job is to constantly say, why is your very strong opinion correct?

Tommy: So if you've got someone from you know, the CNN and then another broadcasting outlet, Ben Shapiro. Ben Shapiro. So you've got two journalists, not Ben Shapiro. He probably sees himself as a bit of a journo, but they— so a general journalist should be curious and non-biased and, and not having—

Ahron: should be, but we're human.

Josh: Yeah.

Tommy: So start having—

Ahron: if you— everyone says that the ABC is biased, right? I don't think the organisation's biased, but if I follow so many people on Twitter and they retweet things that make you aware of what their political opinion is. You know, you can pick up what people think by what they talk about, what they point out, what they see and what they read, what they don't point out. And that's how I guess you can get to that stage. And when people say, you know, it's my personal view, well, that's totally fine. But I think that it's always going to be an ongoing battle. And quite often if you believe something, you can't really see the other side. You sometimes don't even think there is another side.

Tommy: Do you think the media simplifies a lot of the complex topics. So Soleimani being murdered or being killed by the Americans, and then you watch someone like Ben Shapiro, conservative, conservative, conservative, and thinks that it's a great thing. He talks about why, what he was doing, what he's done over the past. He builds a case around that this guy was an absolute terrorist. And then you see the other side, which is coming, the angle of Trump's in power, he's loose unit, he's, you know, shooting missiles, he could be starting World War III.

Josh: And then if we even framed our own people, we could frame our own government as terrorists based on actions.

Ahron: One man's hero is another man's terrorist, right? We grew up hearing that all the time. And I think that when you have a look at Qasem Soleimani, you know, the people who are out there in Iran this week who are baying for American blood, I was talking earlier about how a lot of Iranians see themselves in a situation where the government's bad and they're great people. But we're seeing hundreds of thousands of people getting behind this guy who the United States, who, you know, I'd never heard of his name beforehand. I don't know about you guys, but my knowledge didn't really— of personalities in the Middle East doesn't really go past Israeli warlords. Warlords. Yeah, that's right. And so the problem with the Middle East is that no one fully understands it and they just, you know, it's pretty tough. I remember I'll tell you a hilariously frightening story. I was 22 years old and I'm a news anchor in Moscow on a 24-hour news channel that has just started up. And Ariel Sharon, the prime minister of Israel, has gone into a coma having had a heart attack. Now, what does a 21 or 22-year-old Australian know about Ariel Sharon? And how can you carry it on in a breaking news environment for 45 minutes?

Tommy: Jeez.

Ahron: Now they had this rule back then that you couldn't have white paper on the studio desk. You could only have pink because they believed that it would flare up the cameras or some rubbish. Anyhow, I'm sitting reading the— there was nothing on the autocue because all you get told is, "Eryk Sharon's gone into a coma, go," and you just have to carry on and keep talking. And I'm like, you know, the only Ariel I knew until that stage was from The Little Mermaid, which only connection to Israel is Chomos, didn't—

Tommy: and you love it.

Ahron: Anyhow, I'm looking behind, you know, you're looking at the camera, and behind the camera is a studio door, and there's this commotion while I'm on air. And I'm thinking, now is not the time, guys. And what had happened is a producer had gone to the printer and had run out of pink paper, and they only had white paper. But the floor manager was refusing to allow the producer to bring it in and pulls out a gun Oh no, you don't want that. You don't come into my studio with that.

Tommy: Why's he got a gun?

Ahron: For white paper, I assume.

Tommy: Russia.

Ahron: Yeah, in Russia, for white paper.

Josh: That's cool. And so how do you, um, how do you go speaking 45 minutes around shit that you're probably not in a position to talk about?

Ahron: Hmm, I think it comes back to that mix of imagine what would happen if I didn't.

Tommy: The guy's got a gun.

Josh: And so you see now, and so then you also, so you have like the, um, you also have the filter of, I feel like the, the older I get, the more I read, the more I realise that I don't know anything and all the massive gaps in my knowledge. And then so, uh, it can be hard maybe to fully communicate, like, so for instance, say if you're talking about a specific event the language that we use is so important. And so, for instance, like, calling someone a terrorist has all these connotations.

Ahron: And potentially if someone, you know, we had people fired at RT, at Russia Today, because they refer to the Chechen separatists as Chechen rebels. I'd heard the term Chechen rebels many, many times. And, uh, as Westerners, there were 84 of us who went over to work at Russia Today, and this one guy put in a script Russian— sorry, Chechen rebels, which, as I say colloquially, is what we in the West refer to them as. And he got marched out the door. So you got to be really careful. And as I say, like, your view of the world suddenly is completely different. They wanted our skills. They didn't want our beliefs.

Josh: And so when you're going into an environment like that as a journalist, it was really tough.

Ahron: Like, I actually found it really— and this was widely known. I mean, so many people left during our first year. They left for moral reasons they left for the fact that it was a -37-degree winter for 3 months.

Josh: Do they have good heaters?

Ahron: Yeah, really good, actually. No, they pump hot water through the city, so it just comes to your radiator.

Josh: Oh, that's good.

Ahron: You don't turn it on, it's just on.

Josh: Oh, really?

Ahron: Yeah.

Josh: So you can't even—

Tommy: Always on. Just like TikTok.

Josh: I like that.

Ahron: Yes. Well, unless I stuff up the YouTube link.

Josh: It happens. 97 laughs. And, and so an environment like that, like we talk about left-leaning media, right-leaning media, that you've got something where it's a government-run—

Ahron: We didn't know that, to be honest. Like, we were always trying to find out who is sponsoring this, but they could look you in the eye and lie to you and— but you'd believe it. You know, we kind of knew the Kremlin must be— no one starts a 24-hour international television station in Russia without someone saying yes, right? So that's pretty, pretty certain that that is the case. But you know what, don't go thinking that things are that much different here. That's what I learned.

Josh: It's just different. It's run by the Kremlin.

Ahron: Yes, it's run by the Kremlin. They're joining us now.

Josh: And so the— so going into that environment, if you're getting marched out from a simple use of language, what does that mean?

Ahron: We had the AIDS bus, would you believe? That was the first thing. The first thing that happened when we arrived in Moscow was we all got put on a bus and taken to a clinic where they could test us for HIV.

Josh: Really?

Ahron: Yeah, it was awful. And there was one person, I'm not going to say gender, who received a knock at the door 2 days later and was taken to the airport. Not told why. Had no idea that they had HIV. Oh my God. Yeah, that's how it worked. And so why? Well, because they are not— they ban foreigners if they have HIV from living there, 100%. And Uh, we arrived and didn't even really know— they just told us on the bus what was going on. We just thought we're going to the studio or something, but nope, we're off to this place. And it was not clean, and the needle that they were about to use on me had been used on the person before me, I might add. And there was a dog in the waiting room that was dying of rabies.

Josh: And so you obviously getting a bunch of cash for this?

Ahron: Like, so wasn't actually that much like— It was a bucketload experience, or I was a millionaire.

Josh: Is that rubles?

Ahron: The Russian currency? Yes.

Josh: And so how does— how do you even get the tap on the shoulder to do something like that?

Ahron: Well, so I had moved to the UK for love when I was 21 and had been— it was 2005 and that was a massive year in British news. So, well, European news, obviously for an Australian in the UK, you're actually the European correspondent, not the British correspondent. So Pope John Paul II died. So next thing I know, I'm off to Rome, never been there before, and I'm in St. Peter's Square reporting on the death of the Pope. I'm not religious, so that was one massive experience. Like, that was just unbelievable.

Josh: What do you do when you find out something in the news? Do you straight away go reading about it, or how do you create context for yourself? What do you mean? So you find out someone— say for instance, it's a performer, like say Elton John dies. Yeah, I don't know anything about Elton John. Uh, I need—

Ahron: how do you, as a journalist or a reporter, focus on what you do know, right? So I used to do this thing as training where I would look at a inanimate object around the house or whatever. It was actually when I would go running, you know, you're going for a run and you're thinking, what am I going to think about? And I'd look at an object and then I would give a 1-minute news report on that object that I had just seen.

Josh: Sounds like the improv that we did with Angela Rao where we— so, okay, so So you've gotten very good at doing a report of an inanimate object, I guess. Okay.

Ahron: That's how it is.

Tommy: Yeah.

Josh: Okay. So if we look at the, the plants over there, can I give something with a bit of substance? Okay. Yeah, sure.

Tommy: Hang on.

Josh: So Tommy is just leaving the space.

Ahron: Okay.

Josh: All right. What do we got?

Ahron: All right, let's see.

Josh: Okay. Okay. Yeah, great.

Tommy: Small context. This was consumed.

Josh: No context. Well, the idea is that you don't want to give context. So, this is the object and you can describe it and the whole thing. And so, give us the minute report.

Ahron: Okay, well, I've just been handed some late-breaking news here. It's called the Lil Nitro, the world's hottest gummy bear. I have no idea where this does come from, but according to people who've just brought it in, it was sitting on the shelf just across the aisle from where we are right now. Now, this is not a product that you would necessarily see at a Coles or a Woolworths. Perhaps it could be somewhere that you might see in the middle of the Aldi aisle., but not something that you would often see anywhere else. What does it taste like? We're not entirely sure. It looks like the object inside has actually been consumed. So perhaps the people who are sitting here in the studio with me might be able to bring us a little bit more detail about what is happening there. From the looks of things though, it does have a warning on the front which suggests that perhaps it's not for children. And having a look more at this, it does say that the product is extremely spicy, uh, and you can actually end up with mouth irritation. So we will cheque with the with a couple of doctors who we talk to at the programme regularly to see whether or not they can give us a bit more information about this. But my advice would be to stay clear of this unless you are about to eat food cooked by a stepparent.

Josh: So good one. Beautiful editorializing, adding your own sort of voice into reporting. Is it something that you're allowed to do as a journalist?

Ahron: I think these days it's expected. So on a more serious note, you know, I've been at the anchor desk when some really tragic things have happened. And, you know, it's actually hard to even think about in these days. I really developed and found it hard. That's one of the reasons why I decided to start Ticker, which is more of a positive kind of what are people doing sort of place as opposed to death and destruction. But like, I think of all of those times we've had in Melbourne over the past couple of years where someone's run people down with a car. And I remember it was like a Friday afternoon this one day, and a report came. You always sit on, you know, the anchor desk with, with Twitter. And while the report's happening or something, a package is running, you just have a look to see. And there was one report from someone that I know and find quite credible saying there's a whole bunch, bunch of people on the ground. And then there was another tweet just seconds later saying the police— there are gunshots in the CBD.. And that, given there were two people who don't know each other, I felt that that was enough to say something's going on. So I remember like the director saying to me, you've got 10 seconds. I'm thinking, what do you say? I don't know what's going on. I can't say it. But you look up to camera and you pull it together and you say, you know, we are seeing reports that there's an incident going on in Melbourne CBD at the moment. We're going to take a break as we try and clarify more from the police. Now, there are some who don't like journalists who jump at things before having too much information. When I lived in London, the BBC had brought in this new rule that they wouldn't put news to air unless they had two confirmed sources that were independent of each other, that were government sources, forgetting that usually in the case of an emergency, the government can actually be the worst place to get your information from.

Josh: Slow.

Ahron: Well, slow, scared of doing the wrong thing, scared of royal commissions, scared of repercussions. So on the day of the London bombing on the 11th of July, 2005. I was living in Brighton, south of London, and Sky News came on and they said there's reports of an explosion at a substation at King's Cross Station. And everyone in the UK had been expecting there was going to be some sort of terrorist attack. So I switched over to the BBC, which is what you're always told to do in a crisis. Nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing. Nothing at all. Went back to Sky and they were reporting, you know, people were sending— it was very early days of mobile phone cameras and people sending through footage, people sending through photos. There was obviously an explosion on a train. And then we started hearing that there were more substations and a bus. Back to the BBC, nothing. And anyway, I straight away went to the train station to get to town. I couldn't get to London because they'd shut down all the train stations. They decided that this was an attack, so therefore everything was being shut down. A friend of mine drove me in and I was going live to Neil Mitchell on 3AW back home in Melbourne as it was happening. No idea, no internet on your phone to be able to find out what's going on. You were experiencing it and reporting what you were seeing. Not these days where you can sit in your lounge room and report what someone else on the other side of the world is telling you. So my experience is that in a crisis, you really have to trust your gut and not do what you think is the right thing to do. To me, that's journalism.

Tommy: And for nowadays, cancel culture, the fires, like the information we're seeing, the them coming out, fireys saying this is wrong, that's been spread, this information, like what's the due diligence now?

Ahron: Black Saturday, I was on air. We were the only news organisation back then, 2009. ABC News 24 hadn't launched. And it was a Saturday. We'd had a whole bunch of fires.

Tommy: I—

Ahron: we were based at Channel 9 in Richmond, and I'd set up a makeshift studio on top of the roof. And I was actually out with some friends on that Saturday to be my first day off because we'd had so many fires leading up to that. 40— we'd had like 10 40-degree-plus days. So we were all kind of expecting something, but this was my first day off in a long time. And I got a call at 2 o'clock in the afternoon saying, you know, you've got to go in, everything's gone to hell, like it's crazy. So rush into the office setting up a studio while I'm on air. It was unbelievable. And I'm on my own at this point as well. And all of the information we were getting was suggesting that the worst of the fire was actually in Bendigo when it wasn't at all. And Channel Nine, Tom Steinfort, who's now on 60 Minutes, they helicoptered him in to Marysville. And that was the first we found out that the whole town had been wiped out. So be careful is my view. On relying on authorities during a crisis. I know that sounds counterintuitive to everything we have to say, but from my many experiences, you— I'll go to a house fire, right, and I'll be told the victim was a 5-year-old girl, and 2 days later we find out it was a 97-year-old man. Like, that's not us talking, geez, making the mistake there. That's us listening to what we're being told. Everyone's human, everyone makes the same mistakes, whether they're in a position of power or not.

Tommy: It's like the eyewitness statement, this thought that that isn't that credible based on someone being there, which you'd think is the most credible.

Ahron: 100%. And if you hear the same thing from different people, that's why Twitter's been great. Like there were— I remember when I first discovered how great Twitter was, Melbourne Airport kept having all of these incidents with power, but you'd ring Melbourne Airport and they tell you, no, nothing's going wrong.

Tommy: Can you ring Melbourne Airport?

Ahron: Possibly. Yeah, they've got a media line and and you'd ring them and they said, no, no, no, what are you talking about? But then you'd look on Twitter and there'd be people who don't know each other taking photographs of the airport with no power. And so that's enough for us to now be able to go around and say, well, this has happened.

Tommy: Do you think it keeps people or society more accountable based on smartphones?

Ahron: And oh yeah, for sure. I think everybody's scared of Twitter these days. Everybody is scared of what could happen. Everybody is It's, you know, for something which is only used by 2% of Australians, it certainly has a very powerful voice in the world of journalism. Good or bad, I'm not sure. I've actually unfollowed a whole bunch of people and not in a bad way or because I don't want to hear what they have to say, but more because it's actually nice post being in that bubble to have a little bit of space.

Tommy: Yeah.

Josh: Is it true though that your phone notifications get a bit crazy when there is a news storey breaking. Because we've had reports breaking, breaking news.

Ahron: Does sort of blow our phone blows up. My phone does not stop ever. Like it's, it's actually, I put my phone on my watch. I'm actually trying to get rid of my watch. I have this theory.

Tommy: I'll take it, mate.

Ahron: That every, every founder needs to have this ridiculously expensive watch that someone's given them. You only wear sneakers or RM Williams boots and you ride around on an electric scooter, which He's got—

Tommy: I met him at the front door. Really?

Josh: Oh yeah, the scooters.

Ahron: Yeah, it's solid. Now I am told that they're illegal to ride, but my answer would be it's illegal to be a startup founder without an electric scooter. So that cancels out the rules.

Tommy: Just on the startup thing, yesterday we were speaking with Simon Taylor, just talking about the pitch and startups. A pitch is very much associated to a startup, that sort of you know, that area you need to come in with the business model and know all the cheques and balances. A lot of startups are going for funding, so they gotta know their business back to front. How's your pitch on Ticker?

Ahron: Well, we didn't go in for funding at all. Like, we haven't tried to get funding. In fact, when people try and invest in Ticker, we say no thanks because I personally believe that that is a great way to minimise the amount of effort you put into it for a quick amount of bucks. And frankly, my view is get to revenue as quick as possible and expand thanks to revenue, not thanks to people coming and rescuing you. That has been a really interesting journey throughout all this because I know people who are the Silicon Valley startup founders who believe that, you know, SoftBank will come and sponsor you losing $5 billion a year. I don't understand how a company losing $5 billion a year can be worth that much, but that's just my view of the world. Tickr is a place where you can be informed about what you need to know, but realising that not everybody needs to know everything, right? So we are news and business news and tech and innovation and startups, and but we're also a business lifestyle channel. So we're not just going to— we— our pitch essentially is we're not for the CEO, we're for the people who work for the CEO who one day want to become the CEO. Yeah, simple as that. Because there are so many— when I watch CNBC or Bloomberg, and I used to work for Sky News Business, and I've seen Your Money, etc., and they all fell over. And as sad as that is for the people who work there, my view is that if you make a channel for CEOs, what's your available audience exactly? And aren't they too busy running the company to be watching TV?

Tommy: They should be.

Ahron: Well, they should be too busy. Yeah.

Josh: Do you think mainstream media focuses on the, like, lowest common denominator or whatever it is? Like the—

Ahron: No, I don't think so. I don't think there's, like, a deliberate attempt. I've never ever been told, you know, dumb that down at all. I think that when I said to you earlier about how I could tell you a 5-hour storey about something and you said, could you give it to me in 2 minutes? That's all the audience has time for. That's as simple as that. It's, can you try and cut this down because people have short attention spans. The iPhone has made journalism harder in the sense that long form's gone out the window. Look what happened to Sunday Night, or how hard it is for 60 Minutes to be able to, to win the ratings. People just want really quick and fast. Channel 7 launched this new, um, uh, news streaming thing. I thought it'd go for an hour. It goes for like 6 minutes. And even then, Channel 9 said, oh, Facebook's given us all this money to launch a news service, um, and the majority of people aren't even getting to 20 seconds. That's how it is.

Josh: Do you think that the, you know, the classic, if you ask people what they want, they'll say a faster horse. Do you think that people know what they want? Do you think the audience knows? And do you think that there will ever be a correction?

Ahron: I don't know if they know what they want, but they know what they like. And our job is to address what people like, which is a current trend. Otherwise you're going to go out of business. But it's also so when I decided to launch a streaming channel, I've got this great mate who works for CBS in America and he's an Australian guy, he's wonderful, and he's literally shouting at me, why are you launching a linear channel? People just— people don't even want an anchor anymore. They just want like a 10-second video on their Facebook that's square-shaped, that— or vertical even, he'd prefer— that just has text and some music that you don't listen to. And I'm like, well, that's what everyone's doing. And how do you stand out in that? And how do you get credibility as a new entrant if all you're doing is text and videos and music? My view is that part of Ticker, of course, has to be text and videos and understand the consumers on the train don't want to sit there and watch, you know, a long, long, long show. But you also have to have the credibility side which comes from doing that. So if you keep your costs down, if you're smart about where you put your infrastructure and the way that you manage it and the people you bring on, you can actually be both but do it in a cost-efficient way, which is what you have to be if you're a streamer.

Josh: Does Ticker have a worldview?

Ahron: Uh, it— I get to choose the hosts and I choose people who are fun and who aren't too serious, who are actually positive. We have this show called 30 Life Crisis, and it's actually my favourite show on Ticker. I love all the shows, but this is the one that came from my heart. And it's about people who are in their 30s who are in a corporate job, and, you know, they may have loved it. They came out of uni and they got a job in their 20s, and then they got a wife and a kid, and— or kids, or a partner, who knows. And, uh, they get into their 30s and suddenly they stop getting pay rises, and they stop being the favourite of the company and they're at home and, you know, the house needs more money. They need more money for the kids to go to school. And you go to work and you're not feeling the love that you used to get. And then you start to realize, wait a minute, I'm now too expensive. I now want to spend more time with my family, but I need to be paid more. And this job is never going to pay me. And that is the world we are currently in.

Josh: Uh-oh.

Ahron: So we call it the 30-life crisis because so many people are in it.. And as, as the host Dr. Steve Endicott says, as you get older, the X grows bigger on your back as they're trying to get rid of you.

Josh: The interesting thing, I guess, with that is it's when you think about the midlife crisis or quarter-life crisis, as they say now, normally it's around the individual having a realisation of I need to change all these things. What I think is interesting about this perspective that you're talking about is it's actually also how you're being perceived as well.

Tommy: 100%.

Ahron: And there's nothing more frightening than that feeling of going to work, trying harder, and feeling that they don't actually really want you there. And no matter what you do or how hard you try, they don't really want you there anymore because you're now too expensive and lazy.

Tommy: And so this show explores the experience and—

Ahron: no, it actually is to help people to change their lives before they get the tap on the shoulder. So it's about— it's actually really— he's a positive psychologist So while I'm painting what the problem is, we're not about the problem. We're actually about how do you leave your job without giving everything up and starting with nothing? And his point is he's actually an accountant as well. Would you believe an accountant can be a positive psychologist? I usually have to visit one after the other, but his whole perspective is start slow, come up with a side hustle, grow it, but don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. For me, I had to throw myself into ticker. You can't exactly work for a television station while running one on the side.

Tommy: Yeah.

Josh: Future of work, uh, an ageing population. Obviously there's the, the—

Ahron: and robots, AI.

Josh: And so with— so the 30s, like, obviously there's, there's a real opportunity of a change of course. You still have the majority of your life ahead. If you're in your uh, mid-60s and you're not ready to retire, uh, where do you see the future of work landing for the older population?

Ahron: Yeah, it's a good question. I was— I'm 37 and I, uh, wanted to do this for a very long time, but it's very hard to walk away from a job that you love and people that you really care for, etc. So when the time eventually came, and it was challenging, it was hard, uh, it was about realising that there was only one thing that I liked and only one thing that I was good at. My job had always been my hobby. You know, when a lot of people go into a job and it's to make money and to pay their bills, and then they're kind of unhappy, but the money and the toys that they buy make up for it, right?

Josh: The scooter.

Ahron: The scooter. That's it. That's it.

Josh: Now you can have your toys and be happy.

Ahron: Correct. Correct. And, you know, I've got this brand new AutoQ that is arriving today that I am so excited about.

Josh: Which one is it? What have you got?

Ahron: It's an Autoscript 15-inch EPL, and I bought it from America off eBay, and it literally has been visiting every single state on the way to us. It's like high-fiving its mates at all the TV stations across America. One piece before it heads back to— it's sitting in Dandenong South right now.

Tommy: It's gone.

Josh: Is it in the warehouse?

Ahron: The wheels are gone.

Josh: At least it's on bricks.

Ahron: That's sitting somewhere and I'm off to pick it up after this. And, and I'm so ex— because it's my hobby, it's my passion. So my view is, um, and I've got a dad who's 59 who got taken out of school at 14, um, love him to pieces, but I've always kind of gone, Dad, why didn't you change your career? You're a painter and decorator. Like, his dad was a painter and decorator. And your body gives up on you one day. You, you think that you've got 10 years and you may only have 1 or 2.. And so my view has always been that you have to follow your passion. There's— if Ticker stuffed up tomorrow, the lessons that I've learned would be valuable to someone who would hire me, hopefully. But secondly, imagine if I didn't do it. Imagine the, the regret, the angst that I would have if I carried on doing something that I didn't love, working really hard. So I would like people to see that and to say, well, Like, 2019 was a really crazy year for me. And but the lessons that I learned from that were like, I'll remember for the rest of my life. Starting Ticker has been unbelievable. The people that I've worked with, you know, like guardian angels who just arrived and went, we're going to help you with this. And I am a journalist. I'm hopeless at money. Like, I enjoy— we sit in these meetings at Ticker that you have to do when you're the CEO, right? And I just sit there with like a bottle of wine just going, keep talking to me.

Josh: What do you like?

Ahron: About all this money.

Josh: What sort of wine?

Ahron: Well, I don't remember because I drink that much during these meetings that I'll just drink any of it.

Tommy: Remember the colour?

Ahron: Oh, it was, I think, white, I think possibly maybe red. But you know, that's, that's my view. And learning about all these things, like I was so scared. Imagine starting a business and not being able to pay the bills. Like, how do you pay the bills? What bills am I going to get? But you just pick it up. Like, all the things that I was scared of have happened, but I got through it. And that's what is so great about jumping off the cliff.

Josh: What about, uh, going slowly and going far, uh, versus quick expansion?

Ahron: I— people would often say, where do you see Ticker in 6 months' time? And I wouldn't answer because I was scared that I would manage to get myself to do it within 3 weeks. But that was what was happening at the start. We, we started off with this show and it was really rough, but I was quite happy it was rough. I wanted it to be as rough as possible. I didn't want to launch with this beautiful product that I'd spent 12 months preparing for. My view is, why wait? Why wait to perfect it? People understand. They actually— when you're doing a show celebrating the startup community what better than show what it's actually like when you're a TV station starting up yourself? So, um, my, my guess— yeah, my point on that is that, um, you just have to jump in and give it a go, and, and who knows what will happen.

Tommy: Well, Seth Godin says if you're launching with a perfect product, you've waited too long or something.

Ahron: Oh, and a lot of people know it's going to be the perfect product. Like, look back at the iPhone, the first iPhone. Yeah, what a disaster. We all thought it was great at the time, but compare it to what we've got now and probably what we got now is terrible compared to what we'll get. Like, you have to evolve, you have to change. We've been on air for 3 months. We're on to our third set. We've— we're on to our fourth audio box. We've got 3 different types of cameras. We're upgrading all the time. Like, every day I'm challenging myself to what needs to be done better. I spent— and you get better at it, right? So it took like a month to get the graphics package right the first time around because I love to create graphics. Find it just so peaceful. And yet on Tuesday this week, this is technically my holiday, I redesigned the whole thing from the ground up, every single thing. And yet what took a month now only takes a day because that's what you learn by doing it.

Josh: And so what happens if you're arriving before the audience in regards to what they want?

Ahron: Then cement yourself because everybody else will follow and you need to be in a position of strength and to back yourself. Before they get there.

Josh: Because I guess a lot of ideas, a lot of businesses where we look back, you can, you can see even versions of timing, timing within the US where it's like the early 2000s. Like I'm always surprised. I'm like, what we're doing, nothing new. But a lot of things happened and then died based on them just being way ahead.

Ahron: Persistence. It's all about persistence, right? So if you have stumbled on something before people are ready for it, then it really is about persistence. But don't stand still. Like, Ticker is different today than what it was. I look at the business plan from 3 months ago and I'm like, that would have failed. Like, if I had stuck with that— we often say to ourselves, like, I've worked with people who are really stuck in their views, and sometimes it pays to trust your gut. Yeah, but my view has always been, why is your gut instinct more important than mine?

Tommy: What's your thoughts on need, like having— so there's two ways. You come up with the business plan or the vision for 6 months, or there's the first business plan and then writing it. Are you actually constantly cementing the 6 months with the idea that you will evolve or will iterate?

Ahron: So my view on small business is a bit like my view on relationships. Never ask tough questions, just make it work, right? And it has to work for now. Like a relationship, people's relationships aren't the same for the entire journey from when when they met to marriage to 6 months to 6 years to 12 years on. The view, my view of Ticker is that where it is today is where it has to be today to survive. Where I want it to go isn't where we are right now, of course, but we have to be profitable. So we've had to find ways to make money. Our original way of being profitable wasn't going to work. It was quite clear. And we didn't take 6 months to figure that out because we didn't have 6 months. Decided that we knew we had an audience, we knew that there was an untapped audience. When you know that there's someone there, it's just developing the product to get to those people, and it might take a really long time to do it, and that's fine. So then you have to create, uh, the income and the revenue streams to get you to that point. So we figured out what would work, what people would pay for, and while we're waiting for the consumer to buy an app at a time where they're probably being inundated with app choices. Don't make your business model about buying an app was what we discovered pretty quick. And I'm really proud of that. Like, if we stuck to our guns on moral grounds, well, that's great. Yeah, but who's going to pay for your house?

Josh: Yeah. How do you define success then?

Ahron: I have never been happier in my life. I smile more.

Josh: The scooter and the scooter.

Tommy: The prompter. I've just seen the smile on his face. It's you too.

Ahron: And it's you. You silly hot gummy bear.

Tommy: Who ate this?

Josh: It was me. Yeah.

Ahron: Well, then why don't you tell me that during my ad-libbing? I could have just interviewed you about what it was like.

Josh: Yeah, I didn't want to sort of editorialise the whole thing.

Ahron: Well, now's your chance.

Josh: Yeah, no, it was—

Tommy: it was— we're throwing over to the guy that's actually eaten a Lil' Bull Nitro gummy bear live now.

Josh: It was 9 million Scoville units. It's how much hotter than a jalapeño?

Ahron: 900 times. Who's that over there, by the way? There's this person just hiding over there. He's the guy.

Tommy: He's the Russian guy with the gun.

Ahron: Well, there was actually— there was a guy in Russia who was called the output editor, and he famously always had a Kalashnikov and was— we were told that he was used to be like FSB, and his job was to make sure that what you— he watched everything that went out. And, you know, I was pretty certain at Sky that if I wanted to, I could be like, effity effity eff, effity eff, and the studio crew be like, 10 seconds. Yeah, yeah, no, everyone was great. I have to say that drastically.

Josh: Otherwise, I can't wait to get to the point where, like, I don't have to do anything for contracts. Yeah, you know what I mean? It's sort of annoying.

Ahron: Yeah. Well, ticker's great now. I sit there and we were drinking on that on the, on the set to start with. We'd have this lunchtime show where it was myself and a couple of chicks and we just sit there talking about business news over wine and I'm like, sounds great. Well, and then I realised that probably is great for me when I'm in a meeting with my CFO. Yeah, but the audience probably doesn't enjoy it.

Josh: But who is that?

Tommy: That's Mr. 97. He's our producer. He's, he's one of the best humans.

Josh: Yeah.

Tommy: Going—

Ahron: is that contractually obliged or—

Tommy: that's his job title. Yes.

Ahron: Best human. Wonderful.

Tommy: Fantastic.

Ahron: Very good.

Josh: Yeah. I think that like, um, like what you've discovered, you need good people within the thing that you're doing.

Ahron: Yeah. And, and Steve Antiquette, um, the guy that I was saying who hosts 30 Life Crisis, like all of these people become great. And I have to tell you The secret to the mediocre success of Ticker, you know, I'm not going to say where this giant star— I'll never say that— is that I started a business which is about shows hosted by successful business people giving tips. So one might suggest that every now and then the topics of their shows that I've given them are things that I need to work out and don't want to have to just watch it.

Tommy: Exactly.

Josh: Open a bottle of wine and watch the show.

Ahron: Just sit there and I'm like, during the commercial break, they're like, any tips on why? Why don't you talk about how like a television station would deal with the ATO?

Tommy: No, I love that.

Josh: I mean, you're doing—

Tommy: having— it's like, don't be the smartest person in the room. You're getting other people.

Ahron: Oh, 100%. Like, you can learn from— I come into this and, uh, I don't really take myself that seriously with anything I do. It gets me in trouble sometimes, but I'm just one of those people. It's like, oh yeah, sure, opportunistic, why not? Let's just go to Russia and move to Russia, why not? And sometimes it's an absolute disaster. Other times, more times than not, it's worth doing. But one of the hosts, because, you know, you have to talk— I've got like 20 hosts now, and one of the hosts is like, you know, we all really just want to hear from you because you've done all this stuff. And I'm like, what? I've got you on because you're the expert. I have no idea what I'm doing. Like, and yet sometimes you're quite shocked by people, you know, put you on a pedestal. But you don't put yourself on a pedestal. You don't even look at it that way.

Tommy: It's probably a healthy thing. If you're putting yourself on a pedestal, probably wouldn't— the people wouldn't be surrounded, surrounding you because they're thinking you're a wanker.

Josh: But it's a— yeah, I mean, but it's a good perspective.

Ahron: You'll be concerned about coming across as a wanker, I think, is a really good thing. And it's what Australians like. We don't like Australians who— no, we don't at all. We call it the tall poppy syndrome, but it's the wanker syndrome. It's like, shut up, mate. Yeah, you know better than us. That's who we are.

Josh: And yeah, I think there is something powerful in the, uh, you've got something to share. Like, I mean, it's interesting if you look online, there's a bunch of derps who are sharing shit that don't know anything, right? And that's what inspires me a little bit where I'm like, oh, maybe I do have to join them more. Yeah, to join them. Yeah. Well, it's like, I think there is to take action. Yeah, to take action.

Tommy: Like there is, uh, like you'd be way more tech savvy than most people doing a tech review.

Josh: Yeah. And I guess that we we have the knowledge and so we just assume that everyone else knows these things.

Ahron: That is exactly a problem I have.

Josh: Yeah.

Ahron: Even with my business partners, you know, I would be doing things and then I'll be like, I'll be like, how do you not get that? Yeah. Like, Aaron, that's why you're doing that.

Josh: Yeah.

Ahron: Because that's what you're good at. And I just assume that everyone knows how to create a graphics package.

Josh: Yeah.

Tommy: But even run a TV station, the tangible stuff like an office, we get over this office. I mean, like, not impressed by it.

Josh: Yeah.

Tommy: To ourselves. Yeah.

Ahron: Then we understand when someone says, oh, mate, you always want something better, and that's how you get better. Like, you— if you just go, done, done, done, done, then where are you gonna go? Like, when I joined Sky, we were based in the, um, in Channel 9, which was at the time in Bendigo Street. Yeah, beautiful old building, horrific to work in. And I don't know whether Nine thought so little of us at the time But our studio, would you believe, was the former toilet to Studio 5, and our on-air sign was actually the engage sign. So that's how people would know that you're on air.

Josh: Is that true?

Ahron: Oh, 100%, yes.

Josh: The engage—

Ahron: we used to do the 5 o'clock news every day, and I'd call it the 5 o'clock dump.

Josh: Yeah, I mean, it's interesting.

Ahron: Until Julia Gillard came in, would you believe, which is like I'm not going in there. And then we got— we actually left Channel 9 and moved to the Herald Sun and went there. And then we're in the newsroom, and while we're in the newsroom there, um, you know, it was like— it was a clash of cultures, TV station, newspaper. These days everyone gets along really well, but there was a time where some of the guys in the newsroom would try and get a blow-up doll behind whoever was on air. It was just classic. It's on YouTube somewhere.. And so we left there and we moved down to our own premises. And my granddad and I, would you believe, actually built the studio.

Josh: Really?

Ahron: Yeah, because I love that sort of thing. I moved to a hippie commune with my mum for— I don't know how long it was. I was 7. It felt like 20 years. It was probably 7 minutes, but, uh, in Northern New South Wales. And I rebelled from them rebelling against society by riding my bike to the newsagents and buying— or bartering, I should say, uh, crepe paper and cardboard and making the Channel 7 news studio.

Josh: That's amazing. So what was it like, a religious thing, or what was it like?

Tommy: It was a Netflix documentary.

Ahron: The— no, it was people who are just here. I mean, it's not far from Byron Bay.

Josh: Yeah, it's just Byron Bay. What do you think this is? You're ahead of the game. Talking about ahead of the game, if you were 7 in Byron Bay, look at, look at where everything's gone now. Yeah, everyone's in Byron Bay.

Ahron: Everybody is in. It's funny that the former CEO of Channel 9 moved to Byron Bay.

Josh: Really?

Tommy: Chris Hemsworth.

Ahron: I don't know if he's building TV news sets out of crepe paper, but that's what I was doing at 7 or 8 years old. And so you just kind of have that, that passion. You know, when you're talking about the ageing population, there are things that we've all loved to do. There are things that— imagine if you got to do that for a job.

Josh: Yeah.

Ahron: My view is give it a go.

Tommy: How do you, how do you find great people?

Ahron: I find that they find you. To be honest.

Tommy: If you've got an opportunity—

Ahron: If I go on Tinder and I try and find someone, I will guarantee it will be a disaster. We—

Tommy: I remember success storeys out there, let's be honest.

Ahron: Yeah, but did they find each other, or did they— or did, did they— were they found by someone who was actually looking? Like, my view on the world is I never actually look for opportunities. The opportunities find me, and it's my job to go yes or no. Like, I've never applied for a job because How can you be the right person for a job you don't even know about? It's like winning the lottery. I'd much rather someone coming to me and saying, I really love what you're doing at Ticker. I want to be a part of that. And it's been overwhelming, the response we have. The first day we launched, because we did it as a bit of a surprise, it wasn't a secret, but I was on the train. I've been out with some mates up in Castlemaine and I was on the train home and I've been working for a few weeks on this idea of Ticker.

Josh: And you're a train guy, aren't you?

Ahron: I actually am. Would you believe I was going— my dream job as a kid was to be the train driver at Puffing Billy. That's a good job until I found out they're volunteers.

Josh: Oh no, yeah, not a good job.

Ahron: That was, that was the end of that.

Josh: How much cash you got on your Myki right now?

Ahron: Uh, I scoot. Okay, you can take your public transport, but you're only just—

Josh: how long have you had the scooter for?

Ahron: A couple of days, but it was all train before that, Ubers before then.

Josh: Do you have a Myki? Have you got a Myki?

Ahron: Yeah, but there's a chunk taken out of it. I don't— it's like someone ate it.

Josh: I don't know.

Tommy: Oh, I thought you're saying— I refer to mine as being eaten, but it's because it's in the negative.

Ahron: Yeah, yeah, just chuck those ones out. Anyway, I'm on the train on the way home and I'm like, I'm gonna launch Ticket tomorrow. I hadn't even told the business partners. I was just sitting on the train. I was like, I'm gonna do this tomorrow because, um, because it was a slow news night. I remember looking around and there was no storeys in the media sites that I look at. There was nothing anywhere. And so I thought, now's the time to do this., and we just got massive publicity the next day. And I had over 1,000 people contact me on the Monday.

Josh: Wow.

Ahron: We're trying to go to air, trying to deal with the trillions of tech challenges that are falling over around us. And you're just getting these messages from people going, wow, it looks so professional as you're holding up a light with your foot. And, and that's the, you know, that's the other aspect of it as well. Like, we know what it's like behind the scenes. We're just humans trying to make things work.

Tommy: Yeah.

Ahron: So yeah, in terms of how do you find good people, people who are persistent have never let me down. People who are as interested in your product and know about your product as you do. Like we just hired, I hired 2 people yesterday. Like so exciting to be able to actually hire people for yourself or for your company.

Josh: Big week for you with the scooter, the auto queue tomorrow.

Ahron: Yeah, today, straight up today.

Tommy: Sorry.

Ahron: Do you want to come to Dandenong South?

Tommy: Absolutely.

Ahron: Have you got the Kalashnikov?

Tommy: I'm going to have some beers.

Josh: I can go cheque out my mum works at Endeavour Hills at the dentist there, right next to Danny Brown.

Ahron: Very good.

Josh: You could pop in, get your teeth done.

Tommy: Yeah, we'll get your teeth put back.

Josh: Yeah, I need that. But yeah, go on.

Ahron: So the, so people, my gummy bears.

Josh: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the, the people, so you've hired 2 people?

Ahron: Yeah, I hired 2 people who were both people who came to me, my LinkedIn. It's actually LinkedIn. LinkedIn has been amazing for starting Ticker. I call Ticker LinkedIn television basically because it's about people who are trying to figure out what they're doing, trying to get an audience, and they seem to like what we're doing and we love what they're doing. So it seems to work really well. So we went from having no shows to 21 shows within 3 months. And in that time it was about like I would be creating openers and plasma backgrounds and and then rushing off to go to a show. And it was, it was an incredible rush. And we still are, you know, every week we're launching new shows because we have to. We're trying to get to 17 hours a day live. And it's amazing. Yeah, it's, uh, but there is a market for it. There's a market we can, we can literally identify where is an area where there are enough people. So we launched a show called She's the Boss. Would you believe there is no show in the world about female leadership? At a CEO level. There's just nothing. So we've got this fabulous woman, Jules, who, you know, works in PR. She's an absolute scream. And she comes on and interviews all of these female founders about what their journey was like, why they did it. We spoke to this woman just recently who was an Iranian refugee, would you believe it or not, who comes to Australia and finds out her husband, who she had known for half an hour before she had to marry him, was a wife basher. And now she's stuck in Australia living with this guy who bashes her.. And just hearing the storeys of people like that, it's an incredible opportunity. Things that in my career in mainstream journalism you rarely got to hear.

Josh: Podcasting is obviously the shit-hot topic. The livestreaming, potentially the cousin of the, of the, the podcast world. How do you see them all sitting?

Ahron: I have a lot of Apple products, right? So, um, I have an Apple TV.

Tommy: All the more reason to give me a watch of my rooms.

Josh: The Apple TV is phenomenal, isn't it? Like, it's a product that I feel like it's amazing. The, uh, like the apps on it specific, like KO. Yeah, I don't watch much sport, but I use— I try— I trialled it because I was just curious about this service that's got all of this sport, but I just found it amazing. Even like Facebook Watch. Yeah, being able to—

Ahron: oh, it's incredible. Interact and travel around the world with it. Yeah, it's, it's an amazing kind of thing.

Tommy: And you travel with your Apple TV?

Ahron: Well, you can if you have Facebook Watch. You can watch videos from around the world.

Josh: Do you know why it always leads with— I feel like there's a lot of stuff from the Philippines, you know, it's that like—

Ahron: it feels like there's certain countries watching at other times.

Josh: I don't know what's going on.

Tommy: What do you mean, push, mate?

Josh: I don't know, but I'm getting pushed a lot. Well, it's a lot of like— it feels like evangelical, maybe be like, uh, maybe it's a sign. Yeah, maybe I need to join something.

Ahron: Did they ask you to send them money like the ones in the name? Of course. Get closer to God by giving us all your cash.

Josh: And so, I mean, you're a part of religion, which is the Apple— which is, uh, yeah, Apple's the same.

Ahron: Give us all your money and get closer to God.

Josh: Yeah. And so you've got the Apple TV, Apple Watch.

Ahron: Yeah, correct, 100%.

Josh: You've got the, uh, iPhone. Yeah. Where does that sit within streaming?

Ahron: All right, well, my point is, is that I've got all these devices and I can end up spending forever trying to find something and not actually finding anything to watch. And I end up watching a lot of American content, not because I want to, but because it speaks to me, because they are generally 5 years ahead of where we are at. If you watch all of the things we grew up as, you know, the Channel 7 News theme belongs to NBC, and so much of our creativity that we grew up with, we didn't really create. And with Netflix coming in and being so dominant and having worked at Foxtel and, you know, seeing the effects that they're having, etc. Um, competition's always great, but do we want to live in a world where all of the professional content is now coming out of the US? Like, look at what's happening to Australian drama. You feel sorry for the Australian TV networks because how do you put on, you know, like the Blue Heelers shows that we grew up with that are $300,000 an episode, and that's a huge amount of money, up against $15 million with no ads? And you only have to pay $10 a month to get it. How are you ever going to win in that circumstance? So what I think is happening from myself is I'm noticing that I'm watching more YouTube and I'm watching— not even watching Netflix. I feel like I've watched everything I want on there. So now you kind of, you're checking out Amazon and all the different things that are around.

Josh: Such a funny flex. I've watched everything on Netflix.

Tommy: What should I watch?

Ahron: I want to watch is kind of how I feel. And I don't know how to find the new stuff because it's only— it's become an echo chamber, would you believe, where it's only showing me the things that I've already watched and you're like, ah, it'd be a good headline.

Josh: I could— if you wanted to get like the guy who watched everything on Netflix, I'm pretty sure that's a thing.

Ahron: But then there'd be like that code, wouldn't there? You know how the newspapers always have that clickbait code that will unlock all of the Netflix content you haven't yet seen? How many times do you see that story? Uh, but my point is, is that I wanted to create a channel where you could just have on in the background and it would somehow, some stage, tell you something really interesting, whether you're on the train. So we have this show, Ticket Today, which is on the train. And Ticket Today began today. It was called Morning Express, and before that it was called First Thing. Again, in 3 months we continually change the product because what we realised when we called a show Morning Express, we can't run it at midday. And we do all these great interviews that we can't run. Yeah.

Tommy: So we change the name, rename it Ticket Today.

Josh: Makes a lot of sense. Well, I'm excited because it's good seeing people doing shit, as you said, in Australia.

Tommy: Yeah.

Ahron: And in Melbourne. Yeah, that's why I'm so excited by you guys. Like, the more that we get together, um, there's going to be a business channel launching in Sydney, um, in a couple of— I have no idea when. And the first thing, as soon as I announce, people go, oh my God, what are you gonna do? And I'm like, it's awesome. I want this to happen because number one, it tells my investors that they did the right thing by getting in early. But number two, like, you don't want to be the only restaurant on a street. You want to be the best restaurant with everyone around you. So people go, oh, that's where to go eat. And then they find you. That's what you want to be. So definitely, yeah. And, and you guys being in Melbourne, and more Melbourne, like, you have a look at, you know, 3AW, this proud Melbourne institution that I worked for for such a long time. Half of it's out of Sydney now. It's just how it is. Because, and, and you look at their costs, and it's all about costs. You've got to do it cheaply. It's just how it is. You're spending $2 million on your office, right? And you're a radio station. How does anyone know where you're broadcasting from? Yeah, you could be in a shed. Wouldn't you rather spend that $2 million on local Melbourne content that you don't have to be bringing in from Sydney.

Tommy: Like, to be honest, I just don't understand it. Our audio sounds pretty good in comparison to radio. Yeah, I got furious the other day listening to radio and it went out of like— I was like, it actually just annoyed me. Yeah, how is it?

Ahron: I know, I'm annoyed at trams, we have AM radio.

Tommy: It's so bizarre. Yeah, anyway, anyway, you're doing something great, mate. Thank you, Ryan. Guys too, thank you. Ryan John's got a show on ticker, so—

Ahron: and he's joining us doing more of our social media as well, which apparently is quite important when you're running a new age business, I've discovered. So yeah, and that's— and he has just so many great ideas. Like, we caught up the other day, um, for what was meant to be half an hour and it went for like 2 and a half hours, just banging backwards and forwards. It is so exciting to be green. It is so exciting to have ideas and creativity and to be in an environment where if you go, I might try this, you don't have to run it through 500 people.

Josh: What happens? What's— what about the business that becomes in their mid-30s. What, like, have you thought about the mid-30 equivalent for business? So for instance, you talk about that sort of mid-30 crisis. As you said, you're in the green, the, the green stage right now. It's, it's, it's exciting. Do you even look that far ahead? Are there certain things that you can do now that makes it sort of—

Ahron: Oh yeah, like we have an idea of where we want to go and we're starting to put in place the foundations to make that happen. I don't think that You know, when, when Walt Disney started Disneyland, he said this will never stop changing. Like, the idea is, is where it is now is not where it will be because technology will change, improve, opportunities will arrive. My view on Ticker is we are, you know, 30% get your business news and find out what's happening in the world. We're not about BHP, we're more about Snapchat or Insta or, um, the cool tech startups that are happening in Australia. We speak to the founders, we celebrate people who are trying, you know, new ideas who don't have a voice. We don't celebrate ourselves as Australians. I'm not sure if it's because of the, the wanker policy we were talking about earlier.

Tommy: Yes.

Ahron: But we don't go, hey, I'm doing something amazing, you've got to pay attention to that. I know more about Apple's business than I do about any Australian business, and that is really sad.

Josh: Yeah.

Ahron: So we kind of want to change that. But then what we realised is for the rest of the time we're celebrating Australian stories. So therefore we actually have a franchise model that would work in other countries. And so that's where we're going.

Josh: Super exciting.

Tommy: Yeah.

Josh: Awesome. Well, we'd love to get you back on the show on a regular basis.

Ahron: I feel like there's an opportunity to have to speak to my agent, Ryan John. Ryan John. I'm also his.

Josh: So it's a daily talk show. Definitely cheque out Ticker. Where's that? Where are people streaming it the most?

Ahron: So ticker.tv.com.au. We have an app, we have Twitter. So if you follow us on Twitter, it's always live at the top of your little Twitter thing. That's actually, would you believe, the place that I find it the easiest to get the content.

Josh: Uh, do you know who's big on live Twitter? Uh, Scientology.

Ahron: Donald Trump.

Josh: And have you— no, Scientology, seriously, always on Twitter. They're on, they're pushing.

Ahron: So hang on, you get your Scientology from Twitter, you get the Filipino Christians.

Josh: I don't know what's going on at the moment, but yeah, there is a— very interestingly, like when I go on the Twitter feed, they're always promoting. And it is that live— there is something very powerful in being able to just jump in and start watching it really fast.

Ahron: Just jump in and go. Yeah, I find that to be, to be fantastic. And as I say, we just want to be a place where you can come watch, have it on in the background, have it in your office, or have it on at home when you're getting ready in the morning, have it on your phone when you're heading into the office, and, and basically just get a snapshot of something fun, some good Australian stories.

Josh: Awesome. Uh, The Daily Talk Show, 7 days a week. Feel free to subscribe on Apple Podcasts or on YouTube as well. If you enjoyed the show, leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, that's always appreciated. Otherwise, see you tomorrow, guys.

Tommy: See you guys.

Ahron: Bye.