Steve Hunt, Group Production Director, Austereo Radio Network, Adelaide, South Australia
Over the past couple of years, we've heard some outstanding production on RAP Cassettes from "down under." A lot of what we've heard has come from several of the Austereo stations of Australia. This month, we visit with the Group Production Director for this highly produced chain of top rated stations.
R.A.P.: Tell us where you started in radio and how you wound up at SA-FM.
>Steve: I started in radio on the tenth of "Rock-tober" in 1975 at a station in Perth called 6PM which was the number one station at the time. I started in the carting area with aspirations of becoming a jock. But, once I actually got into radio, I felt I had a much greater interest in getting into the production area. I decided that jocking wasn't a life that I wanted to live. I showed a bit of flare for production and basically took it from there. So, I did carting for about six months, then our Production Manager decided to take four weeks holiday. I was moved into production to fill in while he was away. Unfortunately, he never came back from holidays. So, that's basically how I got into production. I was made Production Manager of 6PM when I was seventeen, and I worked for them for about eighteen months.
Then one of the television networks, Channel 9 in Perth, rang me and offered me a position as the senior audio guy over there. So, I went and worked in television. Within about six months, I had decided that I absolutely hated television because, in those days, they had no respect or care for the sound. It was all pictures, and the only time they ever noticed sound was either when it wasn't there or there was something grossly wrong with it. The rest of the time it was, "let the pictures do the talking."
I worked at Channel 9 for a year, then 6PM rang me and asked if I'd come back and be Production Manager again, which I did. About a year later, the company that owned 6PM was having problems with a agency production studio in Melbourne that we had just spent a lot of money on. They had invested about a hundred thousand dollars in a very nice studio. It was targeted directly to outside agencies as a production house for them to cut national campaigns and stuff like that. But it was only doing about eighty dollars a week in studio time. So, the powers that be who ran the company from the east coast decided to send me on a twelve-month loan basis from Perth over to the production studio they just built in Melbourne. By the end of the twelve month period we were doing between a thousand and fifteen hundred dollars a week in agency studio time. We turned that around, and it became quite a renowned production house.
R.A.P.: How was this production house equipped?
>Steve: We had two 24-track music studios in the same building. They were basically jingle and album cutting studios. I got to work on a couple of albums, not as the major engineer, but in an assistant's capacity. I was only about nineteen at this stage. I learned a lot about music production then and actually got to engineer a few singles myself later on. This experience was fantastic because I got to learn about different mike techniques and different sorts of microphones -- the sort of microphones you use to record strings versus the mikes you might use to mike drums. I also learned about acoustics and got a much more in depth training on compressor/limiters and other outboard gear. I learned more in that twelve months than I think I learned in the three years prior.
R.A.P.: Was it back to Perth after this?
>Steve: Yes. My twelve months were up, and the station in Perth was screaming to have me back. I was at 6PM for another year or so.
Then, a job came up at 2UW in Sydney. The station, at the time, was number two in the Sydney book. I had always wanted to work in the Sydney market, and I felt, "Hey, if I'm ever going to have a go at Sydney, now would be a good time." I had plans to go to Europe and travel with a mate of mine for six months when this job came up, but I sent the station a demo tape anyway. The Program Director, Ronnie Sparks, rang me up and said, "I think you're too good for the job, but would you like to come over here and work for us?" That was one of the nicest compliments I ever got. I was just flabbergasted. I thought, "Sydney thinks I can make it over there and make it easily!" So, I packed a bag, and I was on a plane. Europe had to wait. In hindsight, it was a great career move. From the moment I got to Sydney, things pretty much started to happen for me. I've sometimes sat back and wondered what I'd be doing now if I had decided to wait until I got back from Europe. The opportunity might not have arisen. This is a pretty hard business to crack, and when a great opportunity comes up, sometimes it's best to grab it and grab it hard; then run hard with it and do your best. If you put in and are surrounded by good people and happen to have a bit of luck on your side, your career can really take off.
R.A.P.: What happened after 2UW?
>Steve: I was at 2UW for about fourteen months. There's a little story behind what happened next. This goes back to when I was working at 6PM in Perth. At that time, all the big international acts touring Australia would come through Perth first, and they'd work their way across to the east coast. At the time, one of the big promoters had an ex-jock/Program Director by the name of Trevor Smith working for them, doing all their promo spots for their big acts that would be coming to town. At that stage it was acts like Fleetwood Mac, Peter Frampton, The Eagles, and The Doobie Brothers. Trevor, being involved with the promoter, would cut all of his national promo spots with me in Perth. We worked very well together, and he was very happy with the standard of stuff I used to put out for him and his promotion company.
When I went to Sydney, I didn't see Trevor for nearly a couple of years. Then I ran into him at a rock concert. He was pleased to see me and said, "What are you doing in town? Are you on holidays?" I said, "No. I live here now, and I'm actually working for your opposition up the road!" At the time, he was the Program Director for a new FM station called 2-Triple-M in Sydney. I think they were number three or four in the market. FM in Australia was quite new at the time. Anyway, two weeks later I was the Production Manager at 2-Triple-M FM.
I spent from about 1983 to 1988 at 2-Triple-M FM. About six months after I joined the station, we went number one. We were probably the great radio station in Australia. Everyone aspired to work at 2-Triple-M FM in Sydney.
We had a breakfast guy called Doug Mulray and a very, very strong lineup across the day. Doug Mulray is the most brilliant jock I've ever worked with. He basically has been the king of breakfast radio in Australia for the last eight years. I used to produce a lot of his comedy for him, and I used to produce all the station promos. We had two studios at Triple-M. I worked in the 16-track studio, and we had an 8-track studio that knocked out the direct commercials, agency tags, donuts, and stuff like that.
R.A.P.: What happened after 2-Triple-M?
>Steve: By this time I was about thirty years old, and I thought I had something to offer as a Program Director. There were no real opportunities for me within the group that I was working with. The company I now work for, Austereo, had known of me, so I rang the Group General Manager of Programming, Greg Smith, who is now my boss. At that stage, their group was becoming involved in a new FM station that was opening up on the Gold Coast called SEA-FM. I said, "If you're looking for a Program Director up there, I'd like the job." He rang the Managing Director of the company that afternoon, I think, and about two weeks later I was employed as Program come Production Director at SEA-FM on the Gold Coast; I wore two hats. We went number one first survey -- from zero to about a 24 share. In the second book, we went from 24 to 33.3, and I was getting less and less time in the production studio and more and more time behind selector screens, buried in research, music logs, jock rosters and talking with promoters.
All that sort of stuff is great fun, but my true love, my real skill, is in the production studio. I was missing it. At that period, Austereo had just bought an AM station in Brisbane called 4BK, and they were converting it to FM. It's now B105-FM. Greg Smith said to me, "Why don't you come work for Austereo as Group Production Director based out of B105 in Brisbane?" I said, "You got me." So, I took my 33.3 percent and ran like hell and went to do production.
We had about four months to set up B105 before conversion, and we basically rebuilt everything. We put in all new philosophies. We were up against a radio station that had been the sole FM-er in the marketplace for about ten years. They had been up to about a 30 percent share in a seven station market. When we arrived, they were at about a 27 percent share. These figures could be a little out, but they're pretty close. Within about two surveys after we converted B105, we had 28 percent and they had 14. We ran them out of town, and the station's success has gotten better since. It now has about a 31 percent share, and our main opposition is down to about a 7 or 8.
B105 was a magic radio station and still is. We had a guy who is easily one of the best Program Directors in the country now. His name is Brad March. We had a great music man and great promotions people. The production area was working well, and all the jocks were and are fantastic. It's just one of those magic formulas that fell together and was destined to succeed, and thankfully, it has kept going.
I spent about eighteen months in Brisbane at B105-FM. Austereo, the company who owns B105, is run out of Adelaide in South Australia. They asked me to move down here at the head office and the flagship station which is SA-FM, and I've been here for about a year now.
R.A.P.: It sounds like your career has been full of a lot of fun and a lot of success.
>Steve: I've been very lucky to work, most of the time in my career, at great radio stations. And hopefully, I've been a part of helping make them great, but it's never one person. It's always a group of people.
R.A.P.: Let's touch on your programming stint for a minute. A thirty-three share in two books is something we're not real familiar with in U.S. radio. What kind of programming philosophy do you feel is responsible for that kind of success?
>Steve: Well, it's very simple. It's listener driven. It's giving the people what they want and telling them that you care about what they want. It's about as simple as that. That's the philosophy of Austereo. Let's face it; you can go into long-winded explanations about this and that, burn factors and all sorts of stuff, but if it's not listener driven, then in the nineties, you're dead.
R.A.P.: You mentioned that FM was new to Australia around the time you were at 2-Triple-M. When did FM come to Australia?
>Steve: FM hit Australia sometime around the commencement of the eighties.
R.A.P.: When FM first came on in the U.S., particularly in the fifties and early sixties, primary formats were classical music and news with few commercials. Then came rock and roll on FM with an "underground" approach that targeted an almost cult-like audience. Was it the same in Australia in the beginning?
>Steve: No. FM started out as a commercial, money making venture. People were hungry for the new technology, and FM wasn't there to accommodate people with alternative music tastes. It was mainstream FM. At first, it had a perception of being a bit cooler and more elitist than AM was. It was a little more album track oriented initially, but people soon realized that radio is radio is radio.
R.A.P.: What stations are in the Austereo group?
>Steve: We have 2DAY-FM in Sydney, FOX-FM in Melbourne, B105-FM in Brisbane, SA-FM in Adelaide, FM104.7 in Canberra, SEA-FM on the Gold Coast, Triple-T FM in Hobart, and HOT 100 in Darwin.
R.A.P.: You visited the U.S. not too long ago. When was that, and how long were you here?
>Steve: I was there for about two weeks in 1987. It was an educational visit to check things out. Some of the stations I visited were KIIS-FM and KHJ in L.A., KOME in San Diego, KFOG and K101 in San Francisco, and WNEW in New York.
R.A.P.: What knowledge did you take home with you?
>Steve: I discovered a few things. As far as production technology goes, Australia definitely leads America in the way we equip our production studios. When I was in the U.S., very few stations were running multi-tracks, and the way I understand it now, multi-tracks are still not in all stations. In Australia, having multi-tracks is like having jocks -- you've got 'em.
To give you an example, the only station I saw a multi-track in while I was there was KIIS-FM, and they had an 8-track. As successful as they were, with Rick Dees and everybody, I would have thought they would have had an amazing setup. It probably has changed now, but at the time, I noticed a lot of the production was basically being done on 2-track in a spare on-air studio with maybe one piece of outboard gear at an on-air console, and the guys would go in and read the spot themselves then add some music or a sound effect or whatever.
We do production totally differently here. We have producers, and we have jocks. Most of the time, we don't double up on that. Our night jock won't be our Production Director.
R.A.P.: Do the jocks do anything more than just voice commercials and promos?
>Steve: Not usually. They concentrate on their shifts and are out on the streets. They're concerned mainly with the programming and promotions of the radio station. Although, they do work for production and voice promos and the in-house, direct commercials. But, in the major markets, jocks aren't the production people.
Here's an example of the way we treat production in Australia. In Melbourne at FOX-FM, we're just about to put in our third 16-track. That's three 16-tracks in one radio station. We have one 16-track studio for programming which handles promos and crew jingles and stuff like that. Then we have a 16-track studio that will handle all the direct, in-house advertising for local clients as well as some agency work. The third studio is a studio we have called Austereo Productions, where we make our own syndicated shows. We have our own syndicated programs which we air throughout our group and also market to other radio stations across Australia. We make our own Top-40 countdown called The Rock-40 Countdown. This is a four hour show which goes to air every week on about forty radio stations. We have another show we call The Party Hard Club which is a nonstop, six-hour musical extravaganza that basically happens on stations on Saturday nights where we don't really run jocks. We run wild production tricks and sweepers and lots of music.
These are two syndicated shows that come out of Melbourne. They're also responsible for producing a series we have called the Word On series, like the Word On Motoring and the Word On Health. Austereo Productions is there to do stuff like this for our network as well as other radio stations in Australia.
In Sydney, we have a 16-track and an 8-track studio at 2DAY-FM. That's about to become two 16-track studios. In Brisbane, we have a 16-track and an 8-track. In Adelaide, a 16-track and an 8-track. In Canberra at FM104.7, a 16-track and an 8-track. On the Gold Coast at Sea-FM, there's a 16 and an 8. At Triple-T in Hobart we have a 16-track, and at HOT-100 in Darwin we run an 8-track. So, as you can see, we spend a lot of time and money on the technology to give us killer production. What we're after is killer production, all the time. And we don't cut any corners as far as providing the equipment, the backup, and the resources to give us the best possible production at all time.
R.A.P.: Tell us a little about your position as Group Production Director and how you work with the other Production Directors in the group.
>Steve: We're the only network in Australia that has a Group Production Director. It's sort of a landmark thing in Australia because the other networks basically have Production Managers who are responsible for their own stations. I oversee production for all the stations within the group. The radio stations each run themselves, and each guy at each station is responsible for that station; but it's my job to keep in touch and make sure things are going the way they want them to. But I'm not someone who sits behind a desk all day; I'm still a hands on producer.
We share ideas, and it's up to me to get the best ideas out of all the guys. It's up to me to give them every opportunity to make the best stuff they can; and where and when it works, we share it around. They teach me things, and I try to teach them stuff. My role is more of a teacher now. I've been doing production for seventeen years, so I'd like to think I've got enough experience to be cast in a role like that. I'm also a support mechanism for what they're trying to achieve. I try to be across all the new technology. I do budgeting for stations. I advise on what we should be looking at spending money on in the next financial year, what production libraries we should be looking at. I work very hard to make sure the Production Directors in each of our stations are heard and understood and are given every opportunity to give the radio stations what it is that's most needed.
R.A.P.: Tell us a little about the Austereo philosophy as it relates to production.
>Steve: Austereo considers production very important to the imagery and the way you position your radio station. The Production Directors in all of our radio stations have respect. They attend executive meetings. They're responsible for handling their own budgets which they are given and have to stick to.
One of the philosophies of Austereo is that we have teams, not departments. We have our own version of the RAP Cassette. It's our network production tape, and every month, or as close to every month as possible, we get the best promos, commercials, crew jingles and IDs from each station. They're all sent to me, and we put together a network tape. Then we just bounce the tapes around the network. All the Program Directors get them. All the Promotions Directors get them. Obviously, all the production guys get them. It's an idea sharing. We share script ideas. We share production techniques. If our guy in Sydney comes up with a great production trick, and I don't know how he did it, I can get on the phone to him and say, "How the hell did you do that?" The secret is to share and pool resources.
Production has changed so much since I first got into it. When I first got into radio, the production guy was the weird guy who was deaf, who always walked in dressed in sand shoes, jeans, and a T-shirt. He was the first to arrive and the last to leave, the least thanked, and usually wandered out of the building at about two o'clock in the morning mumbling to himself, "What a great edit I just pulled off!"
Now, production is so important in radio, and my philosophy on it is this: the production guy in any radio station is responsible for up to eight to twelve minutes per hour of the way your radio station sounds. Your hottest breakfast jock doesn't get that much time. Elton John doesn't get that much time. John Cougar Mellencamp doesn't. Those guys aren't getting that much time on the radio, but production does. And back to the artists -- John Cougar Mellencamp or Bruce Springsteen or Def Leppard or whoever -- they sound exactly the same on your FM station as they do on another FM station. It's the part you do in between that separates you. And if your jocks are right, your promotions are right, and your packaging is right, you must win, providing all the key issues fall into place. So, production is something we take very seriously within our group, and we've got the results. I mean, we're number one in Sydney, number one in Melbourne, number one in Brisbane, number one in Adelaide, number one on the Gold Coast, number one in Hobart, and number one in Darwin. And we're number one because we try, and we get every area right -- programming, promotions, sales.... That's not meant to sound conceited. It's just meant to show how serious we are about trying to do radio right.
R.A.P.: Are the other stations in Australia, outside of the Austereo group, equipped with 16-track studios? Is that pretty common?
>Steve: It is. Multi-tracks are pretty much the order of the day for nearly every station in every major market, including news/talk stations.
R.A.P.: And are these studios more 16-track than 8-track?
>Steve: There are probably more 8-tracks around than 16-tracks.
R.A.P.: How are the stations in the group staffed as far as production goes?
>Steve: We have basically three producers and a carting person at each station in each of the major markets. The Production Director usually handles promos, IDs and the main programming production. Another guy will run another studio and handle all of the direct commercial production. We have a crew producer as well who is also an engineer. They're the guys who produce whatever our crews need for the morning shows -- jingles, song parodies, comedy skits. Then we have a carting/dubbing person who is responsible for carting all the commercials for the station, doing research tapes, carting all the promos, all the IDs.... Everything that is made within the radio station goes through him to be processed for on-air. So, we have four people under the production banner at each radio station.
This is basically the way it's done in Australia. This is not something that is unique to Austereo. Well, that many people may be unique to Austereo, but Australian radio has Production Directors, direct production producers, and carting people. It's been this way since I first started in the industry anyway.
R.A.P.: That's a major difference between Australian and U.S. radio. At the majority of U.S. stations you find production departments staffed with just one person who might also have an air shift, and maybe a few jocks help out after their shift. Practically every U.S. Production Director knows if they had two or three full-time producers working with them and had two or three 16-track studios to work in, they could get their station sounding infinitely better. But many owners and managers don't see the value in this. They seem to have an attitude that says, "We're just talking about the commercials and promos; it's not like we're talking about the jocks or the music. And besides, this is the way we've always done it, and it has always worked just fine." Maybe a few of them will read this interview, read about 30 shares and top notch production, and put two and two together.
>Steve: Unfortunately, a manager that has that attitude about production might have to walk down to production one day and ask the guy to cut a commercial for him saying, "This radio station is for sale."
R.A.P.: Who does the writing of the commercials and promos?
>Steve: We pool resources there. Producers write scripts. The jocks write scripts. The promotions people write scripts. The Program Directors get involved in script writing. If we want a fantastic nighttime promo, then we might get the night guy to get across that one because he knows better than anybody what people need to hear at night. The morning crew writes their own crew promos. Production guys and jocks will get together and write concert promos. We have comedy writers that write just for the crew in each station. They're the guys coming up with the comedy in the morning. Again, it's a team effort.
R.A.P.: How many people does SA-FM employ?
>Steve: About forty-five. It could be a bit more with part-time Black Thunder drivers because we have five Black Thunders out on the road.
R.A.P.: What are Black Thunders?
>Steve: They're our promotional vehicles. Throughout our whole group we have vehicles we call Black Thunders that go out and assault the suburbs en masse giving stuff away and doing public appearances. They're Nissan 4-wheel drive, all terrain type vehicles with the big, fat tires, big mags, bumper bars, and they're all sign written. Basically, they're our mobile billboards.
R.A.P.: Most U.S. stations only have one, maybe two, promotional vehicles.
>Steve: We have five in Adelaide, six in Sydney, six in Melbourne....
R.A.P.: What's the population of Adelaide?
>Steve: About a million and a half.
R.A.P.: What does a spot on SA-FM cost?
>Steve: A hundred and thirty dollars for thirty seconds. Most of the advertising in Australia is sold in thirty second increments. In U.S. dollars that would be about a hundred and ten dollars. You can buy preferred time for two hundred and sixty dollars for thirty seconds.
R.A.P.: What's SA-FM's current market share, and how many stations are there in Adelaide?
>Steve: We currently have about a 25 share in Adelaide. There are about seven stations in the market.
R.A.P.: What production libraries do you use for promos and commercials?
>Steve: We utilize Brown Bag throughout the group. All our stations use Brown Bag, and we buy Brown Bag market exclusive. Other libraries, like Techsonics and Turbo Techsonics are bought market exclusive by other stations, so we don't have those libraries at all our stations. In Adelaide, I've got some Techsonics and Turbo Techsonics disks. It varies from station to station in the group. In Sydney, we have Primo Promos which is another SP Productions library. But basically, we use Brown Bag exclusively. It has been consistently the best production package of all of them, and we consider Brown Bag Productions a market leader in what they do.
For commercial production, the guys basically buy the disks they require. As far as commercial production music goes, we have a lot of libraries to choose from within Australia distributed by people like EMI, Castle Music, and Killer Tracks. There are lots and lots of different libraries available from urban to country to rock to corporate to industrial. For sound effects, we use stuff like Sound Ideas and Hollywood Edge. If the guys need it, we try and get it for them.
R.A.P.: You launched the A-Team last year. Our readers might remember it. You collected some of the top voices in Australia to provide a sweeper/ID service. How's this venture doing?
>Steve: It's doing pretty well. I coordinate it, produce it all, and send it out. Ray McGregor, Steve Brittain, Mike Grayson, Folger Brockman, and Jim Pilgrim are basically the top five promo and ID people in Australia. We're on about thirty stations in Australia. But the service was offered to regional stations only because most of the guys have major network deals throughout the country, and they're market exclusive in some towns. It's been very good actually. It's not something that you can make a lot of money out of because, unfortunately, regional stations have some pretty tight budgets. But I thought there was a big hole there for one to pick up a little extra cash and actually help out radio and give these stations the opportunity to get the standard of production and voices they would otherwise think they couldn't afford or didn't have access to. We're all in this together, so why not try and make radio as great as it can be everywhere, I say.
R.A.P.: Did you try to market the A-Team in the U.S.?
>Steve: I did put out some feelers. Michael Lee talked to a few people about it. We had some interest from a station in Canada, but it never really went any further; and being as busy as I am, I didn't really chase it too hard. There may have been a problem with the accent. But no, we haven't done any work for any American stations which is a shame.
R.A.P.: Does Austereo use any American voices?
>Steve: We use Brian James for our network. Brian, I consider to be one of the best attitude voices in the world. He's right on the money and also a great producer. I think Australia leads the way when it comes to [production] philosophy and making available the resources and the technology to our production guys. America leads the way in attitude scripts and reading. Your really good promo voices over there are just so full of attitude. But American radio is a style of radio where you can actually afford to have a bit more attitude. Sometimes, saying, "Coming at your face with a million watts" doesn't wash too well in Australia. For some reason, your guys can say it better than us. Maybe it's the accent; maybe it's the different culture. You guys invented hype, so I suppose your people are more comfortable with it; whereas I think Australians view it as a little bit of, "Well, this guy is having a bit of a lend of himself," ["kidding" himself] which is a shame. We use Brian James on a lot of stuff in Australia.
R.A.P.: What are the top formats in Australia?
>Steve: Well, AOR, CHR, news/talk, and easy listening, I suppose.
R.A.P.: Is rock and roll the predominant format in Australia?
>Steve: Yes, AOR and CHR -- INXS, U2, Midnight Oil. Everything from Bonnie Raitt to the Eagles for classic rock. Pink Floyd, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, you know the formula.
R.A.P.: Country is one of the hottest formats in the U.S.. Is this music in Australia?
>Steve: Country, in major markets, you never hear. We don't have country radio stations. Our country radio stations are called country radio stations because they're located in the country.
R.A.P.: Are all stations in Australia highly produced, regardless of format?
>Steve: Our network and our direct competitor are the ones that go hardest at production. The news/talk stations produce themselves, but to a lesser degree. The soft stuff, well, there's not much to produce there, so they run pretty clean.
R.A.P.: Do you have any musical skills?
>Steve: I played the drums for about six years and fiddled with guitar and piano like everyone else, but I couldn't call myself a competent musician. I've got to say, though, one of the things I think is really important to any production is making sure the music and the read are working as one. So, the musical background has been fantastic in helping develop great editing skills and finding the good music edit points. It also helps you know when to add a certain piece of music under a certain part of the read to add to the feel of what the guy is saying, if you know what I mean. The music and the read should be one, wherever possible.
R.A.P.: Any good job opportunities for American producers looking to move a few miles away from home?
>Steve: Well, we're interested in talking to anybody who wants to talk to us, but radio in Australia is going through a period. The country is going through a recessional period, so times are a bit tight, as they are in America I hear. It's a real fight out there to keep your head above water. So, there aren't a lot of job opportunities, but I think if you're in town and your work stands up, someone's going to have a look at you. We'd be happy to make contact with radio stations over there and share ideas. No one's an expert. The more help you can get, the better chance you've got of achieving excellence, I think.
R.A.P.: Any parting thoughts for our readers about production down under?
>Steve: If you shoot for an eight, the best you're ever going to get is an eight. If you shoot for an eleven and get a ten, you've done well. We try and not only get the creative and the music and all that right, but we work very hard at getting the sound right. We treat radio production more like the way music studios treat sound. But we're not doing one album a month, we're making thirty promos and a hundred commercials a week. But we're trying to do it in a professional environment, in a way that radio should be done... because... it's a jungle out there! (laughs)