1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:03,680 And then the results come out and I am third. I'm behind this guy. 2 00:00:04,560 --> 00:00:07,840 And that name I cannot remember. 3 00:00:08,400 --> 00:00:10,160 But I think he might be a member of parliament. I'm not sure. 4 00:00:10,400 --> 00:00:12,560 Huh? I'm just kidding again. Joke. Joke. 5 00:00:13,000 --> 00:00:13,600 Please put it. 6 00:00:13,600 --> 00:00:14,240 No, come on. 7 00:00:14,240 --> 00:00:16,160 Kai, can you please put the word joke? 8 00:00:16,160 --> 00:00:17,920 It could be real because you know. 9 00:00:17,920 --> 00:00:19,120 Up until the point lah. 10 00:00:19,120 --> 00:00:20,160 No, I mean, come on. 11 00:00:20,160 --> 00:00:22,800 Daryl David's in parliament, isn't he? 12 00:00:22,800 --> 00:00:24,480 Yeah, but he's not funny and he's no sheep. 13 00:00:26,080 --> 00:00:26,960 Ooh. 14 00:00:27,440 --> 00:00:29,600 Well, welcome to this episode. 15 00:00:29,600 --> 00:00:31,360 This is still sort of a new season. 16 00:00:31,360 --> 00:00:34,800 Season three. Welcome back to the Chris Hansen conversation. 17 00:00:34,800 --> 00:00:44,000 And I have with me in the studio for this particular series that we call tribute to SG local musos or icons. 18 00:00:44,320 --> 00:00:47,120 And it cannot just be limited to musos alone. 19 00:00:47,360 --> 00:00:56,640 It has also got to be extended to good people who brought music to the fore here in Singapore through maybe even radio, not just on stage. 20 00:00:56,640 --> 00:01:00,560 And we haven't seen this guest of mine in my studio right now. 21 00:01:00,560 --> 00:01:05,040 We haven't seen him on air or heard him on air for a very, very long time. 22 00:01:05,280 --> 00:01:07,920 I have with me on the show, Joe Augustine. 23 00:01:09,200 --> 00:01:13,200 First of all, I want to say thank you for inviting me to this series. 24 00:01:13,680 --> 00:01:16,640 But I'm a bit upset that I'm not on the Shine a Light series. 25 00:01:18,240 --> 00:01:20,480 This whole thing about inspirational and all. 26 00:01:20,480 --> 00:01:26,560 I look at all the other stuff and people who make active choices to go like, I love my job and all this. 27 00:01:26,560 --> 00:01:29,600 You go to the retro bin. 28 00:01:29,600 --> 00:01:33,920 I actually thought of I love my job, but I'm thinking to myself, really? 29 00:01:33,920 --> 00:01:35,920 Does he? Does he love his job? 30 00:01:35,920 --> 00:01:36,720 Right. 31 00:01:36,720 --> 00:01:39,520 Don't take the risk, Chris. Don't take the risk. 32 00:01:39,520 --> 00:01:45,760 But honestly, honestly, God, man, I mean, way back when they're making you look so old. 33 00:01:45,760 --> 00:01:46,480 Yeah. 34 00:01:46,480 --> 00:01:47,520 Way back when. 35 00:01:47,520 --> 00:01:48,800 This is making you look old. 36 00:01:48,800 --> 00:01:50,000 Yeah, that's true, too. 37 00:01:50,000 --> 00:01:53,440 But it's fine. We've known each other since school. 38 00:01:54,320 --> 00:01:55,680 Okay, so this is the thing. 39 00:01:55,680 --> 00:01:58,320 So we're not that far different from each other. 40 00:01:58,320 --> 00:02:05,920 But when radio was becoming... Radio was not that hot way back when. 41 00:02:06,320 --> 00:02:09,600 It got a little hotter after Zoo 101.6. 42 00:02:10,400 --> 00:02:13,760 And then Media Corp, back then TCS, started to panic a little bit. 43 00:02:13,760 --> 00:02:15,840 I think that's the opinion of many people. 44 00:02:15,840 --> 00:02:16,560 Yeah, yeah, yeah. 45 00:02:16,560 --> 00:02:18,720 Singapore Broadcasting Corporation at the time. 46 00:02:18,720 --> 00:02:19,360 Yeah. 47 00:02:19,360 --> 00:02:23,920 Media... TCS and RCS came actually significantly later. 48 00:02:23,920 --> 00:02:25,920 I was hired by Singapore Broadcasting Corporation. 49 00:02:25,920 --> 00:02:26,800 You with SBC? 50 00:02:26,800 --> 00:02:27,360 Yeah. 51 00:02:27,360 --> 00:02:28,400 Right, okay. 52 00:02:28,400 --> 00:02:32,320 So am I right to say that when Zoo came on in Batam, 53 00:02:33,040 --> 00:02:37,280 and they really gave our broadcaster a run for the money, right? 54 00:02:37,280 --> 00:02:38,000 Yeah. 55 00:02:38,000 --> 00:02:39,760 And then they started Class 95. 56 00:02:40,560 --> 00:02:42,800 They started to revamp 90.5. 57 00:02:42,800 --> 00:02:44,640 Then they started 98.7, perfect 10. 58 00:02:44,640 --> 00:02:48,480 Okay. So I'll do the very quick history of radio. 59 00:02:48,480 --> 00:02:49,840 He doesn't have to be quick. Take your time. 60 00:02:49,840 --> 00:02:52,800 Okay. In the beginning, radio sucked. 61 00:02:55,360 --> 00:02:58,000 I have to jam brakes there because a lot of people will be smacking us. 62 00:02:58,880 --> 00:02:59,600 You made me. 63 00:02:59,600 --> 00:03:01,760 But no, back in the day, seriously, if you listen to Marconi... 64 00:03:01,760 --> 00:03:02,800 I don't want to be collateral damage here. 65 00:03:02,800 --> 00:03:05,120 If you listen to Marconi, he had the worst morning show. 66 00:03:05,760 --> 00:03:06,960 The guy who invented radio. 67 00:03:06,960 --> 00:03:08,480 This is called a joke, by the way, Chris. 68 00:03:09,040 --> 00:03:11,280 Marconi invented the radio. 69 00:03:11,280 --> 00:03:12,160 I'm going to give you the birdie. 70 00:03:12,160 --> 00:03:13,760 It was a really bad show. 71 00:03:14,960 --> 00:03:15,760 Seriously, right? 72 00:03:15,760 --> 00:03:22,720 Okay. So Singapore Radio, the history of Singapore Radio is one that's linked completely to BBC. 73 00:03:22,720 --> 00:03:26,720 It's due with the British in the first place. 74 00:03:26,720 --> 00:03:27,200 Okay. 75 00:03:27,200 --> 00:03:34,000 Right? So Singapore Broadcasting Corporation is set up to basically provide the masses 76 00:03:34,000 --> 00:03:35,760 with some form of entertainment. 77 00:03:35,760 --> 00:03:36,400 Okay. 78 00:03:36,400 --> 00:03:41,840 And the four radio stations at the time, at the beginning of it, were one, two, three, 79 00:03:41,840 --> 00:03:42,880 four, very creative. 80 00:03:42,880 --> 00:03:43,520 One, two, three, four. 81 00:03:43,520 --> 00:03:44,880 Very creative, one, two, three, four. 82 00:03:44,880 --> 00:03:46,320 And if you look at the BBC... 83 00:03:46,320 --> 00:03:47,920 Radio one, radio two, radio three, radio four. 84 00:03:47,920 --> 00:03:49,280 Even still today, one, two, three, four. 85 00:03:50,400 --> 00:03:55,760 And then they expanded to five, which was Symphony, which is the classical radio station. 86 00:03:55,760 --> 00:03:56,160 Right. 87 00:03:56,160 --> 00:04:00,480 But radio one was the bastion of English programming in Singapore at the time. 88 00:04:00,480 --> 00:04:01,120 Right. 89 00:04:01,120 --> 00:04:05,440 So to give you an idea how bad radio was at the time, and this is with all due respect, 90 00:04:06,000 --> 00:04:06,640 which is very little... 91 00:04:06,640 --> 00:04:07,120 Go there. 92 00:04:07,120 --> 00:04:17,040 When they were the only game in town, radio listenership in Singapore was still 40%. 93 00:04:17,040 --> 00:04:19,040 Okay. 94 00:04:19,040 --> 00:04:19,360 Okay. 95 00:04:19,360 --> 00:04:23,760 So if you understand that from a statistical point of view, it's like even when you have 96 00:04:23,760 --> 00:04:25,680 everything, you don't have much. 97 00:04:25,680 --> 00:04:26,480 Okay. 98 00:04:27,040 --> 00:04:31,440 And I don't put it down to anything else except that they were boring. 99 00:04:31,440 --> 00:04:35,120 They were boring simply because they were trying to serve everybody. 100 00:04:35,120 --> 00:04:39,280 So if you looked at a radio one, and I can only speak about radio one because I can't 101 00:04:39,280 --> 00:04:40,640 read Tamil very well. 102 00:04:40,640 --> 00:04:40,960 Right. 103 00:04:40,960 --> 00:04:41,460 Okay. 104 00:04:42,320 --> 00:04:43,840 Mandarin even worse. 105 00:04:43,840 --> 00:04:44,160 Right. 106 00:04:44,160 --> 00:04:50,560 So you look at the schedule of radio one back in the day, it used to be a show that tried to do 107 00:04:51,280 --> 00:04:56,880 the morning news and then the financial reports, and then they'll talk about cooking, 108 00:04:56,880 --> 00:04:57,760 and then they'll talk about... 109 00:04:58,560 --> 00:05:00,560 It went all over the place. 110 00:05:00,560 --> 00:05:01,200 Right. 111 00:05:01,200 --> 00:05:07,520 And most of us actually who enjoyed radio at all in Singapore terms, if we're being honest, 112 00:05:07,520 --> 00:05:10,560 we would listen only on the weekends when there was a sponsored show on. 113 00:05:10,560 --> 00:05:10,800 Right. 114 00:05:10,800 --> 00:05:11,520 Okay. 115 00:05:11,520 --> 00:05:14,640 You remember the Fanta show, I suppose? 116 00:05:14,640 --> 00:05:15,920 Fanta show, my goodness. 117 00:05:15,920 --> 00:05:16,480 Victor Koo. 118 00:05:16,480 --> 00:05:17,200 Yeah, Victor Koo. 119 00:05:17,200 --> 00:05:18,320 Yeah, Victor Koo, of course. 120 00:05:18,960 --> 00:05:19,920 The SAF show. 121 00:05:19,920 --> 00:05:21,440 I mean, all these shows were the shows that weren't... 122 00:05:21,440 --> 00:05:22,320 Forces 55. 123 00:05:22,320 --> 00:05:24,080 Yeah, they weren't the regular show. 124 00:05:24,080 --> 00:05:26,480 They were the show that was not the regular show. 125 00:05:26,480 --> 00:05:26,640 Right. 126 00:05:26,640 --> 00:05:28,800 And actually that was what made it kind of interesting. 127 00:05:28,800 --> 00:05:29,360 Okay. 128 00:05:29,360 --> 00:05:33,600 But anyway, so again, underserving the audience in general. 129 00:05:34,240 --> 00:05:36,880 And then what happened was, ZOO came along. 130 00:05:36,880 --> 00:05:38,560 So ZOO 101.6. 131 00:05:38,560 --> 00:05:38,960 Right. 132 00:05:38,960 --> 00:05:42,000 Or as it was said on the air, ZOO 101.6. 133 00:05:42,000 --> 00:05:43,680 Yeah, brilliant, man. 134 00:05:43,680 --> 00:05:44,480 Well, they were just... 135 00:05:44,480 --> 00:05:46,560 It was just light in the middle of darkness. 136 00:05:47,120 --> 00:05:48,320 I thought Joe Monkey was you. 137 00:05:48,880 --> 00:05:52,000 A lot of people thought and still do. 138 00:05:52,000 --> 00:05:58,800 So Joe Monkey left a trail, unfortunately, because he was the closest thing to a celebrity 139 00:05:58,800 --> 00:05:59,920 in that field. 140 00:05:59,920 --> 00:06:00,420 Right. 141 00:06:01,520 --> 00:06:03,280 Because there was none really before that. 142 00:06:04,400 --> 00:06:07,840 He used to come to town and from reputation apparently, 143 00:06:08,400 --> 00:06:11,600 take advantage of his celebrity and with women and all that. 144 00:06:11,600 --> 00:06:13,760 So I was always a bit careful about the idea of being... 145 00:06:13,760 --> 00:06:14,560 Did he? 146 00:06:14,560 --> 00:06:15,040 Yeah, yeah, yeah. 147 00:06:15,040 --> 00:06:16,080 Did he even come here? 148 00:06:16,880 --> 00:06:17,680 I don't remember. 149 00:06:17,680 --> 00:06:22,640 I mean, the whole point of ZOO 101.6 was to make money in Singapore. 150 00:06:22,640 --> 00:06:23,200 Yeah, okay. 151 00:06:23,200 --> 00:06:23,760 I know that. 152 00:06:23,760 --> 00:06:25,120 But they come here. 153 00:06:25,120 --> 00:06:25,680 I don't recall... 154 00:06:25,680 --> 00:06:26,800 Yeah, they always used to do that. 155 00:06:27,200 --> 00:06:28,560 They had all the promotions and all that. 156 00:06:28,560 --> 00:06:32,000 So I won a radio contest. 157 00:06:34,400 --> 00:06:37,360 It was the Good Morning Vietnam show. 158 00:06:37,360 --> 00:06:39,520 There was a Good Morning Vietnam promo that was being done, 159 00:06:40,240 --> 00:06:44,000 I think it was at the warehouse, the warehouse disco. 160 00:06:44,000 --> 00:06:44,400 Right. 161 00:06:44,400 --> 00:06:48,160 And Joe Monkey was one of the judges. 162 00:06:48,720 --> 00:06:52,640 Yeah, and I did my thing and came in third, I think. 163 00:06:52,640 --> 00:06:54,000 Okay. Who came in first, man? 164 00:06:54,000 --> 00:06:59,360 I'm curious now. 165 00:06:59,360 --> 00:07:00,960 I know the... 166 00:07:00,960 --> 00:07:04,960 Okay, we'll play charades here and see whether you arrive at the answer. 167 00:07:04,960 --> 00:07:05,200 Right. 168 00:07:05,200 --> 00:07:06,080 Oh, boy. 169 00:07:06,080 --> 00:07:10,480 He's a very well-known Indian DJ from the... 170 00:07:11,840 --> 00:07:13,520 And he speaks really well as well. 171 00:07:15,520 --> 00:07:20,480 And he used to do a lot of shows, clubs and stuff and all that. 172 00:07:20,480 --> 00:07:23,440 And I think he was actually rather successful in his own right. 173 00:07:23,440 --> 00:07:24,560 Had a bit of a limp. 174 00:07:24,560 --> 00:07:25,600 Had a bit of a limp. 175 00:07:27,520 --> 00:07:30,640 See how I've masterfully drawn Chris now into this, 176 00:07:30,640 --> 00:07:32,880 because now both of us don't remember who this is. 177 00:07:32,880 --> 00:07:34,720 Oh, you don't remember who it is. 178 00:07:34,720 --> 00:07:35,520 Bloody hell. 179 00:07:35,520 --> 00:07:36,880 But if you say the name, I'll remember. 180 00:07:38,000 --> 00:07:39,040 Something Kumar, is it? 181 00:07:39,040 --> 00:07:39,760 Not Kumar. 182 00:07:39,760 --> 00:07:40,640 No, not Kumar. 183 00:07:40,640 --> 00:07:42,880 Kumar. His surname is Kumar. 184 00:07:42,880 --> 00:07:44,640 George. George Koshi. 185 00:07:44,640 --> 00:07:46,080 Oh, George Koshi. 186 00:07:46,080 --> 00:07:46,560 Yeah. 187 00:07:46,560 --> 00:07:47,280 Yeah. So George... 188 00:07:47,280 --> 00:07:48,880 Hey, George. George Koshi. 189 00:07:48,880 --> 00:07:50,000 Shouting out to you, man. 190 00:07:50,000 --> 00:07:50,240 Yes. 191 00:07:50,240 --> 00:07:51,280 George is selling booze now. 192 00:07:51,280 --> 00:07:55,520 George won, and I wasn't unhappy about that. 193 00:07:55,520 --> 00:07:55,840 Right. 194 00:07:55,840 --> 00:07:59,840 But I was beaten by a guy who had a talking sheep. 195 00:08:01,440 --> 00:08:02,160 That was upsetting. 196 00:08:02,160 --> 00:08:05,440 So basically he had this small little doll, 197 00:08:05,440 --> 00:08:07,280 and part of his routine was the talking sheep. 198 00:08:07,280 --> 00:08:10,080 And I went like, this is bad. 199 00:08:10,800 --> 00:08:13,120 And then the results come out, and I am third. 200 00:08:13,120 --> 00:08:14,240 I'm behind this guy. 201 00:08:15,360 --> 00:08:18,480 And that name I cannot remember. 202 00:08:19,040 --> 00:08:20,480 But I think he might be a member of parliament. 203 00:08:20,480 --> 00:08:21,040 I'm not sure. 204 00:08:21,040 --> 00:08:22,480 Huh? I'm just kidding again. 205 00:08:22,480 --> 00:08:24,400 Joke. Joke. Please put it... 206 00:08:24,400 --> 00:08:24,960 No, come on. 207 00:08:24,960 --> 00:08:26,880 Kai, can you please put the word joke? 208 00:08:26,880 --> 00:08:28,240 It could be real because... 209 00:08:28,240 --> 00:08:29,840 How about you tell the point? 210 00:08:29,840 --> 00:08:30,880 No, I mean, come on. 211 00:08:30,880 --> 00:08:33,520 Daryl David's in parliament, isn't he? 212 00:08:33,520 --> 00:08:35,120 Yeah, but he's not funny, and he's no sheep. 213 00:08:36,400 --> 00:08:36,800 Okay. 214 00:08:38,240 --> 00:08:39,600 Me and Daryl have had our moments. 215 00:08:41,520 --> 00:08:44,160 So I think it's really possible 216 00:08:44,160 --> 00:08:46,560 that that guy with the sheep could have been Daryl David. 217 00:08:47,360 --> 00:08:48,640 Yeah. Yeah. 218 00:08:48,640 --> 00:08:49,760 Apart from the Chinese part. 219 00:08:49,760 --> 00:08:51,280 But... 220 00:08:51,280 --> 00:08:52,880 But hey, look, come on. 221 00:08:52,880 --> 00:08:55,200 Daryl speaks fluent Mandarin, man. 222 00:08:55,200 --> 00:08:55,760 Sure. 223 00:08:55,760 --> 00:08:56,160 Yeah. 224 00:08:56,160 --> 00:08:56,560 I mean... 225 00:08:56,560 --> 00:08:58,800 Could have been him, but was it him? 226 00:08:59,760 --> 00:09:05,120 We've established it's a Chinese fella who had a sheep. 227 00:09:06,080 --> 00:09:09,520 Now, if you're suggesting that Daryl was wearing makeup... 228 00:09:09,520 --> 00:09:12,080 Certainly I guess Daryl does look Chinese. 229 00:09:12,080 --> 00:09:12,580 Oh my. 230 00:09:14,560 --> 00:09:16,880 I think this is where we might do a Vade commercial. 231 00:09:16,880 --> 00:09:18,720 It's a good idea. 232 00:09:18,720 --> 00:09:21,120 Seems like we've entered the area. 233 00:09:21,120 --> 00:09:22,560 Good idea, man. Good idea. 234 00:09:22,560 --> 00:09:23,200 Yeah. 235 00:09:23,200 --> 00:09:25,520 Okay, Joe has just reminded me, 236 00:09:25,520 --> 00:09:27,760 Chris, don't forget to talk about these things. 237 00:09:27,760 --> 00:09:28,560 Yes. 238 00:09:28,560 --> 00:09:32,720 I've got with us probably the fluffiest, 239 00:09:32,720 --> 00:09:36,400 crispiest prawn vades in Singapore. 240 00:09:36,400 --> 00:09:38,000 And we'd like to thank Gordon's Vade. 241 00:09:38,000 --> 00:09:40,080 Thank you also, Vijay, for always... 242 00:09:40,080 --> 00:09:42,080 I'm coming around in the rain, man. 243 00:09:42,080 --> 00:09:42,580 Oh yeah? 244 00:09:43,840 --> 00:09:45,200 You got here, it was raining, right? 245 00:09:45,200 --> 00:09:46,080 He must have been fast. 246 00:09:46,080 --> 00:09:50,000 Fast, because he'd sped so fast, there was smoke. 247 00:09:52,080 --> 00:09:52,580 Oh boy. 248 00:09:55,040 --> 00:09:55,600 Oh boy. 249 00:09:56,160 --> 00:09:58,960 Thank you very much Gordon's Vade for these vades. 250 00:09:58,960 --> 00:10:00,400 And thank you once again, Vijay. 251 00:10:01,360 --> 00:10:02,880 You know what Joe just said. 252 00:10:02,880 --> 00:10:07,280 Listen, it's evidently crispy because I watched the episode with Benny on. 253 00:10:07,920 --> 00:10:08,720 Vienneseito? 254 00:10:08,720 --> 00:10:09,220 Yeah. 255 00:10:09,520 --> 00:10:12,400 And he was chewing and crunching and everything and all that. 256 00:10:12,400 --> 00:10:13,680 So I actually said to myself, 257 00:10:13,680 --> 00:10:18,240 I must not make that mistake of eating the vades on camera 258 00:10:18,240 --> 00:10:20,640 because it's just going to mess up the whole sound all the way through. 259 00:10:20,640 --> 00:10:21,760 It doesn't matter, man. 260 00:10:21,760 --> 00:10:22,640 It's a podcast. 261 00:10:22,640 --> 00:10:23,360 Go right ahead. 262 00:10:23,360 --> 00:10:24,160 I think the whole point... 263 00:10:24,880 --> 00:10:27,440 Listen to the thing about me and radio. 264 00:10:27,440 --> 00:10:29,520 How much time did I spend trying to adjust the microphone 265 00:10:29,520 --> 00:10:30,880 before we started and all that? 266 00:10:30,880 --> 00:10:31,680 Now you want to go... 267 00:10:31,680 --> 00:10:32,320 Ah, it's cool. 268 00:10:32,320 --> 00:10:33,280 Just let it be. 269 00:10:33,280 --> 00:10:34,160 No, it's cool. 270 00:10:34,160 --> 00:10:36,080 Because I appreciate people like you. 271 00:10:36,080 --> 00:10:37,520 Because from what I know today, 272 00:10:38,560 --> 00:10:42,800 basically nine and a half out of 10 jocks on air 273 00:10:42,800 --> 00:10:44,080 don't even bother to EQ. 274 00:10:44,640 --> 00:10:45,840 That's what I've been told. 275 00:10:45,840 --> 00:10:50,080 Well, let's ask the question whether they know what EQ is in the first place. 276 00:10:50,880 --> 00:10:53,840 Okay, so I was in the middle of history of Singapore Radio, right? 277 00:10:53,840 --> 00:10:56,720 So because you mentioned something about Class 95 coming up. 278 00:10:56,720 --> 00:10:59,920 So actually it was Zoo 101.6 set up as a business. 279 00:10:59,920 --> 00:11:04,560 And what they had come up with was an initial idea to try to 280 00:11:06,400 --> 00:11:10,080 get hold of advertising dollars that maybe weren't available in Singapore, 281 00:11:10,080 --> 00:11:10,800 weren't being served. 282 00:11:10,800 --> 00:11:12,080 Great business idea. 283 00:11:12,080 --> 00:11:14,160 This is the Ramako Batam Company, right? 284 00:11:15,840 --> 00:11:21,360 They launched that station and then the reply came in the form of 98.7. 285 00:11:21,360 --> 00:11:21,920 Right. 286 00:11:21,920 --> 00:11:23,120 So that was the first... 287 00:11:23,120 --> 00:11:23,840 Perfect 10. 288 00:11:23,840 --> 00:11:25,200 Yeah, Perfect 10, 987. 289 00:11:25,200 --> 00:11:25,760 Yeah. 290 00:11:25,760 --> 00:11:26,560 So that came up. 291 00:11:27,280 --> 00:11:30,160 Then after a while more, then they launched Coast. 292 00:11:31,280 --> 00:11:31,840 Who? 293 00:11:31,840 --> 00:11:32,880 Coast 100. 294 00:11:32,880 --> 00:11:35,200 You know, it was the Mellow Station. 295 00:11:36,240 --> 00:11:37,360 So you had your... 296 00:11:37,360 --> 00:11:39,840 You had Joe Monkey, Julie Peacock, all this. 297 00:11:39,840 --> 00:11:41,840 But you're talking about Batam. 298 00:11:41,840 --> 00:11:43,040 They launched Coast. 299 00:11:43,040 --> 00:11:44,400 Yeah, so they launched Coast. 300 00:11:44,400 --> 00:11:46,240 So by the way, all these are... 301 00:11:46,240 --> 00:11:53,200 So the Zoo is a name that's just ripped right out of the copy everybody names book, right? 302 00:11:53,200 --> 00:11:56,320 Zoo is a station in New York at the time. 303 00:11:56,320 --> 00:11:58,320 Number one in the world if you want to think about it. 304 00:11:58,320 --> 00:11:58,800 Really? 305 00:11:58,800 --> 00:12:05,120 Still, Zoo is still the premium radio station right up there with BBC Radio 1. 306 00:12:05,760 --> 00:12:06,640 A lot of these, right? 307 00:12:06,640 --> 00:12:07,140 Okay. 308 00:12:07,760 --> 00:12:08,560 And then Coast. 309 00:12:08,560 --> 00:12:13,680 Coast actually is a ripoff of a California radio station. 310 00:12:13,680 --> 00:12:15,680 Okay, so they were ripping off everyone. 311 00:12:15,680 --> 00:12:17,680 Yeah, as we were. 312 00:12:17,680 --> 00:12:18,480 Perfect 10? 313 00:12:18,480 --> 00:12:19,200 Yeah, Perfect 10. 314 00:12:19,200 --> 00:12:20,080 Was that a ripoff as well? 315 00:12:20,080 --> 00:12:24,560 Okay, so Perfect 10, seriously, is such a bad name no one came up with it before. 316 00:12:24,560 --> 00:12:28,880 Okay, you want to be cool, right? 317 00:12:28,880 --> 00:12:30,160 I mean, you start off with cool. 318 00:12:30,160 --> 00:12:31,680 Hey guys, let's be cool. 319 00:12:31,680 --> 00:12:34,160 Come up with some really cool names, okay? 320 00:12:34,160 --> 00:12:37,120 I don't like Zoom. 321 00:12:37,120 --> 00:12:38,720 I don't like Zoom. 322 00:12:38,720 --> 00:12:39,760 It's too much like Zoo. 323 00:12:39,760 --> 00:12:41,920 I don't like Power. 324 00:12:41,920 --> 00:12:42,400 Power? 325 00:12:42,400 --> 00:12:44,720 No, no one's going to call a station Power. 326 00:12:49,280 --> 00:12:50,000 What do you have there? 327 00:12:51,200 --> 00:12:52,640 Yeah, perfect. 328 00:12:54,000 --> 00:12:56,560 Perfect, no, I think not enough. 329 00:12:56,560 --> 00:12:58,160 Someone remembered Bo Derek. 330 00:12:58,160 --> 00:12:58,880 Yeah, yeah, yeah. 331 00:12:58,880 --> 00:13:00,320 And they put all Perfect 10. 332 00:13:00,320 --> 00:13:01,760 Yeah, so Perfect 10. 333 00:13:01,760 --> 00:13:05,120 So let's come up with something for branding that is too long to put on a sticker. 334 00:13:05,120 --> 00:13:12,080 Yeah, so that's the kind of world that radio kind of had to be born into. 335 00:13:13,840 --> 00:13:17,440 And then so, Coast came up and Coast was actually beating everybody. 336 00:13:17,440 --> 00:13:17,680 Right. 337 00:13:17,680 --> 00:13:19,600 Because it's nice, nice mellow music. 338 00:13:19,600 --> 00:13:26,720 It seemed to a lot of people, including myself, that Perfect 10, 987 FM, way, way back when, 339 00:13:26,720 --> 00:13:27,280 right? 340 00:13:27,280 --> 00:13:29,680 It was so hastily set up. 341 00:13:30,640 --> 00:13:31,760 Was it like that? 342 00:13:31,760 --> 00:13:33,120 It was a panic reaction. 343 00:13:33,120 --> 00:13:33,760 It was, right? 344 00:13:33,760 --> 00:13:40,000 It was a situation where radio had gone from 40% ratings with no competition to everybody 345 00:13:40,000 --> 00:13:44,800 talking about the other station that's coming across the water with a poor signal. 346 00:13:44,800 --> 00:13:46,480 I mean, it wasn't a great signal. 347 00:13:46,480 --> 00:13:47,280 It was good enough. 348 00:13:47,280 --> 00:13:51,760 I mean, you live, okay, so if you live in the East, you're blessed because you're out there, 349 00:13:51,760 --> 00:13:53,920 because the Batam is line of sight. 350 00:13:54,640 --> 00:13:56,000 So it's not a great signal coming in. 351 00:13:56,560 --> 00:13:58,720 So this is what you were being beaten by. 352 00:13:58,720 --> 00:14:00,400 And then this content is king, right? 353 00:14:00,400 --> 00:14:07,040 So they were playing, and it's the simplest thing, just playing music and talking a lot 354 00:14:07,040 --> 00:14:07,920 less in between. 355 00:14:08,640 --> 00:14:09,760 No news updates. 356 00:14:09,760 --> 00:14:10,960 Oh, actually, sorry, I lie. 357 00:14:11,520 --> 00:14:13,280 They had the worst news updates. 358 00:14:14,000 --> 00:14:18,480 Because every, if you, and those of you who remember it will remember that the only kind 359 00:14:18,480 --> 00:14:23,840 of problem in their programming is because part of broadcasting comes with licenses that include 360 00:14:24,400 --> 00:14:25,680 content requirements. 361 00:14:25,680 --> 00:14:29,520 So they had to carry news and they carried Indonesian 362 00:14:29,520 --> 00:14:31,280 news, centralized news. 363 00:14:31,280 --> 00:14:33,360 And again, it wasn't even a nice quality one. 364 00:14:33,360 --> 00:14:37,520 It was one of those like, this is who 101.6 and now the news. 365 00:14:41,040 --> 00:14:44,160 Just knew you had to live with that for a while before the next song came out. 366 00:14:44,160 --> 00:14:46,560 But listeners really didn't really think of much of it. 367 00:14:46,560 --> 00:14:49,600 Because it was the only little offending thing. 368 00:14:49,600 --> 00:14:50,080 Yeah. 369 00:14:50,080 --> 00:14:52,320 It was a minor little bump in the show. 370 00:14:53,200 --> 00:14:54,000 That was about it. 371 00:14:54,000 --> 00:14:56,000 Not like a half hour cooking show. 372 00:14:56,000 --> 00:14:57,440 We enjoyed the voices. 373 00:14:57,440 --> 00:15:01,120 We enjoyed the little monikers they gave each DJ. 374 00:15:02,560 --> 00:15:04,640 And we enjoyed the music selection. 375 00:15:04,640 --> 00:15:05,280 You know what I mean? 376 00:15:05,920 --> 00:15:07,200 It was entertaining. 377 00:15:07,200 --> 00:15:08,480 It sounded modern. 378 00:15:08,480 --> 00:15:09,200 It sounded fresh. 379 00:15:09,200 --> 00:15:10,160 It's just contrast. 380 00:15:10,880 --> 00:15:11,920 It just sounded fresh. 381 00:15:13,520 --> 00:15:19,040 It's like, if you are brought up in an environment where the food is always cold, 382 00:15:19,040 --> 00:15:20,560 somebody serves you a hot meal. 383 00:15:20,560 --> 00:15:22,240 It's like, oh my God, this is so good. 384 00:15:23,440 --> 00:15:26,160 So I mean, if you're seriously brought out now, 385 00:15:26,160 --> 00:15:28,880 you're clouded by nostalgia. 386 00:15:28,880 --> 00:15:30,640 Zoo was a sucky station. 387 00:15:31,280 --> 00:15:35,120 But it came up against something that was much suckier. 388 00:15:36,800 --> 00:15:40,080 That was literally how easy it was to win. 389 00:15:40,080 --> 00:15:42,160 Okay. In your opinion, so when Perfect 10 started, 390 00:15:42,160 --> 00:15:46,640 and 87 FM, when that started, do you think that they were really, 391 00:15:48,000 --> 00:15:50,480 really that good compared to 101.6? 392 00:15:52,000 --> 00:15:55,520 Did they succeed in getting, you know, 393 00:15:55,520 --> 00:15:59,280 the audience or listenership back to local radio? 394 00:16:00,400 --> 00:16:05,200 They succeeded in so far as they stemmed the tide, 395 00:16:06,000 --> 00:16:10,320 and people did follow because there was something, again, refreshing about it. 396 00:16:10,320 --> 00:16:13,840 So again, now this is about culture. 397 00:16:14,800 --> 00:16:19,760 A local radio station has a little bit of an advantage as far as culture is concerned. 398 00:16:20,480 --> 00:16:24,080 But what they made the mistake of with 987, I feel, 399 00:16:24,080 --> 00:16:29,520 was they still took a little bit of that gold programming style. 400 00:16:31,040 --> 00:16:34,640 They put DJs on and they put them in charge of their own music. 401 00:16:36,160 --> 00:16:39,760 So it wasn't formatted radio. 402 00:16:39,760 --> 00:16:41,520 It wasn't fully formatted radio. 403 00:16:41,520 --> 00:16:44,240 So it was supposed to be pop radio, 404 00:16:44,240 --> 00:16:47,200 but you had everybody on the air with their own personal agenda. 405 00:16:48,080 --> 00:16:51,280 You knew the flavors of DJs when they came on. 406 00:16:51,280 --> 00:16:55,120 Right? So like to me, the name that comes to mind most is An-Yo. 407 00:16:56,080 --> 00:16:58,240 And do you remember what Anne was famous for? 408 00:16:58,240 --> 00:16:58,800 No, I don't. 409 00:16:58,800 --> 00:16:59,840 Anne's a rocker chick, man. 410 00:16:59,840 --> 00:17:01,200 She really loves rock. 411 00:17:02,640 --> 00:17:04,320 So you'd get those songs. 412 00:17:05,680 --> 00:17:11,840 Suresh, Suresh Menden, departed radio brother, 413 00:17:13,120 --> 00:17:15,680 he liked to smoke, so he would play long songs. 414 00:17:17,840 --> 00:17:20,240 Again, in the category of jokes here. 415 00:17:20,240 --> 00:17:25,520 But people did things really to make things convenient for themselves. 416 00:17:26,160 --> 00:17:29,920 I'm actually very amazed you have Kai here who doesn't laugh at the funny things. 417 00:17:30,800 --> 00:17:31,920 Well, is it? 418 00:17:31,920 --> 00:17:32,720 It's like... 419 00:17:32,720 --> 00:17:33,920 Discipline in the studio, man. 420 00:17:33,920 --> 00:17:34,960 I think I'm killing here. 421 00:17:36,800 --> 00:17:38,800 I've delivered blow after blow. 422 00:17:38,800 --> 00:17:40,320 It's just discipline in the studio. 423 00:17:40,320 --> 00:17:41,520 Comedy gold 90.5. 424 00:17:41,520 --> 00:17:43,920 You're invited to laugh out loud if you want to, man. 425 00:17:43,920 --> 00:17:45,600 You should have a microphone on with you, bro. 426 00:17:46,640 --> 00:17:47,140 Yeah. 427 00:17:47,140 --> 00:17:50,980 Yeah, so that's the truth of it. 428 00:17:50,980 --> 00:17:54,580 When stuff is that bad, something that's a little bit good, okay. 429 00:17:54,580 --> 00:17:58,500 But I kind of like that kind of concept where it's a little bit rugged. 430 00:17:58,500 --> 00:18:02,100 You have people like Suresh Menden who play longer songs. 431 00:18:02,100 --> 00:18:06,260 And maybe because he always goes on long smoke breaks. 432 00:18:06,900 --> 00:18:08,260 You have An-Yo, rocker chick. 433 00:18:08,260 --> 00:18:09,780 This is completely unfounded, by the way. 434 00:18:09,780 --> 00:18:10,260 Yeah, okay. 435 00:18:10,260 --> 00:18:13,940 The family of Suresh, you can put the phone down with the lawyer. 436 00:18:13,940 --> 00:18:17,940 Yeah. I mean, longer playing songs. 437 00:18:17,940 --> 00:18:21,700 Then you have An-Yo who's a rocker chick playing rock music. 438 00:18:22,100 --> 00:18:23,700 I mean, to me, there's a lot of flavor. 439 00:18:23,700 --> 00:18:24,260 Yes, of course. 440 00:18:24,260 --> 00:18:27,460 As compared to what's happening today, don't you think? 441 00:18:27,460 --> 00:18:32,660 Okay, so here's the thing about understanding the game you're playing. 442 00:18:32,660 --> 00:18:32,980 Right? 443 00:18:32,980 --> 00:18:37,460 So you can say that, oh, these are the different flavors and what have you and all that. 444 00:18:37,460 --> 00:18:40,260 But the business you're in is radio. 445 00:18:40,260 --> 00:18:46,420 It's to make it useful for me as someone who's trying to put something on the background. 446 00:18:46,420 --> 00:18:47,780 I want to know what I want. 447 00:18:47,780 --> 00:18:53,220 So yes, you can try to be in the food business and do some really nice stuff. 448 00:18:53,220 --> 00:18:57,860 And you kind of like have sometimes I do this, sometimes I do that, sometimes I do that. 449 00:18:57,860 --> 00:18:58,260 Right? 450 00:18:58,260 --> 00:19:01,700 But how many restaurants do you go to where you go, 451 00:19:01,700 --> 00:19:03,380 I don't know what the guy is going to serve. 452 00:19:04,180 --> 00:19:05,300 I know it's going to be edible. 453 00:19:05,300 --> 00:19:11,780 I mean, yeah, you can think of it as kind of attractive as a kind of an idea. 454 00:19:11,780 --> 00:19:17,940 And it works for, I would say, the very, very sure-footed individual. 455 00:19:19,140 --> 00:19:20,260 But most of us are not. 456 00:19:20,260 --> 00:19:21,700 Most of us are social beings. 457 00:19:21,700 --> 00:19:21,940 Right? 458 00:19:21,940 --> 00:19:22,580 Okay. 459 00:19:22,580 --> 00:19:27,380 So if I say to you, burger, you don't instantly go like, oh, yes, our 17th floor. 460 00:19:29,300 --> 00:19:30,020 Mandarin Hotel. 461 00:19:30,580 --> 00:19:31,940 And not now, 20 years ago. 462 00:19:33,060 --> 00:19:33,860 I remember Jonathan. 463 00:19:33,860 --> 00:19:35,140 Jonathan was such a good chef. 464 00:19:35,140 --> 00:19:36,100 He knew how to make a burger. 465 00:19:38,580 --> 00:19:39,460 You know Jonathan, right? 466 00:19:39,460 --> 00:19:39,780 No. 467 00:19:39,780 --> 00:19:40,100 Okay. 468 00:19:40,100 --> 00:19:40,740 Joke again. 469 00:19:40,740 --> 00:19:41,060 I know. 470 00:19:42,020 --> 00:19:43,460 That's why I'm ignoring it. 471 00:19:43,460 --> 00:19:44,980 I'm thinking past other things. 472 00:19:44,980 --> 00:19:46,820 We're getting past ignoring now already. 473 00:19:46,820 --> 00:19:49,380 Yeah, I have to because I know it's smoking thing. 474 00:19:49,380 --> 00:19:52,820 Then after that, you know, the Jonathan now, my goodness. 475 00:19:53,620 --> 00:19:53,940 Okay. 476 00:19:55,220 --> 00:19:58,100 So basically what happened after 987, man? 477 00:19:58,100 --> 00:19:59,620 I mean, Class 95 came about. 478 00:19:59,620 --> 00:20:00,500 I remember that. 479 00:20:00,500 --> 00:20:04,260 So 987 was actually a pretty good reply to Zoom. 480 00:20:04,260 --> 00:20:05,300 Zoom, yeah. 481 00:20:05,300 --> 00:20:06,260 Zoom started Kost. 482 00:20:06,260 --> 00:20:06,660 Yeah. 483 00:20:06,660 --> 00:20:11,780 And then Kost, so Kost was soft, easygoing music, and they were killing it. 484 00:20:11,780 --> 00:20:12,660 Really killing it. 485 00:20:12,660 --> 00:20:18,100 So it's Zoom and 987 both struggling because Kost, this big monster came along. 486 00:20:18,100 --> 00:20:18,600 Right. 487 00:20:19,380 --> 00:20:23,620 Really playing nice, mellow music of the heart, you know, that kind of stuff, right? 488 00:20:23,620 --> 00:20:28,100 So they went looking for, again, a reply. 489 00:20:28,980 --> 00:20:30,180 To try and reply. 490 00:20:30,180 --> 00:20:35,540 And nobody in the radio business in Singapore had actually done format radio. 491 00:20:35,540 --> 00:20:36,100 Okay. 492 00:20:36,100 --> 00:20:40,740 So what happened was, you know, a bit like what you experienced when you listen to Zoom, 493 00:20:41,300 --> 00:20:42,660 you didn't hear format radio. 494 00:20:42,660 --> 00:20:44,260 You just went, oh, this is nice. 495 00:20:44,260 --> 00:20:45,940 This is kind of nice, whatever it is, right? 496 00:20:45,940 --> 00:20:51,540 And so 987 was the reply based on, you know, when you see someone doing something 497 00:20:51,540 --> 00:20:54,100 and you try to imitate them and whatever. 498 00:20:54,100 --> 00:20:56,980 So 987 was actually the imitation of what they saw. 499 00:20:56,980 --> 00:20:57,460 Right. 500 00:20:57,460 --> 00:21:02,260 Very few people at the time used to do things like try to listen to radio stations 501 00:21:02,260 --> 00:21:03,460 from other parts of the world. 502 00:21:03,460 --> 00:21:03,700 Right. 503 00:21:03,700 --> 00:21:04,820 It just wasn't a thing, right? 504 00:21:06,420 --> 00:21:10,580 So they then thought, okay, you know, strategically, what should we do? 505 00:21:10,580 --> 00:21:17,380 They actually went to the US to look for somebody to set up a radio station for them. 506 00:21:17,380 --> 00:21:17,860 Wow. 507 00:21:17,860 --> 00:21:18,020 Yeah. 508 00:21:19,700 --> 00:21:22,420 And this is the tragedy and the beauty of the story. 509 00:21:22,420 --> 00:21:28,100 I owe my radio career to the misfortunes that they had, right? 510 00:21:28,100 --> 00:21:35,060 So you imagine a country's broadcasting corporation doing a search, boldly going 511 00:21:35,060 --> 00:21:40,340 into the US to look for the finest talent that they can pull into their midst. 512 00:21:40,340 --> 00:21:41,060 To consult. 513 00:21:41,620 --> 00:21:46,020 Not to consult, but to lead this radio station because it was important stuff, right? 514 00:21:46,020 --> 00:21:49,380 I mean, you know, 987, you know, worked for a while. 515 00:21:49,380 --> 00:21:53,380 Then they just got whacked by a zoo 101, by a coast. 516 00:21:53,380 --> 00:21:53,780 Right. 517 00:21:54,580 --> 00:21:58,900 So, you know, they went in search of this person. 518 00:22:00,580 --> 00:22:04,740 And so when it came to the interviews and all the people who showed up for it, right? 519 00:22:05,380 --> 00:22:06,420 One man came. 520 00:22:06,420 --> 00:22:06,820 Who? 521 00:22:06,820 --> 00:22:07,380 Just one man. 522 00:22:07,380 --> 00:22:07,780 That's all. 523 00:22:09,780 --> 00:22:11,300 That was the extent of it. 524 00:22:11,300 --> 00:22:12,740 Any name that we would know? 525 00:22:12,740 --> 00:22:16,500 So as it happens, this one man, Steve Sundberg. 526 00:22:17,060 --> 00:22:17,780 Steve Sundberg. 527 00:22:17,780 --> 00:22:24,260 So you don't remember the name Steve Sundberg, but Steve Sundberg was someone who was doing, 528 00:22:25,140 --> 00:22:30,180 I would say, some part-time work for a radio station in Minnesota at the time. 529 00:22:30,740 --> 00:22:32,980 But he understood radio. 530 00:22:33,540 --> 00:22:38,180 And more importantly, he understood format radio and he understood the software 531 00:22:38,900 --> 00:22:39,860 that goes behind radio. 532 00:22:39,860 --> 00:22:41,380 So there's a software called Selector. 533 00:22:42,420 --> 00:22:47,060 And Selector, right now, if you listen to almost any radio station in the world that 534 00:22:47,060 --> 00:22:53,060 plays music, there is a more than 50% chance, in fact, it used to be much higher, 535 00:22:53,060 --> 00:22:58,180 that the music scheduling was done with a software called Selector. 536 00:22:58,180 --> 00:23:05,140 So out of Selector, actually, an entire industry of radio stations actually have radio software. 537 00:23:05,140 --> 00:23:07,940 So it's like putting them in queue, right? 538 00:23:07,940 --> 00:23:08,660 That software. 539 00:23:08,660 --> 00:23:11,780 Putting music in queue, then your talk sets in queue and all that. 540 00:23:11,780 --> 00:23:12,020 Is it? 541 00:23:12,020 --> 00:23:15,460 No, Selector is different from the stuff that plays it back. 542 00:23:15,460 --> 00:23:19,300 Selector is the part of choosing the right songs to put where and whatever it is, right? 543 00:23:19,300 --> 00:23:23,220 So back in the old days, in format radio, early days format radio, 544 00:23:23,220 --> 00:23:25,140 they would have a stack of cards. 545 00:23:25,140 --> 00:23:26,980 So when you talk about top 40 radio, right? 546 00:23:26,980 --> 00:23:33,300 Literally used to be, in the most aggressive early version of top 40 radio, 547 00:23:33,300 --> 00:23:40,180 they literally had 40 songs that they would play in rotation. 548 00:23:41,060 --> 00:23:42,580 That was the earliest, rawest form. 549 00:23:42,580 --> 00:23:44,020 And then it kind of developed over time. 550 00:23:44,020 --> 00:23:46,180 And so they come out with a mix. 551 00:23:46,180 --> 00:23:51,540 So they have 20%, that's the current, then the recurrent are the ones that are quite well known, 552 00:23:51,540 --> 00:23:53,380 but not quite dead yet. 553 00:23:53,380 --> 00:23:54,740 So we bring them back every now and then. 554 00:23:55,780 --> 00:23:57,860 Current would be played maybe eight times a day. 555 00:23:59,140 --> 00:24:00,500 And then some classics or whatever. 556 00:24:00,500 --> 00:24:02,420 So there's a kind of a mix going on. 557 00:24:02,420 --> 00:24:05,940 And the management of that whole thing by software, 558 00:24:05,940 --> 00:24:10,420 to translate basically the artistry of someone who's programming a radio station 559 00:24:10,420 --> 00:24:14,180 and scale it out over a 24 hour period, over seven days. 560 00:24:14,180 --> 00:24:17,300 You had to use some kind of software to do that. 561 00:24:17,300 --> 00:24:20,100 So the software would be a way for you to code. 562 00:24:20,100 --> 00:24:21,460 The song goes with this song. 563 00:24:21,460 --> 00:24:26,340 And if you were even that inclined, I visited a music director, 564 00:24:27,300 --> 00:24:30,100 a program director in LA. 565 00:24:30,100 --> 00:24:32,340 Actually, I think he was the guy behind the original coast. 566 00:24:33,940 --> 00:24:39,380 And he understood things like the keys of songs and the textures and all that. 567 00:24:39,380 --> 00:24:42,020 So that's why it was such a beautiful experience 568 00:24:42,820 --> 00:24:45,620 to listen to that kind of thing, because it was artistically put together. 569 00:24:45,620 --> 00:24:54,180 M. So it's almost the same as what you might do in clubs, for example, for club DJing. 570 00:24:54,820 --> 00:24:57,780 Where you have BPMs matching the next BPM, the next song. 571 00:24:57,780 --> 00:24:58,580 S. Yeah. 572 00:24:58,580 --> 00:24:59,460 M. Something like that. 573 00:24:59,460 --> 00:25:02,820 So it doesn't go far off from the last being played. 574 00:25:02,820 --> 00:25:06,020 S. Well, with radio, what you're looking for is slightly different than that. 575 00:25:06,020 --> 00:25:08,100 So in radio, you don't want the beat to be the same. 576 00:25:08,100 --> 00:25:08,580 M. Right. 577 00:25:08,580 --> 00:25:10,420 S. You want it to move, right? 578 00:25:10,420 --> 00:25:11,780 But you don't want it to jar. 579 00:25:11,780 --> 00:25:12,740 M. Right. 580 00:25:12,740 --> 00:25:16,420 S. So you're going to go from 120 and drop it down to 100, 581 00:25:16,420 --> 00:25:19,140 and maybe get to the 80 before you bring it back to 105. 582 00:25:19,140 --> 00:25:19,860 M. Right. 583 00:25:19,860 --> 00:25:21,460 S. A few different things. 584 00:25:21,460 --> 00:25:22,260 You want variety. 585 00:25:22,260 --> 00:25:24,980 You're going to have male, female groups. 586 00:25:24,980 --> 00:25:28,180 You're going to have a few different things that are moving around 587 00:25:28,180 --> 00:25:30,420 so that the brain stays interested. 588 00:25:30,420 --> 00:25:35,220 M. I remember, I remember, now that you talk about this selector thing, the software, right? 589 00:25:35,220 --> 00:25:35,540 S. Yeah. 590 00:25:35,540 --> 00:25:39,860 M. For radio, when radio was starting to get format, to be formatted. 591 00:25:39,860 --> 00:25:40,420 S. Yeah. 592 00:25:40,420 --> 00:25:42,980 M. I was, I did visit Rediffusion. 593 00:25:42,980 --> 00:25:43,620 S. Ah. 594 00:25:43,620 --> 00:25:44,580 M. Remember Rediffusion? 595 00:25:44,580 --> 00:25:49,780 S. Long, long, long time ago. 596 00:25:49,780 --> 00:25:50,100 S. Yes. 597 00:25:50,100 --> 00:25:56,180 M. I visited Rediffusion in Clemonzo, and I can't remember who that girl was. 598 00:25:56,180 --> 00:26:00,420 There was this DJ that was in that studio. 599 00:26:00,420 --> 00:26:00,820 S. Yeah. 600 00:26:00,820 --> 00:26:03,780 M. And there was this program called So You Want to Be a DJ. 601 00:26:03,780 --> 00:26:05,220 S. Ah. 602 00:26:05,220 --> 00:26:13,220 M. So I think I was probably 16 or 17, I can't remember, but in my teens. 603 00:26:13,220 --> 00:26:13,620 S. Yeah. 604 00:26:13,620 --> 00:26:14,820 M. And I got into that. 605 00:26:15,620 --> 00:26:19,380 And I had to come up with a list of songs that I want played and blah, blah, blah. 606 00:26:19,380 --> 00:26:20,580 And you know what they were doing, man? 607 00:26:20,580 --> 00:26:21,060 S. Yeah. 608 00:26:21,060 --> 00:26:25,780 M. They were playing, they were playing the source of music coming from vinyls 609 00:26:26,580 --> 00:26:30,260 on Mark IIs, Techniques Mark IIs, turntables, right? 610 00:26:31,060 --> 00:26:34,820 And they've got cartridges besides cassettes. 611 00:26:34,820 --> 00:26:35,300 S. Yes. 612 00:26:35,300 --> 00:26:37,700 M. They had those big ones in the old days. 613 00:26:37,700 --> 00:26:40,500 There was, it was a fight between cassettes and cartridges. 614 00:26:40,500 --> 00:26:40,900 S. Yeah. 615 00:26:40,900 --> 00:26:43,460 M. So they were playing music from cartridges as well. 616 00:26:43,460 --> 00:26:45,780 It was all fed in by the DJ. 617 00:26:45,780 --> 00:26:46,340 S. Yeah. 618 00:26:46,340 --> 00:26:49,380 M. And they all played on vinyl right there and then. 619 00:26:49,380 --> 00:26:49,780 S. Yeah. 620 00:26:49,780 --> 00:26:52,740 M. So this thing you're telling me is like, wow, never seen it before. 621 00:26:52,740 --> 00:26:53,300 S. No, no. 622 00:26:53,300 --> 00:26:56,980 So Selecta is the software that prints out a list. 623 00:26:56,980 --> 00:26:57,540 M. Right. 624 00:26:57,540 --> 00:26:59,140 S. That tells you which one to play. 625 00:26:59,140 --> 00:26:59,620 M. Right. 626 00:26:59,620 --> 00:27:00,580 But you play the music. 627 00:27:00,580 --> 00:27:03,300 S. So depending on the advancement at the time. 628 00:27:03,300 --> 00:27:05,700 So early days of Selecta was a printed list. 629 00:27:05,700 --> 00:27:06,820 There was a playlist. 630 00:27:06,820 --> 00:27:08,180 It was a piece of paper. 631 00:27:08,180 --> 00:27:11,380 And you would know from the schedule, you could say, oh, I need to play this one from a card. 632 00:27:11,380 --> 00:27:12,420 This one will be from a CD. 633 00:27:12,420 --> 00:27:14,980 This one's from a record or whatever it is. 634 00:27:15,460 --> 00:27:18,420 So Selecta and Playback are two different things. 635 00:27:18,420 --> 00:27:26,420 So Playback is a thing that came back later when they finally were able to afford digital Playback. 636 00:27:26,420 --> 00:27:30,820 Because the space required to store music at the time was formidable. 637 00:27:30,820 --> 00:27:31,220 S. Yeah. 638 00:27:31,220 --> 00:27:33,540 M. Right. So digital Playback. 639 00:27:33,540 --> 00:27:34,980 Now it's no big deal. 640 00:27:35,700 --> 00:27:36,980 Back in the day when you talk about- 641 00:27:36,980 --> 00:27:38,100 S. You mean storage space. 642 00:27:38,100 --> 00:27:42,500 M. It's the same storage space in terms of digital space. 643 00:27:42,500 --> 00:27:43,620 It's bloody expensive. 644 00:27:43,620 --> 00:27:44,420 S. Okay. 645 00:27:44,420 --> 00:27:47,140 M. So in the day, I mean, in my day- 646 00:27:47,140 --> 00:27:48,180 S. Digital space. 647 00:27:48,180 --> 00:27:50,580 Digital spaces back then cost a lot of money basically. 648 00:27:50,580 --> 00:27:55,620 M. Yeah. I mean, I had these drives that were this big, sitting about as broad as a table. 649 00:27:56,020 --> 00:27:58,180 And that was a two gigabyte drive. 650 00:27:58,180 --> 00:27:58,900 S. Holy crap. 651 00:27:58,900 --> 00:28:00,260 M. And that was my Ferrari. 652 00:28:00,260 --> 00:28:01,540 S. Oh boy. 653 00:28:01,540 --> 00:28:03,140 M. By the way, I had four of them. 654 00:28:05,140 --> 00:28:09,460 But if you have four of these and you have eight gigabytes, you have nothing these days. 655 00:28:10,580 --> 00:28:13,700 But in the day, you think about a radio station. 656 00:28:13,700 --> 00:28:15,460 First of all, it's got to be able to store it. 657 00:28:15,460 --> 00:28:18,980 Secondly, it's got to be able to be reliable so it can Playback as and when. 658 00:28:20,020 --> 00:28:23,380 So yeah, no, it was all manual for quite a while. 659 00:28:23,380 --> 00:28:27,060 So even though we had Selecta, we were playing off CDs as well. 660 00:28:27,060 --> 00:28:30,660 Because you know, class, you must have class, right? 661 00:28:30,660 --> 00:28:32,900 So sorry. 662 00:28:35,140 --> 00:28:38,980 We will drag across the bottom of the barrel several times here. 663 00:28:41,460 --> 00:28:42,900 How about a new series, Dead Jokes? 664 00:28:42,900 --> 00:28:46,660 M. Oh, Steve Sundberg, right? 665 00:28:46,660 --> 00:28:47,380 Is that his name again? 666 00:28:47,380 --> 00:28:48,900 Okay. So he came to Singapore. 667 00:28:48,900 --> 00:28:50,180 He became the consultant. 668 00:28:50,180 --> 00:28:51,780 He knew Formant Radio. 669 00:28:51,780 --> 00:28:52,260 S. Yeah. 670 00:28:52,260 --> 00:28:53,220 M. And then what happened? 671 00:28:53,220 --> 00:28:53,780 S. Okay. 672 00:28:53,780 --> 00:28:57,060 So he came in here to set up this radio station. 673 00:28:57,060 --> 00:29:01,700 And in the meantime, what happened was I had been hired for these very- 674 00:29:01,700 --> 00:29:03,460 M. This is where Joe Augustine came into the picture. 675 00:29:03,460 --> 00:29:03,620 S. Yeah. 676 00:29:03,620 --> 00:29:10,420 So when I arrived in Singapore, there was still no class 95, right? 677 00:29:10,420 --> 00:29:14,020 I arrived in Singapore as a cohort of new Sinis. 678 00:29:14,020 --> 00:29:15,380 M. Wait, wait, wait, wait. 679 00:29:15,380 --> 00:29:16,900 Let me jam the brakes for a bit. 680 00:29:16,900 --> 00:29:17,380 S. Yes. 681 00:29:17,380 --> 00:29:20,660 M. You just said you arrived in Singapore. 682 00:29:20,660 --> 00:29:23,140 You and I were in school together in Singapore. 683 00:29:23,140 --> 00:29:23,940 What the fuck do you mean? 684 00:29:24,340 --> 00:29:26,660 S. I'm a foreign student. 685 00:29:27,300 --> 00:29:29,780 So I lived everywhere else except here. 686 00:29:29,780 --> 00:29:32,500 So Singapore was the- I came into study, right? 687 00:29:32,500 --> 00:29:36,180 M. Where was Joe Augustine from originally? 688 00:29:36,180 --> 00:29:37,540 S. Where was Joe Augustine from? 689 00:29:37,540 --> 00:29:38,660 This is the complicated story. 690 00:29:38,660 --> 00:29:42,660 M. Just which country did you come from? 691 00:29:42,660 --> 00:29:44,100 S. I was born in Singapore. 692 00:29:44,100 --> 00:29:45,860 M. Uh-huh. 693 00:29:45,860 --> 00:29:50,660 S. I was born in Singapore to Malaysian parents during a time when the government was very- 694 00:29:50,660 --> 00:29:53,620 in fact now I think they're still pretty uptight about giving out citizenships, right? 695 00:29:53,620 --> 00:29:54,020 M. Okay. 696 00:29:54,020 --> 00:29:56,980 S. So I was born in Singapore but a Malaysian. 697 00:29:57,780 --> 00:30:03,300 Parents found work where they did first of all in Penang, then in Brunei, 698 00:30:03,300 --> 00:30:04,740 and then I came to study in Singapore. 699 00:30:05,380 --> 00:30:07,780 And then the whole family migrated to Australia. 700 00:30:07,780 --> 00:30:08,500 M. Okay. 701 00:30:08,500 --> 00:30:12,420 S. And then I looked for a job in radio. 702 00:30:12,420 --> 00:30:13,620 M. In Australia? 703 00:30:13,620 --> 00:30:14,980 S. In Australia as well. 704 00:30:14,980 --> 00:30:15,220 M. Right. 705 00:30:15,220 --> 00:30:23,140 S. Yeah so I sent out- I sent out 20- I had 27 tapes, that's all I could afford. 706 00:30:23,140 --> 00:30:27,460 Seriously up to that. I was as- I was as skin thin as that. I had 27 demos after I finished 707 00:30:27,460 --> 00:30:30,100 my radio course. I sent them out. 708 00:30:30,100 --> 00:30:30,580 M. What radio course man? 709 00:30:30,580 --> 00:30:33,060 S. The Melbourne Radio School. 710 00:30:33,060 --> 00:30:34,740 M. So there is a radio school there? 711 00:30:34,740 --> 00:30:40,180 S. There is a school for almost anything anywhere in the world. People will take your money. 712 00:30:40,180 --> 00:30:41,140 M. Oh wow. 713 00:30:41,140 --> 00:30:41,620 S. Yeah. 714 00:30:41,620 --> 00:30:41,940 M. Here in Singapore? 715 00:30:41,940 --> 00:30:44,340 S. No but Melbourne Radio School is good. Seriously. I mean- 716 00:30:44,340 --> 00:30:45,300 M. I'm pretty sure. 717 00:30:45,300 --> 00:30:45,540 S. Yeah. 718 00:30:45,540 --> 00:30:45,940 M. I mean- 719 00:30:45,940 --> 00:30:48,740 S. I mean look at the kind of people they produce. 720 00:30:48,740 --> 00:30:50,180 M. Oh my gosh. 721 00:30:50,180 --> 00:30:54,180 S. Yeah no. I mean people- the people that go out actually knew more about radio. 722 00:30:54,180 --> 00:30:58,580 So they knew a lot of things. I came in- so when I came in to Singapore, I was somebody 723 00:30:58,580 --> 00:31:02,820 who was really full of all kinds of vigor because I had big ideas. 724 00:31:02,820 --> 00:31:03,380 M. Okay. 725 00:31:03,380 --> 00:31:09,460 S. Right? I had- and I'd been hired actually to be part of this 987 Perfect 10 thing. 726 00:31:09,460 --> 00:31:12,580 M. The cohort with Together with Bernard Lim and Aloysius and all? 727 00:31:12,580 --> 00:31:13,060 S. Yeah. 728 00:31:13,060 --> 00:31:15,460 M. Yeah. Those guys. 729 00:31:15,460 --> 00:31:18,660 S. Yeah but just let me stop you there for a bit. 730 00:31:18,660 --> 00:31:19,160 M. Yeah. 731 00:31:20,580 --> 00:31:27,780 S. You came- you tried sending out your CV, your resume over- all over Australia, right? 732 00:31:27,780 --> 00:31:29,780 In Melbourne. You couldn't get a spot. 733 00:31:29,780 --> 00:31:33,300 M. Yeah. I was going to say I had 25 rejections. 734 00:31:33,300 --> 00:31:33,780 S. Why? 735 00:31:33,780 --> 00:31:38,660 M. Because I didn't sound like what they were looking for. 736 00:31:38,660 --> 00:31:39,380 S. Basically you- 737 00:31:39,380 --> 00:31:40,820 M. I probably wasn't good. 738 00:31:40,820 --> 00:31:46,900 M. You know? I mean that's something that you have to really accept as well. 739 00:31:46,900 --> 00:31:54,020 S. I mean I think I had a good sound to my voice but there wasn't much more, 740 00:31:54,660 --> 00:31:57,460 I would say was really terribly, terribly special about it. 741 00:31:57,460 --> 00:31:58,100 S. Really? 742 00:31:58,100 --> 00:32:01,860 M. Yeah. I'm freely say so. 743 00:32:01,860 --> 00:32:05,940 S. Do you really think that- so do you think that Australian radio is far better than ours? 744 00:32:05,940 --> 00:32:10,900 M. In terms of the DJs, the radio DJs. 745 00:32:10,900 --> 00:32:15,780 S. It's not a question of better. I mean it's just about whether you're right for it. 746 00:32:15,780 --> 00:32:17,700 M. Or whether it suits the audiences there. 747 00:32:17,700 --> 00:32:23,540 S. I mean if you're- first of all if you're in Australia at the time you'd have to be speaking 748 00:32:23,540 --> 00:32:29,060 a bit more like this really. So that wasn't me. I had a more American accent. 749 00:32:30,260 --> 00:32:35,860 Doesn't explain anything but I have a different accent. I had this nice sound which a lot 750 00:32:35,860 --> 00:32:41,300 of people recognize as being a very professional radio sound but it just wasn't right for Australia. 751 00:32:42,900 --> 00:32:44,980 And yet I was hired here. 752 00:32:44,980 --> 00:32:47,620 M. But you went to this Melbourne radio school thing. 753 00:32:49,060 --> 00:32:57,300 So which means Joe electively went for that course and has always been in your system that you wanted 754 00:32:57,300 --> 00:33:02,180 to be on radio. Was it an ambition for a long time? 755 00:33:02,180 --> 00:33:02,740 S. For you. 756 00:33:02,740 --> 00:33:09,940 M. I'd say it was something amongst the things that I played around with. I like the idea of 757 00:33:09,940 --> 00:33:16,260 playing around with different things to do for a living and for fun. I really when I was in school 758 00:33:16,260 --> 00:33:22,100 I used to prioritize having fun first. So if I'm going to do this I'm going to have fun. 759 00:33:22,980 --> 00:33:28,820 So radio was one of them. I also thought about photography. I thought about film. 760 00:33:28,820 --> 00:33:35,860 All those different things. Anything that had to do with creative work I very much enjoyed. 761 00:33:35,860 --> 00:33:41,140 And radio was something that you know people always work on. 762 00:33:41,140 --> 00:33:46,340 The way people arrive at who they are when they're adults is you start by being a fake when you're a kid. 763 00:33:46,340 --> 00:33:57,380 So for me I used to listen to radio and I began to think I can do this. 764 00:33:57,380 --> 00:34:02,820 I can do the things. I can make some of the approximate sounds and so I would make some of those sounds. 765 00:34:04,260 --> 00:34:09,780 And I think the show that I most enjoyed only because it was so regular and as the only source 766 00:34:09,780 --> 00:34:18,980 of it was the American Top 40 with Casey Keason. So that became the sound in my head. 767 00:34:18,980 --> 00:34:25,380 And so that began. You start off by imitating. So if you are a good imitator then you are just 768 00:34:26,660 --> 00:34:30,980 someone who's trying to be Casey Keason. The great thing about being a bad imitator 769 00:34:30,980 --> 00:34:36,260 is that now you're original. So that's the advice I give most people. 770 00:34:36,260 --> 00:34:39,620 Interesting concept. Yeah interesting concept. 771 00:34:39,620 --> 00:34:43,540 It's all great artists actually start by imitating. 772 00:34:43,540 --> 00:34:45,860 You start by imitating, mirroring someone else. You're right. 773 00:34:45,860 --> 00:34:49,780 I can recognize that. I can appreciate that actually a lot. 774 00:34:49,780 --> 00:34:58,980 Okay so coming back to the history again. So 987, you nearly ended up with that cohort. 775 00:34:58,980 --> 00:35:05,300 And you didn't. Then what happened? Okay so I get hired to be on 987 and 776 00:35:06,500 --> 00:35:13,300 this is almost a week before the launch of... So I'm hired to put a 97 and then 777 00:35:13,300 --> 00:35:19,060 SBC in the day was very good about training people as well. So they put you in a course 778 00:35:20,020 --> 00:35:25,140 to learn to speak better. So there was a lot of breathing exercises during which I fell asleep. 779 00:35:25,140 --> 00:35:34,260 But I was in a cohort which included a whole bunch of, and I'll say this 780 00:35:35,220 --> 00:35:40,580 simply because it was a fact, of women. It was all women that they had hired to be 781 00:35:40,580 --> 00:35:44,820 on this new station. Lucky you. 782 00:35:44,820 --> 00:35:52,100 Now the thing is you have to recognize it kind of a sexist thing. I mean if you really think about 783 00:35:52,100 --> 00:35:56,020 this, you go like oh this is going to be one of those... The way they described the station to 784 00:35:56,020 --> 00:36:04,420 the rest of Singapore was MOR, middle of the road. So they hired all women on that crew. 785 00:36:04,420 --> 00:36:14,180 And amongst them there was this one girl who, I should say woman, who was there 786 00:36:15,140 --> 00:36:21,380 and she was from Malaysia and she had a qualification that was from a polytechnic in the UK. 787 00:36:23,060 --> 00:36:28,820 So anybody who's understanding the whole education system understands that when you say polytechnic 788 00:36:28,820 --> 00:36:34,900 in the UK, you're actually saying university. So it's by name, but it is a degree. 789 00:36:37,860 --> 00:36:44,420 But because of the way things were being done here, she wasn't being recognized as a degree holder. 790 00:36:46,020 --> 00:36:54,740 So she came in and it came to the fore. So she left, not happily I guess. 791 00:36:54,740 --> 00:36:59,780 But then what happened was there's a gap on this new station that has to launch. 792 00:36:59,780 --> 00:37:08,500 And so the undeployed 987 DJ gets deployed. So I only had a couple of meetings with the 987 folks 793 00:37:08,500 --> 00:37:14,500 and then I was transferred to this new station, which everybody thought was a death sentence. 794 00:37:14,500 --> 00:37:20,500 Really? Yeah because you know when the girls arrived, all the other women arrived and they 795 00:37:20,500 --> 00:37:25,540 sat down at the same meeting. And then they were told, because you wonder what is it, 796 00:37:25,540 --> 00:37:32,340 it's a huge secret project, and then they were told we're going to be launching a new 797 00:37:32,340 --> 00:37:38,260 MOR station and you're going to be on it. They were audible groans. 798 00:37:38,260 --> 00:37:43,060 They were what? A room of groaning women. 799 00:37:44,500 --> 00:37:46,100 As long as it wasn't moaning. 800 00:37:46,100 --> 00:37:56,820 It was really uncool and whatever it is. And for me, I really thought it was the best thing in the world. 801 00:37:57,780 --> 00:38:05,780 Why? Because I had been exposed enough to what Steve was doing and the training and what he was 802 00:38:05,780 --> 00:38:13,540 trying to do to recognize that this guy understood what he was doing. And without mentioning any names, 803 00:38:13,540 --> 00:38:22,740 I had a leader on my station who didn't. Who had some ideas. And this is a whole problem 804 00:38:22,740 --> 00:38:30,020 with leadership and people being afraid of territory and stuff like that. Because you know, 805 00:38:30,020 --> 00:38:36,740 like when I first arrived, there was big news on the ground because if you listen to the story as 806 00:38:36,740 --> 00:38:41,700 someone's being hired onto the radio station, so 987, everybody's local, right? And suddenly out of 807 00:38:41,700 --> 00:38:49,780 the blue, there's this guy from Australia. He's an import. And then when he arrives in Singapore, 808 00:38:49,780 --> 00:38:54,420 where does he stay? He gets put up in a hotel because basically there's no way to live. 809 00:38:55,300 --> 00:39:06,020 Mind you, this is the Asia hotel. So if you wonder where Hotel 88 got the ideas, it's basically that. 810 00:39:06,020 --> 00:39:15,300 81, you mean? 88 is the next one. But yeah, so that whole idea that this person was going to come in 811 00:39:15,300 --> 00:39:21,060 there and eat their lunch, you know, would have been threatening. I mean, from a management 812 00:39:21,060 --> 00:39:29,140 perspective, right? So I mean, I got stupid things coming in. Like for instance, I don't think anybody 813 00:39:29,140 --> 00:39:36,020 else gets the boss of the radio station, meeting them at the airport to pick them up. I got that. 814 00:39:36,020 --> 00:39:41,380 You got that. Yeah. And then I thought, okay, interesting. So a lot of green-eyed monsters 815 00:39:41,380 --> 00:39:48,100 started to grow. I don't know if it was green-eyed monsters or just, it's just this sense that was 816 00:39:49,380 --> 00:39:54,660 prevalent. I don't think people were very, very secure. I think people always, 817 00:39:54,660 --> 00:39:59,460 we're in this business where people are naturally insecure. It's part of what makes you good, I think, 818 00:39:59,460 --> 00:40:03,380 right? Because you're insecure, so you work harder, you do all those things, right? So that, 819 00:40:03,380 --> 00:40:08,580 I wouldn't say green-eyed monsters, but this uncertainty and usually the lack of transparency, 820 00:40:08,580 --> 00:40:12,980 I would say. You know, again, given the leadership. And people start making assumptions. 821 00:40:12,980 --> 00:40:20,020 Yeah. So the leadership is there. I would guess that someone who is a little bit cagey and all 822 00:40:20,020 --> 00:40:24,820 that, it's not going to tell everybody, you know, hey, listen, we got a new guy, whatever it is, 823 00:40:24,820 --> 00:40:29,620 make him feel capable, whatever it is. Because the feeling I think was that I potentially had come 824 00:40:29,620 --> 00:40:35,620 for this person's job. Right. So all that, of course, furthest thing from the truth, right? 825 00:40:35,620 --> 00:40:40,020 So because I came over and this is where we are. Actually, I just realized something. 826 00:40:41,460 --> 00:40:45,380 I feel superior to you because I have A levels. 827 00:40:45,380 --> 00:40:50,900 I heard you talking about having just O levels, right? So I have A levels. And if you try and 828 00:40:50,900 --> 00:40:54,580 enter any kind of organization, like the then Singapore Broadcasting Corporation, 829 00:40:54,580 --> 00:41:01,380 you are entering at a certain pay grade, right? So I was coming in, I mean, look, for all the- 830 00:41:01,380 --> 00:41:02,100 And they were giving you- 831 00:41:02,100 --> 00:41:03,860 Expect treatment and whatever it is. 832 00:41:03,860 --> 00:41:05,380 Yeah, yeah, yeah. And only A levels. 833 00:41:05,380 --> 00:41:10,340 Yeah. So if I give you, if I gave you my numbers, if I put it the right way, 834 00:41:10,340 --> 00:41:17,700 it sounds very impressive. I was getting 60% of my pay in allowances on top of my basic pay. 835 00:41:17,700 --> 00:41:18,260 Wow. 836 00:41:18,260 --> 00:41:25,540 Right? Until you hear what the shit pay was. So it was really, it was that kind of a situation. So I, 837 00:41:27,060 --> 00:41:32,180 and it's a good thing I didn't know all these things, but had I continued and stayed in the 838 00:41:32,180 --> 00:41:37,460 system and followed the pay scales and pay grades and everything else, I would never have been 839 00:41:37,460 --> 00:41:44,020 able to get out of it. I would never get to the point where I would out earn someone who is 840 00:41:44,820 --> 00:41:53,460 far less talented. I mean, I'll be just, you can look left and right on radio stations and you can 841 00:41:53,460 --> 00:41:55,380 tell who the weak ones are, right? 842 00:41:55,380 --> 00:41:57,460 Yeah. Okay. Fair enough. 843 00:41:57,460 --> 00:42:02,260 So I mean, if you're on a football team and there's one person who really, 844 00:42:02,260 --> 00:42:06,260 really has trouble connecting with the ball, and you're not able to get out of it, 845 00:42:06,260 --> 00:42:12,740 you're not able to connect with the ball, you want to ask me who's the worst? I can point very 846 00:42:12,740 --> 00:42:18,900 easily without much, you know, it's objectively quantifiable. And then you add the insult and go 847 00:42:18,900 --> 00:42:21,860 like, yes, and this person has been here longer, so they're getting paid more than you. 848 00:42:21,860 --> 00:42:22,580 Right. 849 00:42:22,580 --> 00:42:25,460 And next round of, you know. 850 00:42:26,340 --> 00:42:28,500 You know, there'll be people who'll be watching this episode. 851 00:42:28,500 --> 00:42:28,980 Yeah. 852 00:42:28,980 --> 00:42:32,340 You know, colleagues of yours, ex-colleagues of yours, friends of mine too. 853 00:42:32,340 --> 00:42:32,900 Yes. 854 00:42:32,900 --> 00:42:37,300 What do you think the opinion would be after listening to what you've just said? 855 00:42:39,460 --> 00:42:47,300 I think if they're honest, they're going to go like, why do you want to talk about the stuff 856 00:42:47,300 --> 00:42:53,140 that we're over already? Right? They'll say it's all in the past. You know, why talk about those 857 00:42:53,140 --> 00:42:53,380 things? 858 00:42:53,380 --> 00:42:53,940 I asked. 859 00:42:54,820 --> 00:43:02,260 Yeah. So, no, I mean, the thing is, what do I think they will think? They will hear truth. 860 00:43:02,260 --> 00:43:07,140 They will hear a perspective that maybe they weren't aware of as well, because 861 00:43:07,860 --> 00:43:11,060 we can't be mind readers. So they weren't mind readers. 862 00:43:12,020 --> 00:43:15,300 I fancied myself as a mind reader, which I can talk about later, but 863 00:43:17,060 --> 00:43:20,660 that's the kind of situation I think that they're faced with. And 864 00:43:21,780 --> 00:43:29,940 culture is a very, very significant thing, because I entered a culture and I realized it quite soon 865 00:43:29,940 --> 00:43:35,860 that it was a culture not of excellence, but let's do it really good enough. 866 00:43:36,900 --> 00:43:37,460 Okay. 867 00:43:37,460 --> 00:43:42,180 And there's a difference, right? Because, you know, good enough is not a bad thing. 868 00:43:42,180 --> 00:43:47,860 I don't mind living in a building that's good enough, really, really good enough, but is it 869 00:43:47,860 --> 00:43:54,900 excellent, right? And I just knew after, and this is upon a lot of reflection to realize that 870 00:43:55,380 --> 00:43:58,100 it was just not set up that way. 871 00:43:58,100 --> 00:43:58,660 Okay. 872 00:43:58,660 --> 00:44:06,020 And this is criticism, I think broadly of a lot of Singapore, really, right? It's like, 873 00:44:06,020 --> 00:44:12,660 you really don't set things up for people to excel and go over and beyond, because you don't 874 00:44:12,660 --> 00:44:14,180 provide incentives for that. 875 00:44:14,180 --> 00:44:14,900 Okay. 876 00:44:14,900 --> 00:44:20,500 Right? And if you are the, in Singapore, if you are the manager of somebody who is going 877 00:44:20,500 --> 00:44:23,300 over and beyond and pushing the boundaries and what have you, right? 878 00:44:23,300 --> 00:44:25,060 Is it because of resistance to change? 879 00:44:25,060 --> 00:44:30,740 Is it because of resistance to change? It's a resistance to change, but motivated. 880 00:44:30,740 --> 00:44:35,460 So, you know, you can be just stubborn and that's resistant to change, but you can actually 881 00:44:35,460 --> 00:44:41,540 quantify why change is bad for you. And then you go, okay, so I'm motivated now not to change. 882 00:44:41,540 --> 00:44:47,540 Or is it anxiety to change? Or anxiety for changes to really occur? Because, you know, 883 00:44:47,540 --> 00:44:49,540 in order to do better, you've got to take risks. 884 00:44:49,540 --> 00:44:56,020 You only change if there's a good reason to, right? I don't expect you to say, I'm going to 885 00:44:57,140 --> 00:45:05,380 start doing weights because I feel it's time for a change. You always make changes for what is 886 00:45:05,380 --> 00:45:09,700 better and there's an incentive on the other side. But if there are no incentives and the price is 887 00:45:09,700 --> 00:45:13,860 too high to pay, even if you get to the other side, or let's say, like, you're like, congratulations. 888 00:45:13,860 --> 00:45:18,660 Okay, this is a very famous one for people in business, especially ones that don't understand 889 00:45:18,660 --> 00:45:23,460 the sales process. And they say like, okay, you're a good salesman. Congratulations. Your targets have 890 00:45:23,460 --> 00:45:28,500 improved for next year. And they go like, improved? What do you mean? Oh, it's higher targets. 891 00:45:28,500 --> 00:45:35,060 Higher targets. Yeah. Oh, okay. So all the stuff I'm doing right now, all the performance that I'm 892 00:45:35,060 --> 00:45:40,420 enjoying right now, all the fruits of my labor this year have only gone towards making my next 893 00:45:40,420 --> 00:45:45,780 year worse. Worse, yeah. Okay. So if you think about that from a perspective of incentives, 894 00:45:45,780 --> 00:45:49,780 what's that salesman going to do towards the end of his year when he's getting close to his target? 895 00:45:50,660 --> 00:45:55,540 He might become manipulative, do things that shouldn't be done to get to his targets. 896 00:45:56,260 --> 00:45:59,780 He's going to do something very simple. End of the year, as he's getting close to his targets, 897 00:45:59,780 --> 00:46:03,540 and let's say he's hit his target, and let's say he's selling ad space or whatever it is, 898 00:46:04,100 --> 00:46:09,780 he's going to call all his great clients and he's not going to be incentivized to sell them more 899 00:46:09,780 --> 00:46:16,100 air time in this year because his target's already been met. So he's going to be incentivized to sell 900 00:46:16,100 --> 00:46:21,780 them next year. Well, yeah. I mean, he will pile them up for next year so that he knows, because 901 00:46:21,780 --> 00:46:27,380 if the chances are the bosses are going to increase the targets again, so might still have some 902 00:46:27,380 --> 00:46:30,820 buffer for next year. Yeah, but if you think about all this, right? So this is what we call quantifiable. 903 00:46:30,820 --> 00:46:34,820 But then again, most people get, honestly, I mean, I understand sales very, very well. 904 00:46:34,820 --> 00:46:42,180 Most people actually end up going against ethics, you know, and they start manipulating for sales. 905 00:46:42,180 --> 00:46:49,140 That is the worst kind of outcome. But in this particular respect, this topic of ours is 906 00:46:49,140 --> 00:46:56,420 concerned, and I can't help but agree with you. I think innovation across the board, not just radio, 907 00:46:56,420 --> 00:47:02,580 I mean across the board, has really, someone has tapped on the brakes somehow, man. I mean, it seems 908 00:47:02,580 --> 00:47:07,700 like there's no space for people to go out there and go, let's go, let's try this one out. Let's 909 00:47:07,700 --> 00:47:14,020 try that one out. Let's go for something new. Oh, I disagree with you that there's no space. 910 00:47:14,020 --> 00:47:18,820 Really? There's plenty of space, but there's no motivation. Yeah, basically. Right? Basically. 911 00:47:18,820 --> 00:47:25,700 So I mean, I can exercise. No, basically, okay, okay, okay. Me using the term space, okay? I mean, 912 00:47:25,700 --> 00:47:31,460 it's just for ease of conversation. Yeah. This is what being my wife is like. 913 00:47:31,460 --> 00:47:41,380 Ah, yeah, poor girl. Essentially, there is no motivation. So therefore, I know there's space, 914 00:47:41,380 --> 00:47:48,340 the scope, but the scope is not given to me to grow, to move, to push the bar, to up the ante. 915 00:47:48,340 --> 00:47:54,180 There is nothing there, you know, to provide it to me, to do it. I know it's there. I can see it, 916 00:47:54,180 --> 00:47:59,940 but there is a fricking wall. Yeah. So I think it's prevalent almost everywhere across society, 917 00:47:59,940 --> 00:48:06,420 across the board, you know. But let's get back to radio. You got into Class 95, a whole bevy of 918 00:48:06,420 --> 00:48:13,300 women in the show. Were you the only guy, man? Steve Sundberg was the other guy. I don't really 919 00:48:13,300 --> 00:48:19,220 remember this guy at all. So the first voice you ever heard on Class 95, it was launched on 920 00:48:19,220 --> 00:48:25,860 the auspicious 1st of April with Steve Sundberg. So Steve Sundberg opened the show. The very first 921 00:48:25,860 --> 00:48:33,140 song we played was The Carpenters yesterday once more. Okay. Oh wow. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 15 minutes 922 00:48:33,140 --> 00:48:41,140 before that, we were playing sounds of the waves, you know, lapping on the beach. I think it was 923 00:48:41,140 --> 00:48:49,460 Steve's way of telling Zoo, we're coming for you. Okay, telling Coast, we're coming for you. But 924 00:48:49,460 --> 00:48:54,580 yeah, that was it basically. So that first song, and then on that first day, it was Steve opening 925 00:48:54,580 --> 00:49:00,980 the show a whole day. And then I was the guy who was going to close the show, close the day. Yeah. 926 00:49:00,980 --> 00:49:04,580 Right. Okay. Back in the day when we were... So that was the birth of Class 95. 927 00:49:05,300 --> 00:49:11,620 Yeah. And you were there at its very inception. Yeah. Very first day. Very first day. Wow. Wow. 928 00:49:12,420 --> 00:49:18,340 So what happened after that? You got into, you had, you helmed, well basically, 929 00:49:18,340 --> 00:49:24,980 one half of helming the morning express, right? Yeah. So that's the kind of blank space that gets 930 00:49:24,980 --> 00:49:29,940 erased. Yeah. Okay. Let's talk about that blank space then. No, for a long time, Steve, Steve for 931 00:49:29,940 --> 00:49:36,100 as long as he could live being in Singapore, you know, and again, dealing with the rest of 932 00:49:37,060 --> 00:49:43,140 management the way he had to, he was doing the morning show. So he was the program director. 933 00:49:43,140 --> 00:49:49,060 Right. He was doing the music all day, selecting all the music. And he did the morning show and 934 00:49:49,060 --> 00:49:55,300 that was his thing. And I was doing the evening show. So that's the evening drive. Drive time. 935 00:49:55,300 --> 00:50:01,300 Yeah. So that was, that was, you know, I guess the two sort of business ends of the radio station. 936 00:50:01,300 --> 00:50:08,740 This is before it was really regarded as that, right? Okay. So when Steve left, or was leaving, 937 00:50:08,740 --> 00:50:17,940 he actually left a succession plan as well. And in typical management style, they tore it up. They 938 00:50:17,940 --> 00:50:25,220 didn't, they didn't follow his plan. And his plan admittedly was probably flawed, right? Because he 939 00:50:25,220 --> 00:50:32,260 had planned for me to take over as the program director. Okay. Remember now I'm only 22, 940 00:50:32,260 --> 00:50:38,260 I think 23, 24 years old. So I'm just, I'm a real young upstart and he's handing the reins to me 941 00:50:38,260 --> 00:50:47,700 in his mind, which they disagreed with. Yeah. So, but the thing that remained was this, at the time, 942 00:50:49,460 --> 00:50:55,380 nobody wanted to do morning shows. Why? Because it was a terrible shift. 943 00:50:55,380 --> 00:50:57,380 We've got six AM in the morning and all that. 944 00:50:57,380 --> 00:51:03,140 Oh yeah. With six AM, six AM in the morning. That's one thing. And then, okay, let's say when 945 00:51:03,140 --> 00:51:06,020 you're starting out, you don't have your own transport or what have you, you get the, you get 946 00:51:06,020 --> 00:51:10,500 the company transport, right? Which comes conveniently at 3.15 in the morning. 947 00:51:10,500 --> 00:51:13,460 No way. Depending on where you are living. Are you exaggerating? 948 00:51:13,460 --> 00:51:20,180 No, no, it's one small, this is the one small van. Yeah. Yeah. That is going around the island, 949 00:51:20,180 --> 00:51:25,780 collecting people. Right. So if you're lucky, you live down Thompson road and you can get picked up 950 00:51:25,780 --> 00:51:30,740 at five something before the van gets to the building, right? But if you're not, you're going 951 00:51:30,740 --> 00:51:36,340 to be picked up really early. And then, you know, this is again, we're talking about the age before 952 00:51:36,340 --> 00:51:43,140 the ubiquitous mobile phones and what have you. And also it's a lot of stuff. Like you had to 953 00:51:43,140 --> 00:51:50,260 worry about missing the transport. Yeah. And then, you know, you missed the bus. You can't claim for 954 00:51:50,260 --> 00:51:53,780 the morning because you had the bus arranged and all different, different things like that. But 955 00:51:53,780 --> 00:52:00,740 so the morning show is really the Kena show. That means every time I met someone from nine eight seven 956 00:52:01,540 --> 00:52:06,020 doing the morning show, they were really like, Oh man, Kena the morning show. You know, it was 957 00:52:06,020 --> 00:52:14,340 really the worst thing ever. Okay. And, and you know, so, so that, that, that's the contrast 958 00:52:14,340 --> 00:52:20,100 between what they wanted and what I wanted. What I wanted to do was a show that was different. 959 00:52:20,100 --> 00:52:24,660 Right. And so that's, that's why I was, I was going to disagree with you then. Maybe it's good that I 960 00:52:24,660 --> 00:52:32,740 didn't do it then. Um, the opportunity to do something good, to make it bigger, to, to, to, 961 00:52:32,740 --> 00:52:38,980 to try stuff out and all that. Right. There was never anything that said you can't do it. Never. 962 00:52:38,980 --> 00:52:43,620 Okay. It was just a lack of desire. It's a lack of desire and motivation because- 963 00:52:43,620 --> 00:52:45,140 On whose part? On- 964 00:52:46,020 --> 00:52:48,260 The individual's part or the managed part of the management? 965 00:52:48,260 --> 00:52:53,700 Okay. So several levels of it. And it kind of builds up that way. Right. So when you do something 966 00:52:53,700 --> 00:52:59,060 wrong, first of all, you get hauled up by whoever hauls you up and then you have to answer some stuff. 967 00:52:59,060 --> 00:53:06,260 Right. So the, the, the, over time, the idea of a good anything on broadcasting at the time, 968 00:53:07,460 --> 00:53:13,940 was no complaints. Right. We had this call, we had this book called the, um, I can't remember what 969 00:53:13,940 --> 00:53:18,260 it was called, it was, it was, it was a book that was, that was, that was filled out by the receptionist 970 00:53:18,260 --> 00:53:23,940 of, of the company. Yeah. And every now and then you get a, someone would say something or whatever 971 00:53:23,940 --> 00:53:28,260 it is. And that was one level of, uh, oh, you did something wrong, let's address it. And then of 972 00:53:28,260 --> 00:53:32,820 course there was the authority who would call you in for different things. So the, the thing about 973 00:53:32,820 --> 00:53:38,500 that is if you toe the line and if you stay completely within the, the, the boundaries, 974 00:53:38,500 --> 00:53:41,780 you will do nothing wrong. Therefore you will cause no additional meetings and therefore 975 00:53:41,780 --> 00:53:46,420 everybody's happy. So layer after layer, layer of people who are just quite happy because they 976 00:53:46,420 --> 00:53:51,060 managed to find this job, which is really a shake leg job, right? The whole day you're pretending 977 00:53:51,060 --> 00:53:55,860 to work so that ultimately you get on the air, you play your CDs and then you act very tired and go 978 00:53:55,860 --> 00:54:02,500 home. Well, yeah. So, so there inherently there is, there are flaws. No, there's no incentives. 979 00:54:02,500 --> 00:54:08,500 There's no incentives. So yeah. Correct. So nothing ever move forward. Nothing moves forward. 980 00:54:08,500 --> 00:54:15,220 Yeah. But the blame that you, uh, give or the, or the, the, what you gave just now was the room to 981 00:54:15,220 --> 00:54:21,220 say that, Oh, I can't do it. And really it was never a case of, I can't do it. It's, I don't want 982 00:54:21,220 --> 00:54:26,180 to do it. Well, that's why I said there was a wall. There's no wall. There is a wall. The wall would 983 00:54:26,180 --> 00:54:32,180 come from, say, for example, the authorities, you know, thin skin people will call in to complain, 984 00:54:32,180 --> 00:54:36,180 management will call you in for meetings. You're going to get fined. I didn't stop me. That's the 985 00:54:36,180 --> 00:54:41,460 point I'm saying that the very thing you're saying, right? It didn't stop Joe. Yeah. Did it stop 986 00:54:41,460 --> 00:54:47,460 everyone else or most others? People who don't buy running shoes cannot complain. They cannot run. 987 00:54:47,460 --> 00:54:54,980 Seriously. It's like you, you, we're going to the shine a light section of our program. 988 00:54:55,940 --> 00:54:59,540 You think about it seriously. It's all about people are not going to try. I mean, look, 989 00:55:00,580 --> 00:55:05,700 exactly because of that people don't want to try. Joe was the one probably deemed to be the 990 00:55:05,700 --> 00:55:11,060 Rick Halstreet one to move ahead. Cause dude, how many stations were you on, man? 991 00:55:12,420 --> 00:55:18,980 I could have been on one station from my entire life. But. If I had decided not to set the whole 992 00:55:18,980 --> 00:55:24,580 thing on fire. Exactly. You know, you said set on fire. I mean, a lot of people probably would have 993 00:55:24,580 --> 00:55:30,580 said, yeah, Joe set it all on fire. Yeah. Okay. But do you see it that way? I mean, really, do you 994 00:55:30,580 --> 00:55:34,660 really see it that way? Or was it because you wanted to move things differently and then 995 00:55:34,660 --> 00:55:39,540 people didn't see that then? Was it that? I mean, I'm asking the question here. I mean, 996 00:55:39,540 --> 00:55:43,780 leaving, leaving, leaving why I left class. Is that, is that kind of where this is going? 997 00:55:43,780 --> 00:55:49,380 There was power. There was, there was SPH radio. You were there too, right? Yeah. There you go. 998 00:55:49,940 --> 00:55:55,540 You know, I mean, every conceivable station you want, man, you were what fired? 999 00:55:56,580 --> 00:56:01,540 Except one time you left on your own. No, I left, I left several times and I was also then, 1000 00:56:01,540 --> 00:56:06,340 it's only towards the end of my career where I would, I would say fired is an appropriate word 1001 00:56:06,340 --> 00:56:15,140 to describe it. I had very different ideas about what could be done. And I was quite impatient 1002 00:56:15,140 --> 00:56:20,100 about things, right? So when I say quite impatient, usually when people say impatient, they say like, 1003 00:56:21,300 --> 00:56:29,700 he couldn't wait. He couldn't wait five years. Okay. So I waited for a long time, biding my time 1004 00:56:29,700 --> 00:56:35,300 from the time I started radio with really big ambitions, learning about the industry, 1005 00:56:35,300 --> 00:56:43,780 knowing about what the world was doing and learning broadly like that. And then doing a 1006 00:56:43,780 --> 00:56:48,260 show which progressively got better and better and better. I think that for a while I would say I was 1007 00:56:48,260 --> 00:56:55,220 on that trajectory. I kept pushing. Which show was this? The class 95. So the stories I used to be on, 1008 00:56:55,220 --> 00:57:02,260 I wasn't, I was actually on class for a while. And then there was a change in management and 1009 00:57:02,260 --> 00:57:07,860 some ideas and all that. And they actually decided to move me out to gold. I actually became a radio 1010 00:57:07,860 --> 00:57:15,780 one person. Yeah, 90.5. Yeah. And I did the evening show on 1FM and I was doing my stuff for 1FM. 1011 00:57:17,940 --> 00:57:23,140 And while that was happening, they had consultants that they had paid a lot of money to come in and 1012 00:57:23,140 --> 00:57:29,940 talk about stuff and whatever. And I was again ambitious from the evening show saying, listen, 1013 00:57:29,940 --> 00:57:36,420 I think I can do a better morning show on gold. And so I did a whole pitch of what the show was 1014 00:57:36,420 --> 00:57:43,140 going to be about. And then the consultants look at that and said, well, this is actually a show, 1015 00:57:43,140 --> 00:57:48,820 this is a morning show that we're looking for on class. So that's how I got back onto class 1016 00:57:48,820 --> 00:57:54,020 after I had been moved off to gold. And then I started doing the morning show. And it was just, 1017 00:57:55,780 --> 00:58:01,220 it was a show that was already sort of in progress, but by that time they had moved in 1018 00:58:01,780 --> 00:58:09,860 somebody to do the morning show with Melissa Hyak at the time. So that was called the Morning 1019 00:58:09,860 --> 00:58:16,500 Express. And that was the name of the early name and it still I think is, but it's where that began. 1020 00:58:16,500 --> 00:58:20,340 So I came back, did the show and I began to do the different things that I added onto it, 1021 00:58:20,340 --> 00:58:26,340 slowly adding in things like the wake up call, which these days just couldn't work. But, 1022 00:58:27,780 --> 00:58:32,260 and I think that the really big innovation that I did, which screwed up, 1023 00:58:33,060 --> 00:58:37,460 I would say the industry for a while was telling the truth. 1024 00:58:38,740 --> 00:58:44,660 Okay. And it was telling the truth about something that affected everybody as you were driving to 1025 00:58:44,660 --> 00:58:48,660 work in the morning. Traffic watch. Yeah, it was traffic. So now it's called traffic watch. 1026 00:58:50,100 --> 00:58:56,180 But in its earliest form, I was just doing the things that nobody else was doing. 1027 00:58:57,620 --> 00:59:03,460 One, answering the phone. The phone rings, pick up the phone. Because your audience, 1028 00:59:03,460 --> 00:59:07,060 your client is trying to contact you and they're going to call you about various things. And yes, 1029 00:59:07,060 --> 00:59:10,740 they're going to be irritating a lot of times, but every now and then they're going to say, 1030 00:59:10,740 --> 00:59:16,820 Hey, there's an accident on the CTE. Right? So that was part of the process is listening, 1031 00:59:16,820 --> 00:59:24,900 answering the phones. And then again, looking at rules and say, okay, yes, I understand your rules. 1032 00:59:24,900 --> 00:59:29,460 So how can I get around the rules? And we have the system where there would be a telex that 1033 00:59:29,460 --> 00:59:34,340 went out seriously, a telex that went out and it was copied many, many times over. So depending on 1034 00:59:34,340 --> 00:59:41,300 which one you got, it was either very clear or less, but carbon copied. And that would be how 1035 00:59:41,300 --> 00:59:46,820 we would get the news about traffic. So to give you an idea what that was like in the day, 1036 00:59:47,940 --> 00:59:55,780 a traffic situation happens, let's say, maybe someone reports it. Okay. Okay. That call goes 1037 00:59:55,780 --> 01:00:06,020 into traffic, the police traffic unit. Traffic police sends or contacts somebody who might be 1038 01:00:06,020 --> 01:00:11,460 in the area to go out there, drive all the way there and verifies that that situation has actually 1039 01:00:11,460 --> 01:00:18,100 happened. And then radio back to traffic. And then after that they will send out this thing outside. 1040 01:00:18,100 --> 01:00:26,180 So you would get traffic reports that were half an hour old. You'd be stuck in the traffic and go, 1041 01:00:26,180 --> 01:00:31,700 what the hell's going on? And you get the news like half an hour later. And you're stuck, you're 1042 01:00:31,700 --> 01:00:37,940 gone, whatever it is. And then I was supposed to read this thing as official and I said, okay, 1043 01:00:37,940 --> 01:00:43,860 so only if it's official, I guess. So what I did was I came up with the idea of unofficial, 1044 01:00:43,860 --> 01:00:48,740 real time, I just said unconfirmed reports. So I was doing traffic reports. I was just doing my 1045 01:00:48,740 --> 01:00:53,380 whole thing. I had the list and I just made a list of all the things as it came in and whatever 1046 01:00:53,380 --> 01:00:59,460 and all that. I recognized some patterns. And then I basically began to do traffic as it happened. 1047 01:00:59,460 --> 01:01:05,140 So I had the most reliable and this is the thing about, it's not that I had the best 1048 01:01:05,860 --> 01:01:12,660 or most excellent anything. I just had the least shit traffic reports. Right? And so everybody 1049 01:01:12,660 --> 01:01:17,460 trusted us for traffic. And it was like, so if you're a taxi driver, of course you love traffic 1050 01:01:17,460 --> 01:01:24,340 because traffic is going to be accurate. Right? And then so that was that. And people are mystified 1051 01:01:24,340 --> 01:01:29,300 for a while going, what kind of system and network and whatever and go like this. It's just simple 1052 01:01:29,300 --> 01:01:35,540 stuff. Just listen to your audience. And then eventually they adopted it, right? It went across 1053 01:01:35,540 --> 01:01:41,300 all stations. Yeah. They created this whole network, the whole department. And I think it's 1054 01:01:41,300 --> 01:01:45,300 really good that they're doing it that way, you know, but now they're hanging on to it. 1055 01:01:45,300 --> 01:01:50,260 So Joe Guston, Joe Guston was the one that created Traffic Watch. 1056 01:01:50,260 --> 01:01:57,380 I created a system that worked for me and then they created Traffic Watch. 1057 01:01:57,380 --> 01:01:58,420 Okay, wow. 1058 01:01:58,420 --> 01:02:03,860 Yeah. It's basically like, okay, you know, my innovation, my thing, my radio station, 1059 01:02:03,860 --> 01:02:07,220 and that's the way I looked at things. And now it's like, 1060 01:02:07,220 --> 01:02:12,580 it's been used across the board because it worked. Right? 1061 01:02:12,580 --> 01:02:13,300 Yep. Yep. 1062 01:02:13,300 --> 01:02:18,580 Well, okay. Well, that's something for everyone to chew on now. I don't think a lot of people 1063 01:02:18,580 --> 01:02:27,220 know that. But I think Traffic Watch now, it's the stupidest thing. Okay, come, come, come, come. 1064 01:02:27,860 --> 01:02:30,740 I will race you. Okay? Oh, Joe, Joe, Joe. 1065 01:02:30,740 --> 01:02:38,180 I will race you. Okay? We're going now from wherever we are, we're going to Jurong. Okay? 1066 01:02:38,180 --> 01:02:40,020 Right. Okay. Yeah. 1067 01:02:40,020 --> 01:02:44,820 So what are you going to do? If you want to know what traffic? 1068 01:02:47,060 --> 01:02:48,500 I'll check on my phone. Yeah. 1069 01:02:48,500 --> 01:02:49,220 Yeah. Yeah. 1070 01:02:50,340 --> 01:02:56,020 So why am I going to wait for radio? Why should I wait for radio that has to wait for a song to end, 1071 01:02:56,020 --> 01:03:00,100 wait for a commercial to end, wait for a, I don't know what else to end. Before they come up with... 1072 01:03:00,100 --> 01:03:03,780 There are older people, there's older lot out there that don't want to, don't know how to use 1073 01:03:03,780 --> 01:03:08,020 their phones to check traffic. Your uncles and aunties, when they're not watching this, 1074 01:03:08,660 --> 01:03:12,340 are listening to Spotify. Okay, so they say older taxi drivers, for example. 1075 01:03:12,900 --> 01:03:16,820 You know, they're sitting in their cab. Sorry, Kai, he didn't say example, right? 1076 01:03:16,820 --> 01:03:22,340 Example. I didn't say example. What the fuck? I didn't say that. Did I say that? 1077 01:03:22,900 --> 01:03:25,220 Immediately after you said older people, for example. 1078 01:03:25,220 --> 01:03:28,420 For example. Yeah. Older people, for example. 1079 01:03:28,420 --> 01:03:35,940 Yeah. And I mean, older cab drivers, right? They sit in their taxis and they turn on the radio. 1080 01:03:35,940 --> 01:03:40,180 I mean, I don't think they'll be looking at their screen. So there's still pockets of people, 1081 01:03:40,180 --> 01:03:43,300 I would think, that's not just going to refer to their smart devices. 1082 01:03:43,300 --> 01:03:50,660 Okay. So this is the kind of excusing of old tech that lets this kind of thing continue, 1083 01:03:50,660 --> 01:03:57,300 right? Because it's really, seriously, I mean, I do not know of a cab driver 1084 01:03:57,300 --> 01:04:02,340 that doesn't use Google Maps or at least some version of that technology. 1085 01:04:02,340 --> 01:04:07,300 He wouldn't be on Google Map all the time unless he picks up a passenger and goes somewhere else. 1086 01:04:07,300 --> 01:04:11,940 But if he's in a cab alone, what would you do? You'd still leave your radio on. 1087 01:04:11,940 --> 01:04:16,900 No, but Google Maps tells you better than any radio station could as it's going along, right? 1088 01:04:16,900 --> 01:04:20,820 As you're traveling, it tells you there's an accident, there's a traffic jam, whatever it is. 1089 01:04:20,820 --> 01:04:23,940 So basically what- Okay. And the contrast is, 1090 01:04:23,940 --> 01:04:29,540 while that is happening, traffic itself, the traffic reporting itself is shit, right? 1091 01:04:29,540 --> 01:04:36,580 So if you listen to the traffic reporting, listen, right? On a busy, busy morning, 1092 01:04:37,460 --> 01:04:40,660 they will tell you what they can within a very short amount of time, 1093 01:04:41,300 --> 01:04:45,380 what traffic they can tell you about. Because I- Okay, okay. I'm not disagreeing 1094 01:04:45,380 --> 01:04:49,620 with you. I'm not saying it's good or wrong, right or wrong, good or bad. What I am saying is that 1095 01:04:49,620 --> 01:04:55,460 these days, from what I know of, is that jocks on air, right? Brevity is key. 1096 01:04:56,500 --> 01:05:04,980 And brevity is king. So I've been hearing some changes for traffic watch or traffic announcements 1097 01:05:05,940 --> 01:05:13,140 on air by various stations. And some that would go, even for weather, thundershowers, 1098 01:05:13,140 --> 01:05:20,500 thundershowers afternoon. And now it's like broke down, instead of breakdown, broke down on CTE 1099 01:05:21,540 --> 01:05:25,300 towards Changi Airport. And that's it. You know? I mean, it's- 1100 01:05:25,300 --> 01:05:28,500 That's not brevity. That's just bad schooling, right? 1101 01:05:28,500 --> 01:05:35,220 No, no. I think it's because they've been trained now or been told to try to summarize things as 1102 01:05:35,220 --> 01:05:38,260 short and as briefly as possible. So they go this direction. 1103 01:05:38,260 --> 01:05:42,820 I agree completely with that. Yeah. So maybe that's why. So when you mean 1104 01:05:42,820 --> 01:05:47,380 quality of delivery of this- Quality is usefulness of the broadcast. 1105 01:05:47,380 --> 01:05:52,900 As in like, if I'm telling you about traffic, I'll tell you about a bunch of stuff. Okay. 1106 01:05:52,900 --> 01:05:56,100 Just imagine I go like, okay, here's an update of the world, right? And then I tell you anything 1107 01:05:56,100 --> 01:06:01,300 about this particular part. I go like, you know, here's everything that Chris, here's the update. 1108 01:06:01,300 --> 01:06:07,940 We can talk about Chris's food all day, right? Okay. Vade. And that's all I say. So because of 1109 01:06:07,940 --> 01:06:12,740 brevity, I just say, oh, this, the Vade becomes about Vade. And then go like, hang on, you missed 1110 01:06:12,740 --> 01:06:16,980 a whole bunch of other stuff. And what you do is you stop the rest of it. 1111 01:06:16,980 --> 01:06:21,140 But these guys have been briefed, I suppose. It does seem to me that way. 1112 01:06:21,140 --> 01:06:24,100 Okay. You got to keep it really short and sweet. 1113 01:06:24,100 --> 01:06:26,660 How long have you been working for MediaCom, by the way? I'm just wondering. 1114 01:06:26,660 --> 01:06:27,300 No, no, no. I've been- 1115 01:06:27,300 --> 01:06:28,820 Seemed quite interested in helping them out. 1116 01:06:28,820 --> 01:06:33,060 No, no, no. I'm not helping them out, man. I'm not even finding an excuse. I'm just trying to 1117 01:06:33,060 --> 01:06:39,220 see whether or not what you're saying is really fair to these guys. Because what I know of, 1118 01:06:39,220 --> 01:06:42,740 from the people currently on radio, is that keep it short. 1119 01:06:42,740 --> 01:06:44,740 Yes. Keep it short. 1120 01:06:44,740 --> 01:06:49,620 I'm not saying that I like it. Personally, I don't like it. 1121 01:06:49,620 --> 01:06:57,540 I'm saying keep it relevant, right? So, okay, for me, why traffic on radio doesn't work at all 1122 01:06:57,540 --> 01:07:02,820 is because there's too much to be said in too little time. And there's a perfectly good 1123 01:07:02,820 --> 01:07:12,020 alternative. So the problem is when you try to... So the problem is what then is truly unique about 1124 01:07:12,020 --> 01:07:17,460 radio is actually the stuff you put in between the songs. So the songs I can get anywhere. 1125 01:07:17,460 --> 01:07:17,940 Right. 1126 01:07:17,940 --> 01:07:21,460 I can just play on, I put on playlists, I can get much better music, and with all the 1127 01:07:21,460 --> 01:07:26,100 expelitives I want as well. So the talk in between- 1128 01:07:26,100 --> 01:07:26,900 The talk sets, yeah. 1129 01:07:26,900 --> 01:07:32,980 ...is what is really the difference now. And people who are watching this at this particular 1130 01:07:32,980 --> 01:07:37,940 point, they're not waiting for the next song. And if they want to know the traffic, they've 1131 01:07:37,940 --> 01:07:42,660 opened another window, they're using the device, whatever, that's the way the world works today. 1132 01:07:42,660 --> 01:07:50,260 So if you want to be a medium in today's world, then imagine if somebody now said, 1133 01:07:50,260 --> 01:07:57,700 I want to start a new form of media right now. And as part of a policy, the internet does not exist. 1134 01:07:57,700 --> 01:08:02,580 And you go like, wait, hang on. Why? No, no, no, no, no. We are very exclusive. We only want to use... 1135 01:08:03,460 --> 01:08:13,380 This is my Malaysian politician voice. We only want to use the traditional way of communicating. 1136 01:08:13,380 --> 01:08:18,420 So in fact, this radio, we don't even use radio waves. Everybody must come close enough. 1137 01:08:18,420 --> 01:08:19,700 So we play the music live. 1138 01:08:19,700 --> 01:08:20,660 And then you can hear. 1139 01:08:21,780 --> 01:08:26,580 Yeah, you can hear. You can hear. And then every now and then my friend Anwar will come with the 1140 01:08:26,580 --> 01:08:31,460 update about what's happening on the traffic and that side. But then you don't worry about it 1141 01:08:31,460 --> 01:08:32,340 because you don't have to go. 1142 01:08:32,340 --> 01:08:36,180 So you're saying that traffic watch is irrelevant. 1143 01:08:36,180 --> 01:08:36,980 It's irrelevant, yes. 1144 01:08:36,980 --> 01:08:41,860 Okay. So what else do you think in today's radio is irrelevant? 1145 01:08:41,860 --> 01:08:44,740 Okay. Half the news. 1146 01:08:45,780 --> 01:08:46,260 Okay. 1147 01:08:46,260 --> 01:08:52,500 Okay. Seriously. You listen to me. When have you been enlightened by the news update? 1148 01:08:53,860 --> 01:08:59,700 Again, if you are interested in it, right? You are going to get some stuff. 1149 01:09:00,420 --> 01:09:03,620 Even if you're not interested in it, your friends are WhatsAppping you with the latest 1150 01:09:03,620 --> 01:09:06,340 here and there already, whatever it is. That's the relevance of it. 1151 01:09:07,300 --> 01:09:12,500 If I want news, how many of you put radio as the number one choice? 1152 01:09:12,500 --> 01:09:14,180 Or you go online and get the news. 1153 01:09:14,180 --> 01:09:14,980 Yeah, exactly. 1154 01:09:14,980 --> 01:09:18,260 You don't even buy the broadsheets nowadays. 1155 01:09:18,980 --> 01:09:28,020 That's the thing about understanding how we serve an audience. This is how the audience uses you. 1156 01:09:28,020 --> 01:09:34,180 And what you want to do is please ignore all the things that you do and do it my stupid way. 1157 01:09:35,140 --> 01:09:41,460 So what you're saying is traffic, news, weather, sports, out the window. 1158 01:09:41,460 --> 01:09:46,180 Okay. So I'm not saying all that out the window. 1159 01:09:46,740 --> 01:09:51,060 I'm saying that fundamentally you have to go beyond what just those things are. 1160 01:09:51,060 --> 01:09:59,060 You don't just say, okay, a really good example for me is when SPH was going into the online space, 1161 01:09:59,060 --> 01:10:01,940 and then they were trying to go into videos and talking about all the different things, 1162 01:10:01,940 --> 01:10:03,780 and they're trying to produce videos and all that. 1163 01:10:03,780 --> 01:10:12,580 So with all the empathy I can gather up for this, they were shit. 1164 01:10:13,140 --> 01:10:13,860 They were horrible. 1165 01:10:15,220 --> 01:10:18,180 The words were correct, but the presentation was terrible. 1166 01:10:18,820 --> 01:10:22,660 It didn't sound like people who are really credible talking about the stuff that they like. 1167 01:10:23,300 --> 01:10:26,020 The words were right, but the presentation wasn't right. 1168 01:10:26,020 --> 01:10:28,420 The heart of it is good entertainment. 1169 01:10:29,220 --> 01:10:32,740 Even if it's talking about traffic, even if it's talking about the weather, 1170 01:10:32,740 --> 01:10:34,100 it's about entertainment. 1171 01:10:34,900 --> 01:10:38,740 It's not about precipitation is at this level or whatever it is. 1172 01:10:38,740 --> 01:10:42,020 It's about a weather person that comes across with personality. 1173 01:10:42,020 --> 01:10:46,740 So something has to be, whatever is being done should be for the purpose of that. 1174 01:10:47,220 --> 01:10:52,820 But the traffic reports that I hear now on the radio are nothing to do with that. 1175 01:10:52,820 --> 01:10:54,420 Nothing to do with entertainment. 1176 01:10:54,420 --> 01:10:58,340 Yeah. I'm not trying to relate to you about traffic and go like, 1177 01:10:58,340 --> 01:11:00,580 oh, it looks like another terrible day on the CTE today. 1178 01:11:00,580 --> 01:11:05,540 I used to make jokes about, wonderful to have a COE today because you're getting some real value 1179 01:11:05,540 --> 01:11:06,340 from the traffic jam. 1180 01:11:06,340 --> 01:11:09,540 Yeah, but then again, there'll be people who frown at that these days. 1181 01:11:09,540 --> 01:11:10,100 Frown? 1182 01:11:10,100 --> 01:11:12,340 Well, I mean, look, I don't like them. 1183 01:11:12,340 --> 01:11:14,100 Okay. Let me just, let me be clear. 1184 01:11:14,100 --> 01:11:19,140 Those people that call out culture and shit and all that, and all virtue signaling and all that crap. 1185 01:11:19,140 --> 01:11:24,420 Nowadays, I think there's been people, DJs, I pity them, honestly. 1186 01:11:24,420 --> 01:11:29,940 If they were to say, for example, come up and give traffic in a foreign accent, 1187 01:11:29,940 --> 01:11:31,780 just for fun, shits and giggles, okay? 1188 01:11:31,780 --> 01:11:33,540 Then you get complaints, you know? 1189 01:11:33,540 --> 01:11:34,020 Yeah. 1190 01:11:34,020 --> 01:11:39,460 Right? And then if you say something like, oh, your COE is in really good use, 1191 01:11:39,460 --> 01:11:44,740 then who knows, the authority, some authority might complain about that. 1192 01:11:44,740 --> 01:11:45,060 Yeah. 1193 01:11:45,060 --> 01:11:46,340 Are you making fun of the COE? 1194 01:11:46,340 --> 01:11:50,100 And then, you know, we get so tight arsed for so many fucking things. 1195 01:11:50,100 --> 01:11:51,620 And in the end, what happens? 1196 01:11:51,620 --> 01:11:54,660 These guys are controlled, they can't do this, they can't do that. 1197 01:11:54,660 --> 01:11:56,980 And there's no more entertainment in that. 1198 01:11:56,980 --> 01:11:58,420 There's no entertainment value anymore. 1199 01:11:58,420 --> 01:11:59,940 You can't add on to that. 1200 01:11:59,940 --> 01:12:00,340 Yeah. 1201 01:12:00,340 --> 01:12:03,940 So I really empathize with these guys. 1202 01:12:03,940 --> 01:12:04,420 Wow. 1203 01:12:04,420 --> 01:12:05,140 I do. 1204 01:12:05,140 --> 01:12:13,940 I mean, I mean, if I believe that if, well, if you're properly selected to be a radio personality, 1205 01:12:13,940 --> 01:12:18,420 which means you know how to entertain for these kind of people, 1206 01:12:18,420 --> 01:12:25,220 and you're really handcuffed to say these things, to entertain your audience, 1207 01:12:25,220 --> 01:12:29,140 and at risk of getting yourself in trouble. 1208 01:12:29,140 --> 01:12:29,620 Yeah. 1209 01:12:29,620 --> 01:12:30,180 Right? 1210 01:12:30,180 --> 01:12:33,620 So okay, you know, I really think it's really not their fault. 1211 01:12:33,620 --> 01:12:36,660 It is what it is, man. 1212 01:12:36,660 --> 01:12:37,940 Don't you think? 1213 01:12:37,940 --> 01:12:39,140 Okay. 1214 01:12:39,140 --> 01:12:41,380 It is what it is. 1215 01:12:43,380 --> 01:12:45,620 It's only true when you accept it, right? 1216 01:12:45,620 --> 01:12:52,020 So, you know, for me, the person who is like, you know, I really don't like being a prostitute, no? 1217 01:12:52,020 --> 01:12:58,180 I have sex with people I find terribly unattractive, 1218 01:12:58,180 --> 01:13:01,220 and then sometimes the pay now also not so good. 1219 01:13:01,220 --> 01:13:08,820 And then I have to do these special things where they give me special more money for this and all that. 1220 01:13:08,820 --> 01:13:12,980 I really, really, I really cannot stand doing this. 1221 01:13:12,980 --> 01:13:16,820 So you would still push the buck, right? Wouldn't you? If you were still on the radio. 1222 01:13:16,820 --> 01:13:24,420 No, I don't push the buck. I say again, if you're worth it, do it, right? 1223 01:13:24,420 --> 01:13:25,220 Yeah. 1224 01:13:25,220 --> 01:13:28,020 But you risk losing your job, man. 1225 01:13:28,020 --> 01:13:39,860 Look, that is the rice bowl trap that you find yourself in when you do not diversify, right? 1226 01:13:39,860 --> 01:13:44,980 No, looks like.