With six years of community radio experience, a two-year internship at the Nine Network and a Bachelor of Journalism, Grant Maling began the Graduate Diploma of Radio in 2018, acutely aware that he wanted to pursue a career in media. Grant received the SCA Fellowship Award and moved to Shepparton in country Victoria for six weeks. Not long after that, he was snapped up by Grant Broadcasters and found himself driving 14 hours to Port Augusta in South Australia, becoming their newest News Reader and Daytime Announcer. It wasn’t long before he started to feel very homesick, so when an operations role opened in Muswellbrook, just three hours north of his hometown of Sydney, it seemed like fate. Grant headed across the country again and is now the Operations and Promotions Manager and Workday Announcer at Radio Hunter Valley. In this candid piece, Grant reflects fondly, and with tongue firmly in cheek, on his time at AFTRS.
––
Like a lot of high school students, I had no clue what I wanted to do after Year 12, all I knew was that I wanted people to recognise me when I walked down the street – conceited, I know. I did a traineeship with the Nine Network through my senior years and had no interest in going to university until June of my final year, barely scraping in.
I was already in the radio world through my voluntary time at Koori Radio in Redfern, Sydney but never saw it as a career path. While studying journalism at UNSW, I was promoted to Breakfast Announcer at Koori Radio, and it wasn’t long before a community service announcement crossed my desk regarding AFTRS enrolments.
I literally said to myself, “Why not!?”
I found the application form and interview process quite daunting, but I was confident that I had the passion for the media industry and the experience to set myself apart. After many anxious days and weeks, I received the email accepting me into the course [Graduate Diploma in Radio] and finally thought that my career trajectory was going somewhere. As cliché as it is, and wholeheartedly channelling Zac Efron, I knew it was the start of something new.
The year-long course was much more intense than I could have ever imagined. I hilariously turned up to O Week hungover and running on little sleep expecting them to tell me where the toilets and fire escapes were, only to be thrown straight into an audio editing masterclass – IT WAS O WEEK.
In saying that, I loved it, and it set me up to tackle almost any obstacle that the real-world radio industry can throw at me and learning about every aspect of radio from on-air to sales lets you see – and get your hands on – the entire process. I was able to immerse myself in the areas of radio that I’m most passionate about – announcing – while also letting me put my finger in every pie. This has helped me to bring constructive and valuable inputs to colleagues in different roles in my radio station.
Throughout the year, I met so many amazing people from my classmates and alumni (who randomly added me on Facebook), to AFTRS staff from different disciplines and the Indigenous unit plus industry experts and bigwigs. The contacts and networks you make while at AFTRS you can’t make anywhere else and it’s true what they say: it’s not what you know, it’s who you know.
One of my favourite parts about AFTRS was the live broadcasts we did four times throughout the year. The first, and possibly my favourite, was Show Radio, a live outside broadcast based at the Sydney Royal Easter Show. OK, so getting up early and catching a train to Homebush every day wasn’t fun, but being around such happy people, seeing beautiful animals, eating both insanely fresh produce, as well as dagwood dogs and chocolate-covered bananas, was amazing. The other broadcasts included talkback station AFTRS FM, regionally aimed station 2RS, and the final one, which we, as a class, built from the ground up. Over the year, you learn the skills and gain the knowledge you need to make a station and the staff literally say, “Show us what you’ve got.”
One of the most challenging parts of AFTRS was the class dynamic, with 18 or so creative students in the classroom each day, and working together on various projects, clashes of opinion are bound to happen – and these were in abundance. The course’s in-built problem solving, mediation and resilience has helped me in my career now. The fact of the matter is, you’re not going to get along with everyone, and not everyone is going to think your idea is the best – that’s life, and the sooner you can realise that the better you’ll feel instead of getting all upset because your idea wasn’t picked. All you can do now is hope that their idea fails.
At the end of the year, we were sent on placement to various radio stations around Australia. I went to New FM in Newcastle. For most, if not all, of us, this was our first time ‘working’ in an actual commercial radio station, and it was exciting. Luckily for me, I knew someone at the station already and had friends in Newcastle, so I was living the life! I got my hands into everything – the FM station, the AM sister station, doing the music logs, answering callers, doing shifts on air, taking out the promo car, production… basically, I did everything!. The best part is that I quickly worked out which parts of radio I didn’t like so much and which parts I did enjoy, which then influenced my future career decisions.
Then we get to graduation. What a night! OK, let me tell you a story. I took Thursday and Friday off work to drive to Sydney from Shepparton, Victoria where I was living and working, bought some new clothes, got my hair done, got all dressed up then covered it all with a robe. Annoying, I know. Everyone is receiving their certificates, and some people did funny things when they got theirs. My friends and I were racking our brains for what to do, and when I got up, I pulled my phone out to take a selfie with the CEO of AFTRS. It was incredibly blurry but totally worth it. I was then awarded the SCA Fellowship award which involved a six-week placement at an SCA station (the one I was currently at in Shepparton), where I took another atrocious selfie. A few too many celebratory wines later and we’re all at the nearby pub having the time of our lives!
As we sat there drinking an assortment of beveraginos, I couldn’t help wondering where our lives would take us next, and if we’d drift apart or stay in touch.
SPOILER ALERT: We stayed in touch! (Extra points if you know what show that paraphrase is from.)
The moral of the story is if you’re thinking about applying for the Graduate Diploma in Radio at AFTRS, think why not. You’ve thought about it so it’s obviously in your mind and there’s no harm in applying, and if you get in it’ll be the most eye-opening, transformative year of your life! In so many different ways.
