Peter Saxon nabs a rare interview with 3AW’s Ross Stevenson. In it, he talks about Alan Jones, why Steve Price and MTR didn’t succeed. What he thinks of 2UE’s Dicko and Sarah and how his show with on-air partner John Burns sounds like “two pissed uncles.”
Many of those who work on-air, like others in the public eye, are shameless self-promoters – which is probably how they got there in the first place. But Australia’s top ranking breakfast announcer, Ross Stevenson is publicity shy. He dislikes giving interviews, his peers tell me. The last time he did one? “I couldn’t tell you- it would be years ago,” he says. Then in an attempt at modest self deprecation, which he invokes at regular intervals during our chat, he adds, “Not many people ask.”
I voice my doubt that that would be the case, so he offers, what to me, is a more plausible explanation, “What did Warren Zevon call his album — A Quiet Normal Life? That’s what I like. I like it that way. I’ve got children. They don’t have to buy into this. Which is probably unfair because I expect people to talk to us on the radio so I should speak to anyone who asks. But I don’t get asked a lot to tell you the truth,” he insists.
I’m confused. Is he telling me that he doesn’t speak to just anyone who asks – which means I’ve scored a bit of a coup? Or, is he really suggesting that he hardly gets asked – which means there’s nothing special about being granted this audience with the master?
As a fully paid member of the SSPA (shameless self promoters association) I accept the former premise, reject the latter and continue.
With an average audience of 175,000 per quarter hour during his shift, Ross Stevenson is the highest rating breakfast presenter in Australia. Next best is Alan Jones on 157,000. By comparison, the FM breakfast leaders Triple M’s Hot Breakfast with Eddie McGuire in Melbourne and 2Day’s Kyle & Jackie O in Sydney, can only muster 80,000 and 87,000 listeners respectively, despite having higher cumes than their AM rivals.
You would expect then, that Australia’s number one broadcaster would be a workaholic. But no, he admits to having a work/life balance that’s, more life than work. “I don’t exactly work all that hard, so I don’t have a particular work ethic. I like what I do but I’d have more spare time than work time.
I spend a lot of time with my kids. I exercise every day. I have a sleep every day- a nap during the day which most people wouldn’t have. The weekend is largely taken up with kids sport- my kids are very sporty and going to the footy. I love the footy!” says the entrenched Hawthorn supporter.
Again, I can’t help but doubt Stevenson when he says he has “no particular work ethic.” How can you possible succeed in this business to his degree without one? It can’t hurt that he has what colleagues describe as a prodigious memory. And again Stevenson plays it down, saying, “It’s not a memory for everything. I have a good memory for things that I see written down. But social settings I’m not so good. If you say, ‘can you remember that time we had lunch in the nude on top of Ayers Rock with Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Pope,’ I’m like – I don’t actually remember that.”
Stevenson has a law degree but hasn’t practised in years, “I’d been a lawyer for a while before someone came along and offered me a job (in radio) and it seemed to me there was a possibility that it was going to be more entertaining than being a lawyer.
“Actually someone asked me on the radio why I gave up the law and I said, ‘because no one ever comes to you as a lawyer to tell you how good their life is. They come to share with you a problem that they need you to fix. That’s why you find a lot of lawyers desperately don’t want to be lawyers anymore,” says Stevenson (right).
radioinfo: What makes your breakfast show different to the others?
Stevenson: I don’t know. It’s one of those things that’s for others to judge. I don’t know what other breakfast shows do. I mean, I know what Alan Jones does in Sydney. He’s got a very serious program. Ours is not serious. Its not a slapstick fest either. It looks at what’s happening with an eye to getting a laugh out of it if possible.
radioinfo: Do you see Alan Jones as your main competitor?
Stevenson: I only mention him because he is the top rating breakfast program in Sydney and it’s AM and it’s talk. But there’s no similarity between the two programs at all.
radioinfo: I think many people are under the impression that Alan Jones commands the biggest audience in Australia, yet you have higher averages and higher cumes, so arguably, you have the number one show…
Stevenson: Yeah, possibly. But give any radio station the opportunity to say that one of their programs is the highest rating and they will break it down to some stat to find a way to say that that program is the number one program.
radioinfo: Is there a mantra or an ethos at 3AW?
Stevenson: If there is one, they haven’t told me. It’s a very successful talk radio station. In world terms, it’s highly successful.
radioinfo: So Shane Healy (3AW GM) keeps telling me.
Stevenson: As he would.
radioinfo: How do you go about your prep for each show? What does that entail?
Stevenson: Nothing really. I watch the television news – that’s consistent with most men. I think if you break it down, you find that most men on television watch news and live sport and not much else. That’s what I do. I watch the news every night. Most of them – read the papers, online especially. That’s all. No special prep.
radioinfo: That’s not quite what I heard. Tell me about the home work sheet…
Stevenson: I started a home work sheet. There’s a bit of discipline when I get in in the morning. We all sort of sit there and read the papers and fill in what we think are the stories of the day. What’s your strongest opinion? What’s the quirkiest story of the day? What should we take calls on?
It’s only fairly recent. I don’t know why I did it. It’s not a bad idea because it gets people focused on what should be coming out of peoples radios.
radioinfo: How many people in that meeting?
Stevenson: Five. Two on air and three off air. Two producers and someone on phones which I think if you compare with some other radio stations in Sydney that would be a very, very lean operation.
radioinfo: You started on 3RRR?
Stevenson: Yep, on community radio. It’s a strong part of Melbourne’s psyche, 3RRR. It had a number of programs on Saturday mornings that people liked to listen to.
radioinfo: You were still a lawyer then?
Stevenson: Oh, yes.
radioinfo: And you did a show. How did you get into that?
Stevenson: I just started a show that was not serious at all about the law. We were poking fun at it mostly. People seemed to like it, but there was no ratings as such. It was just a community radio station.
radioinfo: Even back then at 3RRR, you worked with a partner. You’re now onto your third with John Burns. The other ‘marriages’ weren’t successful? What happened?
Stevenson: One moved on and one retired.
radioinfo: But as soon as one partner left, you got another one. Why do you work with a partner, is that just the way radio is these days?
Stevenson: I’ve never really thought about it. It’s just that I’ve always done it so that it leads to… I guess a conversational style of program rather than one person’s voice coming out of the radio.
radioinfo: How would you describe the on-air chemistry between you and John?
Stevenson: It’s like a game of tennis. We’re just batting the ball back between ourselves trying to make each other laugh. Someone once described the program in three words “two pissed uncles.” It’s a bit like two mates talking really.
radioinfo: Are you mates off air too?
Stevenson: We don’t see each other socially. We live in different parts of Melbourne. We’re different ages. But we’re mates. And I think it helps to not see each other socially. You need to be able to have fresh things to say to each other.
radioinfo: Macquarie Radio Network tried to pit a hard political program against you with your former boss Steve Price on MTR which failed to lay a glove on you. Where do you think they got it so wrong?
Stevenson: I don’t think they made any specific mistakes, I just think it’s really hard to build a talk station from the ground up. It takes a lot of money. The newsroom is very expensive to run. And if you’re going to do it, you have to commit for a long, long haul and that’s going to cost you a lot of money.
radioinfo: But given the entertainment nature of your show, wouldn’t it have been a reasonable assumption that there was room for a more conservative brand of political talk in Melbourne?
Stevenson: No 3AW is conservative enough. It’s not Tea Party but it’s a pretty conservative radio station.
radioinfo: But now Fairfax is trying to do the same thing in reverse by introducing your style of program to a Sydney audience on 2UE with Dicko & Sarah up against Alan Jones on 2GB.
Stevenson: There’s no point in trying to occupy ground that’s already occupied.
radioinfo: That’s obviously the strategy. So far it hasn’t shown much success. But given that Sydney and Melbourne have been proven to be very different markets, a show that works in one often won’t work in the other, wouldn’t Dicko & Sarah on 2UE be prone to suffer a similar fate to Steve Price and MTR?
Stevenson: I reckon that Dicko and Sarah are really, really good. You just must be patient. It’s a game of inches.
radioinfo: Hypothetically, if you and Alan Jones were both parachuted into another market entirely, and found yourselves on opposing stations, what do you think the outcome would be?
Stevenson: It depends what town you’re in.
radioinfo: In what way?
Stevenson: I’ve got a theory that Melbourne and Sydney are no longer two different cities. It’s two different countries and growing less alike with every passing year. To take that even further I think that Queensland and New South Wales are one country. Rugby League states are one country and Australian Rules states are a separate country.
radioinfo: What drives you to get up every morning?
Stevenson: I don’t find it difficult considering it’s so early in the morning. I don’t think I get up as early as Alan Jones does. He gets up earlier than I do. It’s sort of quite nice. It’s a fresh palette. There’s a brand new story to tell every day. There’s not the slightest bit of repetition. It’s a fresh canvas to paint on every day.
radioinfo: And you never dry up?
Stevenson: Some days you’ve got to cover serious news events and some days you can just have a bit of fun.
radioinfo: Are you a competitive person?
Stevenson: Yeah I think so. I certainly was once. I don’t know that I am now. But when I was a lawyer, I was quite a good negotiator. I could be feisty and would conduct a case vigorously on behalf of a client. But I couldn’t do that now. I just don’t have it in me.
radioinfo: Finally, what advice would you give young students of radio?
Stevenson: I would say go and keep knocking on the door of the radio station you would like to work at to try and get some experience. Just get your foot in the door nad go and see the way that it works. And be true to yourself. Don’t give the audience what you think they want to hear.
Peter Saxon