0:03
It's the daily Talk Show Episode 575 we got Aaron young

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in the building,

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like 575 people to get to me a

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real question.

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Where are you guys? He got mine it was uh

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yeah, I don't know it was your live streaming and when you live streaming chantek funky Yeah, you would have been at Sky still

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on us? Yeah hundred percent so you've I mean you've spent some time in front of the camera

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a fair bit of time I think it was like 30 hours a week on air in front of a camera. Yeah, you do like six seven hour shifts at once on a weekend and then the quarters news on either side of that and you get home when you wouldn't even get home maybe you'd lose your voice halfway through the shift

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and make up

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the do it yourself. Yeah.

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And doing ticket so now you've got a company called ticker what you doing streaming? Do you bring all of these things like Make up to us to a streaming service.

1:03
Yeah, like you're always checking 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?

1:15
So all that fun, basically that goes on with a startup

1:18
Well, I think these glama that people think is a part of the live TV or saying TV and even news so when you were a reporter, is that what the job reporter anchor you know,

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bureau chief, so it was a bit of everything. I always I did you know, work the chapter

1:33
in Georgia. I worked in radio champion, but I was employed as a an announcer but I think it's just so they can shuffle around if they because they can like fire you or they can 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 yeah, across the books,

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you've spent time old we won't put your exact title. Because then if we remove that, yeah, does For that was a lesson I've learned for tickers firing people. You're just a person.

2:06
You've spent time in Afghanistan.

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Yeah. 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 IDF. 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. What happens with visas? Oh, we had done the visa on that was I could spend five years telling you about the visa process. Well, it was just backwards and forwards and 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 had this system of people, pretending To be me to go pick up this visa basis so our grace and otherwise was gonna go It was one of those. If this doesn't work, I'm not going to Afghanistan moments

3:09
what I got hot deal the F garni embassies is like, yeah expires in three hours you better be here.

3:18
It was the Afghan embassy. Yeah, that was it. And as well as the US Embassy, there was a lot going on to get you don't just fly on in.

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So you work at you going to Afghanistan The next day, your report is being used to being behind a nice, you know, bench anchoring and

3:33
are not necessarily my first major overseas job was going to the Thailand tsunami in 2004 or five. That was like my second ever time overseas. I've gone on a holiday to London, which was great. And the next thing I'm arriving at a place where quarter of a million people have been killed. It's that was Yeah, that was and I was like 21 years old. So scared like doing live cross. I was working for three A w 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 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 real. But yeah, that's that's journalism.

4:22
And so I mean, putting your boots on to go to somewhere like Afghanistan, the you understand what's going on there. But it's a different thing than going to somewhere like Thailand where the devastation happened. And you and there's, you know, it's not happening anymore. It's happened and it's via natural disaster, which is a war zone. Oh, yeah. We don't know if there's going to be missiles flying down at you.

4:44
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.

4:53
What's the banter on the planet lock, or is it no band?

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

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So it wasn't like you cuantas you weren't saying you yourself do I'm still waiting for my complaints to be handled by the

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know. So you arrive at like four in the morning. First thing at this base. It's where all of the internationals are. Where did you fly from? From Melbourne to Sydney to Darwin to pick up a lot of troops and then straight the 15 hours direct? Well, 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 like whereas my Porter

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where's my priority tag? You're going into your bunk beds,

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man. And so you get to your bunk beds and then all you have time to do is drop your stuff and you go into these 12 hour sessions for four days to train you to train everyone about what it's like what's an ID I got to fire weapons, just in case we're in a convoy they get Taken I'd never fired a gun before. So I was looking at it and said they want you to be able to pick things up and actually fight by 100%. Yeah, you were taught how to put 200 K's 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 four days treated me. I guess I had to like I was one of them because I was going into their workplace.

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How many journalists are there?

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The IDF 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 that is Sarah Today's the day you're flying in. So you go to this C 130 Hercules and you sit there for waiting like you think Jetstar and tygra bad just wait until you fly the IDF 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 four 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 parts and things and you're sitting there watching and they always always the pilots are in constant communication with the tower. So I always had a medium line with the 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 literally went through someone just recently as we were coming into land. And you don't know if they're joking or not, if this is some sick army human to deal with what they're dealing with, or whether it's real, but it was actually real and the way the plan actually comes into land. It's vertical. It's not like you're 20 minute we're going to come into 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 flat and minimise time flying. Yeah, yes.

8:06
Yeah, we've had Andrea clock on who talked, talked about that similar experience, the war and muse. There's obviously when there's a war, it seems like 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?

8:31
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. Other things that you that unfortunately occurred that I think we all kind of feel that way. But the Secrecy Act and all of the stuff like Australia, even IDF 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 and I said what, Rupert? Now I know No, sir. Because when he was famously in Turkey and glibly, he reported back what was actually going on. And from that moment on the IDF 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 he filmed the American soldiers, 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 he can. You have to that's the role of the media. That was not my experience.

9:44
Yeah. And so when you see things and then you just 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?

9:58
Well, the Iran situation has 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 in the tensions and the cultural differences, etc. I had a hairdresser actually, a little while ago who was Iranian

10:18
Emporium?

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No, no,

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because I think for him, I had a Persian dude who was my hairdresser and we had some good banter about Persian food anyway. cashton bottom June is my favourite digital into the box.

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And he, you know, was asking him about it just as if you met someone from Iraq, you know, he'd been what's happened on Afghanistan, you'd be like, you know, what's, what's it actually like for you? And their response to 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 that not many people support Trump in America. Not many people support Scott Morrison in Australia. It's not everybody. And so the government's in places like That 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 were forgetting that they really good people who aren't that dissimilar to us caught up with a government who just don't like out. That's how I look at

11:18
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 I my simplifying it to leave Oh,

11:35
well, obviously, he's the president and won the popular vote. You know, there's no doubt about that. 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 are See themselves on the world stage. And everyone's got a story 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 organisations. 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. That doesn't necessarily make it perfect. All right.

12:29
So how do you consume us in a sceptical way?

12:33
Well, I make sure that I follow people that I don't agree with. I think that we are great risk at the moment of 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 whatever you can end up only path 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 Jonah, 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.

13:36
So if you've got someone from, you know, the CNN, and then another broadcasting outlet, and JP Ryan Shapiro, so you've got two journalists, not Ben Shapiro, he probably sees himself as a bit of a journey, but they So generally, journalists should be curious and non bias and, and not have children, but we're human. Yes. I start having

13:59
you Everyone says that the ABC is bias, right? I don't think the organization's bias. 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 say, and what they read what they don't point out. And that's how, I guess he can get to that stage. And when people say, Well, you know, it's my personal view, that's totally fine. But I think that it's always going to be an ongoing battle. And 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.

14:34
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 can 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, build a case around this guy. was an absolute terrorist. And then you see the other side which is coming the angle of Trumps in power. He's loose unities, you know, shooting missiles, he's could be starting world war three. And then if we even framed our own Pete we could frame our own government as terrorists based on actions,

15:18
one man's heroes another man's terrorist. Right. We grew up hearing that all the time. And I think that when you have a look at some of the people who are at that in Iran this week who have been 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 great people, but we're seeing hundreds of thousands of people getting behind this guy who the United States. You know, I'd never heard of his name before hand on I don't know about you guys, at my knowledge. didn't really have personalities in the Middle East doesn't really go past Israeli 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 Australia know about Ariel Sharon, and how can you carry it on in a breaking news environment for 45 minutes? 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 believe that it would flare up the cameras or some rubbish, anyhow, I'm sitting reading the there was nothing on the autocue because they all you get told is eretrians gone into 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,

16:57
which only connection to Israel is harmless and yellow.

17:00
Anyhow I'm looking behind you know you're looking at the camera behind the camera is a studio door and there's this commotion while I'm on here and I'm thinking now is not the time guys and what had happened is a producer had gone to the printer and it ran out of pink paper and they only had white paper but the floor manager was refusing the produce that to bring it in and pulls out a gun on now you don't

17:25
you don't come into my studio with that.

17:30
White Paper Russia

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Yeah, in Russia for white paper.

17:35
And so how do you how do you go speaking 45 minutes around shit that you're probably not in a position to talk about.

17:43
Hmm,

17:45
I think it comes back to that mix of imagine what would happen if I didn't.

17:50
They got us going again.

17:54
And so then you say you have like the you also have the filter of I feel like the the older I get, the more I raid, the more I realised that I don't know anything and all the massive gaps in my knowledge and then so it can be hard maybe to fully communicate it like so for instance, if you're talking about a specific event, the language that we use is so important. And so for instance, like a calling someone a terrorist has all these connotations and potentially, if someone,

18:28
you know, we had people fired or RT Russia today, because they refer to the Chechen separatists as Chechen rebels. I'd heard the term Chechen rebels many, many times. And as Westerners, there are 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 a side 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 new. They wanted a skills that didn't want our beliefs.

19:00
So when you going into an environment like that as a journalist

19:04
It was really tough like I actually found it a really and and this was widely known I mean there's so many people left during our first year they they left for moral reasons they left for the fact that it was a third minus 37 degree winter for three months if you have good wages. Yeah, really good actually know that pump hot water through the city. So it just comes to your radiator. That's you don't turn it on. It's just on.

19:28
Oh, really? Yeah. So you can't even always just like like that.

19:32
Yes. Unless I stuff up the YouTube

19:37
97 lassies. And, and so an environment like that, like we talked about left leaning media, right leaning media, you've got something where it's a government run.

19:50
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 that one starts a 24 hour international TV 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.

20:17
It was just a fair is run by the Kremlin.

20:20
run by the Kremlin bit joining us now. And so the so going in to that environment, if you're getting marched out from the simple use of language, what does that mean? We had the bus Would you believe that was the first thing the first thing that happened when we arrived in in Moscow? Was we all got put on a bus and taken to a clinic where they could test us for HIV? Really? Yeah, it was awful. And there was one person I'm not gonna say gender who received a knock at the door two days later on was taken to the airport. Know Why hadn't had no idea that they had HIV. Oh my. Yeah, that's how loud Yeah, so what why? and Why? Well, because they are not they banned foreigners if they have HIV from living there. 100 percent and 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 note, 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.

21:19
And so the so you obviously getting a bunch of cash

21:22
for this like so. It wasn't actually that much. Like it was a bad experience. So I was

21:28
a millionaire.

21:30
Russian

21:31
Yeah, it's a currency. Yes.

21:32
And so how does how do you even get the tap on the shoulder to do something like that?

21:37
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 we'll European is obviously for an Australian in the UK. You're actually the European correspondent, not the British correspondent. So pope john paul the second 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.

22:12
What do you do when you find out something in the news? Do you straight away Go reading about it? What how do you create context itself? What I mean? So you find out some way to say for instance, it's a performer, like say, elton john dies. Yeah. I don't know anything about elton john. I need a How do you as a journalist or a reporter focus on

22:34
what you do know, right. So I used to do this thing as training where I would look at unanimous object around the house or whatever it was actually, when I go running, you know, you're going for a run anything you want, I'm going to think about and I'd look at an object and then I would give a one minute news report on that object that I had just sounds like

22:51
the improv that we did with Angela. Sorry. Okay. So, so you've gotten very good at doing a report of an inanimate object.

23:00
I guess Okay, that's how it is.

23:02
Yeah. Okay. So if we look at the, the, the plants either

23:07
kid with a bit of substance, okay.

23:11
So Tommy's just like a the guys. Okay. All right, what do we got?

23:16
All right, let's see.

23:17
Okay. Okay yet great.

23:20
Small context This was consumed with

23:23
no content. No, we will the the idea is there. I don't want to give context here. So this is the object and you can describe it in the whole thing. And so give us the minute report.

23:35
Okay, well, I've just been handed some live breaking news here. It's called a little Nacho, the world's hottest gummy bear. I've 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 Cole's or Woolworths. Perhaps it could be somewhere that you might see in the middle of the 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 is actually being 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, 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, and you can actually end up with mouth irritation. So we will check with with a couple of doctors who we talked about 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 step parent.

24:37
So beautiful editorialising adding your own sort of voice into reporting. Is that something that you're allowed to do as a journalist?

24:47
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. And these days I really developed and found a 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 around people down with a car. And I remember it was like a Friday afternoon this one day and a report came up sit on, you know, the anchor desk with with Twitter. And while the reports 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 of 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 that to 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, 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. 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 to jump 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 would government sources, forgetting that usually, in the case of an emergency, the government can actually be the worst place to get your information so slow, 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 site station at Kings Cross Station, and everyone in the UK have 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 straightaway went to the train station to get to town couldn't get to London because I'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 new Mitchell on three w back home and Melvin 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 saying. Not these days where you can sit in your lounge room and report what someone On the other side of the world's 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.

28:11
And for nowadays kancil culture, the fires like the information we're seeing the them coming at fari saying this is wrong that's been spread this information like what's the now Black Saturday I was on

28:25
it. We were the only news organisation back then 2009 abc news 24 had launched. And it was a Saturday we'd had a whole bunch of fires. I were based at Channel Nine 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 had so many fires. Leading up to that forward we'd had like 1040 degree plus days. So we're all kind of expecting something but this was my first day off in a long time. And I got a call at two o'clock in the afternoon saying you know, you can Gotta 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 Steinfeld, who's now on 60 minutes, they helicoptered him into Marysville. And that was the first we found out that the whole town have been wiped out. So be careful is my view on relying on authorities during a crisis? I know that sounds counter intuitive, everything we have to say, but from my many experiences, you all go to a house fire right? And I'll be told the victim was a five year old girl and two days later we find out it was a 97 year old man, but that's not 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.

29:57
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, hundred percent.

30:09
And if you hear the same thing from different people, that's why Twitter's been great like they will 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're telling you know, nothing's going wrong. Can you run me over an airport? Possibly yet? I've got a media line and and you'd bring them and I 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 say, well, this has happened.

30:39
Do you think it keeps people or society more accountable? Based on smartphones? And

30:45
oh, yeah, for sure. Everybody's scared of Twitter these days. Everybody's scared of what could happen everybody is it you know, for something which is only used by 2% of Australians, it's certainly as a very powerful voice in the world of journalism, good or bad on Not sure I've actually unfollowed a whole bunch of people and not in a bad way 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 yeah

31:15
is it true though that your phone notifications get a bit crazy when there is a news story breaking

31:22
because we've had reports

31:24
breaking breaking guys to blow our mind blows on

31:27
my phone does not stop ever like it's it's actually a put my phone on my watch. I'm actually trying to get rid of my watch. I have this theory that every every every founder needs to have this ridiculous expensive watch that someone's given them. You only wear sneakers or Aaron Williams boots and you ride around on an electric scooter which

31:50
is met him at the front door. Oh yeah, that's great.

31:53
Yes, solid. No, I'm told that they're illegal to ride but my answer would be it's illegal to be a startup founder without a millennium it

32:01
cancels out the rules, just on the startup thing. Yesterday, we were speaking with Simon Tyler, we're just talking about the pitch in startups. A pitch is very much associated with to a startup that sort of, you know that that area you need to come in with the business model and know all the checks and balances. A lot of startups are going for funding so they get another business back to front. How has your pitch on ticker?

32:28
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 tickle 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. ticket 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 are 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 the Sky News business and I've seen your money etc. And they all fell over and and as you know, sad as that is for the people who work there. My view is is that if you make a channel for CEOs, what's your available audience? Exactly. And are they too busy running the company to be watching TV? I should be?

33:55
Well, they should be too busy.

33:56
Yeah. Do you think mainstream media focuses on the, like, lowest common denominator or whatever it is like the

34:06
No, I don't think so I 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 five hour story about something and essentially give it to me in two 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 is going 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 SEVEN launched this new new streaming thing. I thought it'd go for an hour it goes for like six minutes. And even then Channel Nine said our Facebook's given us all this money to launch a new service. And the majority of people aren't even getting to 20 seconds. That's how it is.

34:56
Do you think that the you know the classic if you asked What they want, they'll say faster horse. Do you think that people know what they want? Do you think the audience knows? And do you think that they'll ever be a correction? I don't know if they know what they want,

35:13
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 man who works for CBS in America. And he's an Australian guys 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 square shaped that all vertical even he 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 ticket Of course has to be text and videos and understand that 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 the 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,

36:26
does ticker have a world view.

36:30
If I get 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 ticket. 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, that 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 Kids or a partner who knows, and they get into their 30s. And suddenly they start 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 realise, 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. So we call it the 30 life crisis because so many people are in it. And as as the host, Dr. Steve etiquette says, As you get older, the x grows bigger on your back as they're trying to get rid of you. The interesting thing I guess with that is that when you think about the midlife crisis or quarter life crisis, say Now, normally it's around the individual having a realisation of I need to change all these things. What I think's interesting about this perspective that you're talking about, is this Actually also how you're being perceived as 100%. And there's nothing more frightening than that feeling of going to work trying harder and feeling that that aren't actually really want you there. And no matter what you do or how hard you try, that aren't really want you there anymore because you're now too expensive and lazy.

38:20
And would you so this show explores the experience and no, it actually

38:23
is to help people to change their lives before they get the tap on the shoulder. So it's about it's actually a 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 in accounting 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 in particular, you can't exactly work for a TV station while running one on the side.

39:04
Yeah. future of work, an ageing population. Obviously, there's the the

39:11
end robots AI.

39:12
And so with it, 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 mid 60s and you're not ready to retire. Where do you see the future of work landing for the older population?

39:30
Yeah, it's a good question. I was. I'm 37. And I 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. 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 kind of unhappy but the money and the toys that they buy make up for it right? The scooter, the scooter that's it.

40:09
Now you can have your toys and be happy, correct?

40:10
Correct and you know I've got this brand new autocue that is arriving today that I am so excited about Which one is that? What if it's an auto script 15 inch EPL, and I bought it from America off eBay. And it literally has been visiting every single state on the way it was. It's like high five mates at all the TV stations across America face before it heads back to sitting in dandenong South right now that's gone

40:40
in the way the wheels ago breaks

40:45
that's sitting somewhere and I'm off to pick it up after this and I'm so excited because it's my hobby. It's my passion. So my view is and I've got a dad who's 59 who got taken out of school at 14 I love him to pieces but I've always kind of gone Dad, why didn't you change your career a painter and decorator? like his dad was a painter and decorator, and your body gives up on you one day, you think that you've got 10 years and you may only have one or two. And so my view has always been that you have to follow your passion. There's if ticker stuffed up tomorrow, a 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, 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 when we're going to help you with this, and I'm a journalist, I'm a hopeless at money, like to help you Enjoy. We sit in these meetings, a ticker that you have to do when you're the CEO right? And I just sit there with like a bottle of one just keep 20 What do you like? What about this money? What's the wine? Well I don't remember because I drink meetings it I'll just drink any of it remember the colour? It was I think what made me read but you know that's that's my view and learning about all these things. 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 the all the things that are scared of have happened, but I got through it. And that's what is so great about jumping off the cliff.

42:42
What about going slowly and going far versus quick expansion?

42:50
I people would often say where do you see ticker in six months time and I wouldn't answer because I was scared that I would manage to get myself to deal with it. Three weeks. That was what was happening at the start. We started off with a 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 my guess yeah, my point on that is that you just have to jump in and give it a go and and who knows what will happen

43:36
when Seth Godin says if you're launching with a perfect product, you've waited too long or something?

43:41
Oh, no, no, 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 compared to what we've got now, and probably what we got now is terrible compared to what will get like you have to evolve. You have to change. We've been on air for three months. We're on to our third set. We've we're on Twitter Fourth audio box. We've got three 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's 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's is technically my holiday, I redesign 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.

44:31
And so what happens if you're arriving before the audience in regards to what they want?

44:39
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.

44:48
Because I guess a lot of ideas, a lot of businesses where we look back, you can you can say even versions of timing in the US you were it's like the early 2000s like I'm always surprised. I'm like what wait Doing nothing new but a lot of things happened and then died based on them just being way ahead.

45:05
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 ticket is different today than what it was. I look at the business plan from three months ago. And I'm like, well, 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, my view has always been Why is your gut instinct more important than mine?

45:39
What's your What's your thoughts on knee like having so there's two ways you come up with the business plan or the vision for six months, or there's the first business plan and then riding it you actually constantly cementing the six months with the idea that you will evolve all will iterate so

45:59
my mind 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 they met to marriage to six months to six years to 12 years on the view, my view of ticket is that where it is today is where it has to be today to survive. Where where I wanted 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, like and we didn't take six months to figure that out. Because we didn't have six months, we 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 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 a 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?

47:25
Yeah. How do you define success then?

47:28
I have never been happier in my life. I smile more Skoda and

47:35
seeing the smiles.

47:36
It's YouTube. You silly hot gummy bear.

47:42
It was me. Yeah. Why

47:43
don't you tell me that? I could have just interviewed was like,

47:46
I didn't want to sort of editorialise what now's your chance.

47:50
Yeah, that was that was me throwing it over to the guy that's actually not just joining us.

47:55
Live now. It was non million scale, scalable, scalable, scalable, scalable. units it's it's how much hotter than a jalapeno 900 times.

48:04
Who's that over there? By the way, this is person you just hiding over there.

48:09
The Russian god of the gun?

48:12
Well that was actually there was a guy in Russia who was called the output editor. And he famously always had a Kalashnikov him was we were told that he was used to be like, FSB and his job was to make sure that what he watched everything that went out and you know, I was pretty certain at Sky that if I wanted to, I could be like, fit fit fit. And in the studio crew be like 10 seconds.

48:36
was great. I have to say that draft really

48:44
do anything for contracts? Sort of annoying?

48:48
Yeah, well, tick is great. Now I sit there and we would drinking on that on the on the set to stop. 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 one 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 but who is that?

49:08
That's Mr. 97. He's, he's, he's one of the best humans. Yeah. Going,

49:14
is that contractually obliged, or?

49:15
That's his job title.

49:18
Wonderful. Fantastic. Very good.

49:20
Yeah. I think that like, Mike, what you've discovered you need good people. Yeah. And the thing that you really

49:27
yeah. And and Steve undercut the guy that I was saying, who hosts 30 life crisis. 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 there's giant style. 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 a things that I need to work out and don't want to have to

49:59
just watch it You

50:03
just sit there and during the commercial break any tips and why? Why don't you talk about how like a TV station would deal with the A to

50:12
know, how are you doing? It's like don't be the smartest person in the room you get 100%

50:17
on from, I come into this. And 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 I show opportunities to 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 that 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. And yet sometimes you 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 That way

51:00
probably 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 banker,

51:07
but it's, I mean, but if

51:09
you're a big be concerned about coming across as a banker, I think is a really good thing. And that's what Australians like. Yeah, like, Australian sir. No, we don't at all. We call it the tall poppy syndrome, but it's the banker syndrome. It's like, shut up, man. Yeah, you know better than us. That's who we are.

51:24
And yeah, I think there is something powerful in the you've got something to share it like a I mean, it's interesting. If you look online, there's a bunch of sort of sharing shit that don't know anything. Right. And that's what inspires me a little bit where I'm like, I'm maybe I do how to join them or to join Oh, yeah, well, it's like, I think there is action. Yeah, to take action. Like there is

51:47
like you'd be way more tech savvy than most people doing a tech review.

51:51
Yeah. And I guess that we we have the knowledge and so we just assume that everyone else knows that.

51:57
That is exactly what might have. Yeah. I even with my business partners, you know, I will be doing things. And then I'll be like, I'll be like, how do you not get that? Yeah, like, that's why you're doing because that's what you're good at. And I just assume that everyone knows how to create a graphics package. Yeah,

52:14
but it runs TV sexual intangible stuff like an office, we get over this office. I mean, like, not impressed by Yeah. to ourselves. Yeah. And we understand when someone says, I always want something better.

52:25
That's how you get better like you. If you just go dun dun dun dun. Then where are you going to go? Like when I joined sky We were based in the in Channel Nine, which was Bendigo straight. Yeah. beautiful building. Terrific 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 five. And our on air sign was actually the engage sign that you're on air. Is that true? You're 100% Yes. Good. I used to do the five o'clock news every day. And I call it the five o'clock dump. Yeah, it's interesting. So Julia, Gilad, like, I'm not going in there. And then we've got, we actually left Channel Nine, and moved to the Herald Sun and went there. And then we're in the newsroom. And while we're in the newsroom that, 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 a 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? Really? Yeah, because I love that sort of thing. I moved to a hippie commune with my mom for I don't know how long it was. I was seven it felt like 20 years it was probably seven minutes. But in northern New South Wales and I rebelled from them rebelling against society by riding my bike to the news agents and buying a boxing. I should say crepe paper and cardboard and making the channel seven new studio.

54:05
That's it. So what was it like a religious thing was it was it was flicks documentary?

54:11
No, it was people who are just he is not far from Byron Bay.

54:18
subscribing Bye. You're talking about head of the guy if you're seven in Byron Bay, look at look at where everything's gone now. Yeah, everyone's environment.

54:28
Everybody is it's funny that the former CEO of Channel Nine moved to Bombay. I don't know if he's building TV, new sets out of crepe paper, but that's what I was doing at seven or eight years old. And so you just kind of have that that passion you when you're talking about the ageing population, there are things that we've all love to do. There are things Imagine if you got to do that for a job. Yeah, my view is give it a go.

54:52
How do you how do you find great people?

54:55
I find that they find you to be honest. It's good enough. on Tinder and I try and find someone, I will guarantee it will be a disaster. We are using

55:05
stories out there let's be honest.

55:06
Yeah, but did that errands?

55:10
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 fine job to go. Yes, I know 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 ticket 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 and are trained a lot actually. 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 the volunteers on

56:00
Not a good job was that was the end of that how much cash I got on that you Mikey right now?

56:03
I scoot. Okay, you can take your public transport.

56:10
You're only just telling them you had the skirt a couple of days. But before that before no have a mic here we got a mic you have

56:18
Yeah, there's a chunk taken out of it. I don't

56:21
I don't know. I'm saying I refer to mine is being eaten, but that's because it's a negative minus

56:27
one. Yeah. 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 I'm going to do this tomorrow. Because because it was a slow news night. I remember looking around and there was no stories 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 1000 people contact me on the Monday were trying to go to were trying to deal with the trillions of tech challenges that are falling over around us and just getting these messages from people going well 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. Yeah. So yeah in terms of how do you find good people, people who are persistent, have never let me down to people who are as interested in your product and know about your product as you do. Like we just hired I had two people yesterday, like so exciting to be able to actually hire people, for yourself or for your company is waiting for you,

57:33
with the skirt Skoda

57:34
the autocue tomorrow.

57:36
Yeah, today, straight

57:37
off today. Sorry.

57:42
I'm gonna have some BS.

57:44
Go check out my mom works in Beverly Hills at the right next day. Good. You could pop in you take that? Yeah. But yeah, come on. Yes, yeah. You saw the the the people

58:00
So you've hired two people. Yeah, two 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 TV, 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 three months. And in that time, it was about like, I would be creating openers and and plasma backgrounds and 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 music. Yeah, it's a bot. There is a market for it is 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 Jones 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. And we spoke to this woman just recently who was an Iranian refugee, would you believe it or not, it 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 stories of people like that. It's an incredible opportunity things that in my career in mainstream journalism, you rarely got to hear.

59:41
podcasting is obviously the hot topic. The live streaming, potentially the cousin of the podcast world, how do you see the mall sitting?

59:57
I have a lot of Apple products right so I have an Apple TV all the more reason Give me one of my rooms the

1:00:06
Apple TV is the nominal Isn't it like it's a product that I feel amazing the like the apps on it specific like it kayo yeah I don't watch much sport by use I try I tried it because I was just curious about this service that it's got all of this sport but I just found it amazing even like Facebook watch yep being able to

1:00:27
it's incredible interact and travel around the world with it yeah it's it's an amazing kind of thing and the travel with your Apple technically they are you can if you watch you can watch videos from around the world wide always late but

1:00:39
I feel like there's a lot of stuff in the Philippines you know, it's that light it feels like there's certain camaraderie watching

1:00:43
it other times.

1:00:45
What's going on even push behind? I don't know I'm getting pushed a lot, but it's a lot of like, if it's like evangelical maybe like,

1:00:53
I was a son. Yeah, my benefit joins us Did I ask you to send the money like the ones in the course.

1:00:59
God, like giving us oil cash.

1:01:02
And so I mean, you're part of a religion which, which is

1:01:07
give us all your money and get closer to God. Yeah, it's

1:01:09
got the Apple Watch. Yeah, you can correct it 100% you've got the iPhone.

1:01:16
Yep. Where does that sit with in Australia? 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 five years ahead of where we are at. If you watch all of the things we grew up, as you know, the channel seven news theme belongs to NBC and so much about creativity that we grew up with, we didn't really create and with Netflix coming in and being so dominant, having worked at foxtel, and you know, seeing the effects that they're having, etc. competitions always great. But do we want to live in a world where all of the National 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 you ever going to win in that circumstance? So what I think is happening for myself is I'm noticing that I'm watching more YouTube and I'm watching not even watching Netflix or feel like I've watched everything on one on there so now you kind of you checking out Amazon and all the different things that are around you funny flicks have watched everything

1:02:37
Yeah.

1:02:39
What you want to watch is kind of how I feel and I don't know how to find the new stuff because it suddenly it's become an echo chamber Would you believe where it's only showing me the things that I've already watched anyway?

1:02:48
It'd be a good headline I could if you want to get like my watch I who watched everything on Netflix.

1:02:54
But then they'd be like that code wouldn't there. You know how the newspapers always have that clickbait code that will unlock The Netflix content, you haven't yet seen how many times you see that story. 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 three 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. So we changed our name,

1:03:33
rename it to get today.

1:03:34
It makes a lot of sense. Well, I'm excited because it's good seeing people doing shit as you said in Australia. Yeah.

1:03:40
And in Melbourne. Yeah, that's why I'm so excited about you guys. Like the more that we get together. There's going to be a business channel launching in Sydney in a couple of months. 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 you know But number two, like you don't want to be the only restaurant on the street, you want to be the best restaurant with everyone around you. So people go, Oh, that's where to go eight. And then they find you that's what you want to be. So yeah, and and you guys being in Melbourne and more Melbourne like you have a look at you know, three NW this proud Melbourne institution that I worked for for such a long time. Half of the data city now it's just how it is because and and you look at their costs, and it's all about costs, you got to do it cheaply. It's just how it is. You're spending $2 million on your office. Right? And your 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 from Sydney? To be honest, our

1:04:43
audio sounds pretty good in comparison to right yeah, yeah. I'm 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 I

1:04:56
am radio

1:04:58
Yeah. Are you doing something great night? Thank you, Ryan. John's gonna show on tick. So and he's

1:05:05
joining us doing more of our social media as well, which apparently is quite important when you're running your business I've discovered. So yeah, that's and he has just so many great ideas like we caught up the other day for what was meant to be half an hour away from that two 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,

1:05:32
what happens? What's that? 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 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

1:05:56
Oh, yeah, like we have an idea of where we want to go and we're starting to put in place The foundation's 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 will 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 the HP, we're more about Snapchat or Insta or 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 Australian. I'm not sure if it's because of the the the Bank of policy, we're talking about it? Yes, yes. 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. Yeah, 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.

1:07:05
super exciting. Yeah. Awesome. Well, we'd love to get you back on the show. on a regular basis. I feel like there's that opportunity to

1:07:11
have to speak to my agent. Ryan, Ryan, john, is

1:07:17
a daily talk. So definitely check it out. Take out Where's that? Where are people streaming at the most? So ticket tv.com that are you. 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

1:07:35
to know who's big on live Twitter, Scientology, Donald Trump and I've eaten no Scientology seriously, always on Twitter, those on the pushings

1:07:44
hang on you get you get a Scientology.

1:07:47
Villa villa. You know.

1:07:50
I don't know what's going on at the moment. There is a very interesting way like when I go on the Twitter feed, they're always promoting entities that live there is something very Powerful in being able to just jump in and start really fast. Just jump in and go. Yeah, I find that to be to be fantastic. 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 basically just get a snapshot of something fun, some good Australian stories.

1:08:22
Awesome. The Daily talk show seven days a week. Feel free to subscribe on Apple podcast or on YouTube as well. If you enjoyed the show, leave us a review on Apple podcast that's always appreciated. Otherwise say tomorrow, guys.

1:08:33
See you guys bye