Radio Hysteria

[Guest Tim]

RADIO HYSTERIA

By Desmond Zwar

 

In the zany world of commercial radio a guru gave his verdict: "Very seldom does a person come along whose commitment is total and whose contribution will be extremely beneficial to the industry."

 

That was the principal’s verdict on Graham Mack when he emerged as first in class at the choosy Australia Film Television and Radio School. He had enrolled at the geriatric (for radio) age of 29, complete with Liverpudlian accent and Beatles hair-cut.

 

Three years later, the disc-jockey’s Gosford-based radio show brings in New South Wales listeners as far north as Newcastle and south from all over metropolitan Sydney. Mack Attack, which Graham calls his sometimes hysterical five nightly hours, is rated No.1 in a huge survey area served by 20 stations. ‘I beat them all; hammer ‘em,’ says Graham. ‘And that includes the night talk-back man on 2UE who’s supposed to be No.1 in the country. Our signal is so good that courier drivers ring in and tell me they can hear me without switching stations, all the way from Newcastle to Sydney.’

 

Graham (then Graham McAteer, he changed his name by deed-poll) departed Liverpool for New Zealand in 1983, where he worked installing heating and air-conditioning. His love of radio had started as a 10-year-old, when he rigged up an illegal FM transmitter and broadcast to the neighbours. When he and his wife, Julie, came to Australia he decided it was time to take the plunge, spending 26 weeks at radio school while they lived in a cheap, rat-infested apartment.

 

At 2GO Gosford, five nights a week, wheezing at his own jokes, switching from a Liverpool to Edinburgh to Glasgow accent in as many seconds, his mouth has often landed him in hot water. Aiming his show at a 35-55 age-group, his humour - often involving the bodily functions, with noises-off - is sometimes not appreciated by listeners who angrily light up the switchboard with their complaints. When a 70-year-old local left his Volvo "somewhere in Gosford" and asked the station to help him find it, Mack said on air: "They want me to give out his number-plate so you can locate it and ring in. But come on - think about it - do we really want a 70-year-old bloke who doesn’t know where he’s parked his car, out there on the road? If you see it, keep your mouth shut."

 

There were irate complaints. ‘But all of them were aged over 55 and outside our target,’ shrugs Graham. ‘So it didn’t matter. There are 20 other stations they can listen to if they don’t like what I say.’

 

Well it did matter when he made a joke about a break-in at a well-known car dealer’s spare parts department. "Last night," he told his listeners, "thieves broke into (X’s) spare parts. Surely it must be the first time someone has gone into a spare parts department and the spare parts department has been ripped off!" ‘I got in the s--- for that,’ he admits. ‘I shouldn’t have named the place; they spend money with us advertising.’

 

In the dog-eat-dog radio industry the dollar is the bottom line. The spare parts manager was pacified with free commercials and customers went on queuing to buy time on the Mack Attack show, simply because an overwhelming majority "out there" had been shown to be listening to it; 17 percent more than the nearest rival, whose jock got the sack because he couldn’t match Mack. ‘When a salesman goes to a business and says do you want to buy time with Mack, they say: "Oh sure." It’s a cut-throat business and they need you to get the figures. Under the previous ownership I got a $1,000 bonus for hitting a certain ratings figure. The new owners don’t have the same system, unfortunately.’

 

Graham rises each day between 10 AM and midday and reads the papers, listens to several taped news services and prepares his material -- jokes to match the news and discs, or (now more carefully), the advertising messages; broken up with a range of accents, laughter and more wheezes.

 

He recently invited 2GO listeners to ring in with "come-backs" to a girl who had been asked to dance and had said no. He chose "Don’t be fussy, I wasn’t," as one of the best. A close second: "I only asked because you looked so pathetic." He revels in toilet jokes and funnies about smells, saying he enjoys the five hours so much that he feels no stress. "It isn’t supposed to be talk-back, but when a listener calls in and I don’t agree with them, it can go on a bit. I don’t want too many rules. I would rather they expected the unexpected.’

 

He has ambitions for bigger things than Gosford one day. ‘To get more money you have to go to Sydney radio where it’s more cut-throat, but a bigger market. Right now I’m quite happy to be here and having fun.’

[Guest Ron & Chel]

Just reading all the threads here tonight and was just wondering where you bored Tim Ha Ha lol (only joking )

[Guest Tim]

HI,

 

This link here should give you more of a background on these articles. Some of them are quite good I think!

 

http://www.pomsinoz.com/forum/poms-sun/22875-poms-sun.html

[Guest Ron & Chel]

I thjought you might like this Tim i was only joking as you had entered so many threads 2night but reading this was intreasting as he came to dorset where we live then i found this n google

 

 

 

 

 

One day an air-conditioning engineer came home from work in Sydney, Australia, and said to his wife 'I've been listening to the radio in the van all the way home and I reckon I could do better than that!'. Instead of saying 'wash your hands and have your tea', Julie Mack said 'Go on then!'. And so it was that Graham Mack started earning his living from hot air instead of cold!

Graham was born in Liverpool, Grew up in Great Sankey near Warrington, and when he was 18, moved to New Zealand, where he worked as a pipe fitter on an Oil Refinery construction site. When the job was complete, he trained as an air-conditioning and refrigeration engineer. He married Julie and moved to Sydney.

His first radio job was at 2PK in Parkes, in the Central West of New South Wales, where he did the afternoon show and proudly declared himself the only English speaking disk jockey in Australia.

After a year at 2PK he moved to Mt Gambier, South Australia, and did the breakfast show on 5SE and appeared in TV commercials on SES Channel 8. Graham saya, "The TV commercials were a lot of funm they just let me ad0lib them, and as long as they were inside the 30 seconds, they used it. My favourite was one I did for a car dealer. I was supposed to go on about this car that had a driver's side air bag, and I said, 'There's no air bag on the passenger side, but hey, THEY won't be making the payments!"

Next it was back to Sydney, where he did the evening show on 2GO and took the station to number one at night in his first ratings survey.

In February 1997 he moved back to the UK, to host the breakfast show in Bournemouth at 2CRFM. Once again, the station's ratings climbed, and by the time ther numbers were in, he had the number one show, with double the audience of Radio 1, and ten times the audience of Chris Evans, in Dorset and West Hampshire.

In September 1998 he moved to the North East of England and did afternoons on the regional station, Century where he became the Angel Of The North's Evil twin, 'The Devil Of The North'!

He says, "My show is the radio version of a Picasso painting, because it's hard to tell what it's supposed to be! Wait till you hear it, then you'll know why I've had to move around so much!"

Now Graham is hosting the Morning show at BRMB between 9am and 12pm click here to listen to BRMB live or here to visit their website.