This is the fourth in a series of interviews exploring the career and life journey of women in the media industry. The aim of the series is to reflect on the wisdom they have gained during their journey.
So far we have had a cross section of women in different roles and career stages: Lauren Joyce, Laura Bouchet and Cathy O’Connor.
This week we profile Megan Smith, who is at an earlier stage in her career journey and brings a different perspective to this series. She works as a Senior Producer at Gold 101.7.
1. Describe your current professional life and your stage of life.
I’m 28 and I am the senior producer for Jonesy and Amanda.
2. How did you come into this industry?
I started at the age of 14. I always wanted to get into radio. I think it was actually DJing, but what 14 year-old can DJ?
I went into radio because I was always a performer. I was always making my sister film me doing ads. I always wanted to create content, I guess you could say, but that wasn’t really a thing at that age. I then decided to do the radio course at 2RRR with Steve Ahern.
I was the youngest person there and because I was underage, I had to have my mum there. She had to sit in on the course as well. I did the radio course and at 14 fell in love with the industry.
Throughout my high school years every Wednesday, I would go to the local station, 2RRR, and I would be on the breakfast show doing a little segment on entertainment. What’s going on in the celebrity world of entertainment. I started very young and I knew that’s what I wanted to do.
3. So you discovered the passion for radio in your early teens, where did you go from there?
Yes it’s always been a passion. I guess I could talk underwater and liked making people laugh, I was a joker.
After I graduated from high school, I moved to Melbourne where I did a six month course at Ace Radio’s Radio Training Institute in Melbourne. I got a certificate in Radio and then came back to Sydney and was applying for jobs. I was a bit naive. I thought I was going to have a job in no time, as I was just sending out demos everywhere. I kept getting knocked back. I had the passion but I wasn’t really taking much initiative, like door knocking and forcing myself into the industry. I just thought it will happen, I will do this.
After a lot of time passed I still didn’t get a job, so I decided I would do another course. I got a diploma in music at SAE, in Sydney. I’m definitely a creative person that’s the reason I went down that route. Then I got, a call from Steve asking if I’d like to do some reporting at the ACRAs? Of course I said yes. When I went to the ACRAs and I saw people on stage, I thought, yeah, I’m back. I need to get back into radio. I want one day to be up on that stage. I felt hungry and it took a lot of initiative, passion and drive, plus I think I was a bit more mature by then and I didn’t want to give up.
I decided I would make my own podcast not really caring what anyone thought, just pushing out a lot of content and being myself. Being authentically me is what I realised everyone really loved.
I guess people saw this and then I was asked to do the podcast for Radio Today. After a while I saw an opening for the Jonesy and Amanda show, answering the phone and producer. I applied and I got it, which was amazing!
4. What are your core beliefs? How are your values evident in the work you do?
Well, with the long journey that I’ve had, finally getting a job and a foot in the industry, I believe you need to have passion and drive, but be authentically you. I also think you need to be open to hearing feedback and taking it on board. Listening to people, hearing their point of view and putting your ego aside is also important.
You also need to be having fun, because we work in a really fast-paced environment. Make sure you’re actually enjoying your work and so are the people around you. You’ve got to enjoy waking up at 3.30 am to go in. When you love something you can hear it coming out in the content, that’s where the best content comes from.
I think putting your ego aside and teamwork is really important, as well as trust. When you’re talking about feedback with really creative people there must be an element of trust in the team. It’s easier to take feedback from people that you trust and have a relationship with.
Trust is 100 % a massive thing that you need in a team.
In this creative environment, you do want to be around people you trust who you can open up to, that will also lead you in a good direction. Then you’re more open to creating better content.
5. You’ve given us a broad overview of your career and where you are now. Drilling down a little bit more, how did your education enrich your career and life journey? The mentoring that you’ve had, the negative moments as well and where they’re placed in your journey.
I know a lot of people can be educated and then go straight into the job they’ve trained to do. I believe everything happens for a reason. With the gap that I had, it took me so long to get there I feel like I never want to lose it. I want to keep doing better. I feel in radio or media you’re always going to be constantly learning.
You need passion for your job, hunger and drive. If you don’t love what you’re doing, you’re not going to want to do it to your full potential. Passion, hunger and drive can’t be taught. You also need to take initiative.
I also grew a thick skin. All those knock backs from all the other jobs and the years of trying to get a job created it.
A thick skin is important in this industry because you’re going to be told things you don’t want to hear. You’re going to be told your idea is basically shit. You need to be able to take that feedback and learn from it. You can’t be stuck in your old ways and be like, no, I’m right. Take on criticism and learn, instead of seeing it as a negative, not everything’s going to go your way.
In this industry, everything’s moving so fast you have to stay up to date with what’s going on. If you’re not in the room, then you’re not going to know what’s going on.
You need to be constantly growing personally. I feel I’ve grown since the day I started learning, to where I am now. I want to keep learning and growing as a person in the industry.
6. When you mentioned the feedback you were getting, what was the most helpful?
This feedback was given to us as a group and it really stood out for me. It was something like, “just by you not talking you’re the loudest person in the room.” Take everything in and learn from those around you. You don’t need to be talking all the time and you don’t need to have the final say.
I think hot and cold feedback is probably the best way. For example you could say, ‘it’s amazing and I love the way you did this, but let’s try and improve it further and do it this way… or how about we look at it in this way.’
Everyone’s different in the way they receive feedback and everyone’s different in the way they give it. If you’re using it for growth, feedback is something that needs to give you points where you can actually improve and grow.
I’ve also had an amazing leader who’s given feedback like ‘let’s sit down and understand where we can grow from this and what we can change to make it sound better.’ This type of feedback you take more on board because you’re understanding exactly where they want you to go with specific points from a really good leader.
I love feedback. I will always go up to everyone and I’ll say, so what can I improve on? What can I do? How can I grow? Because I want to constantly be growing. I also find it really interesting to hear different feedback from different people. It doesn’t mean you take all feedback on. I’m not over analysing everything, but it’s interesting to take little snippets of what people think.
7. Just looking again at your career journey, what are some of your key decision change points? How did they shape your career and or life journey?
I feel like I had passion and drive, but I wasn’t taking initiative. I wasn’t banging on doors. I needed, initiative. The feeling, the drive came back to me once I was doing the interviews at the ACRAs. That was one turning point.
The first year I started working at the ACRAs I said to Steve, one day I want to be up on that stage. A few years later, I got the job with Jonesy and Amanda. I was the phoner producer for five weeks and then I became content producer full time and later a senior producer. I’ve been there for nearly three years.
The first year I started working there, my first full time job in radio, the team won Best Show in Australia! I went up on that stage and it was a pinch-me moment, I thought of all the steps I’d taken to get here.
Another turning point is staring a podcast. I remember thinking I’m going to put myself out there. I’m going to be so authentic. I’m going to post all over social media. I’m going to email everyone asking: Can I come watch the show? Can I come stand in? Can I do this? I remember I went in to watched Mitch Churi, he let me in when he was at KIIS doing the night show.
It also helped to be working on the podcast for Radio Today. I was interviewing people in the industry and getting connected with people. Basically you’ve just got to be full force, I know that’s what I was lacking at the start.
8. What makes you happy? What makes you get up at 3.30 in the morning?
What makes me happy is the people I’m surrounded by at work. It’s an amazing team that I work with.
I’m very, very blessed. We’re very close. Jonesy and Amanda are amazing. They’re like my work mum and dad. The people on my team are incredible. We have amazing laughs and all trust each other. It’s like being part of a little community.
We all share the same beliefs and we don’t judge each other. We love our jobs, we love what we create and it’s a safe space. This trickles down from our leaders and the people around us, like Jonesy and Amanda. They are amazing people.
Creating content and getting in there makes me happy. I’m a morning person. I say good morning, then get straight to looking at the news, seeing what’s happening. It gives me a rush. It’s the little dopamine hit of creating good content and putting it out first.
I enjoy the feedback from the listeners, knowing that the content we’ve created brings them joy. When we get to do give-backs it means a lot to them and I appreciate their loyalty.
9. What’s a typical day look like for you?
I’ll wake up at 3.30, get ready and get to the office around 4.30. I print off the stuff we need for the show we’ve planned the night before.
As a team we then put together the news, the Top 10 things that have happened in the last 24 hours including overnight, as little news stories.
I give everyone their papers. I make myself a coffee and I make a coffee for Jonesy as well. It would normally be 5.30 by then so we go into pre-show planning. We then meet with Jonesy and Amanda and go through what we’re doing on the show for 6 o’clock.
We talk about each segment they want to do. Once we’ve organised the show, then we write up the scripts with the information for each segment before it kicks off at 6.
We’ll all be assigned which segments to work on. Let’s say that at 6.40 we’re going to be talking about Donald Trump and whatever he did. If I’m assigned Donald Trump I’ll make a page on what’s happened about that story so I can give it to Jonesy and Amanda. We also do calls, answering phones, games, all that stuff. It’s very fast, I love it. It’s always changing during the show. It’s great fun!
10. You’re talking about always having fun and it strikes me that you’re wonderful at turning a negative into a positive. Have you had any situations that have been possibly a bit awkward but have been turned around and become something positive?
One big one was when I was new in my role as a senior producer and I had to do guest bookings. I would reach out to guests and get them on the show.
We had a segment called Mystery Footy Tipper where we would get someone in like in a footy superstar and they would do their tips for the round of footy that week. They wanted Fatty Vautin so I got Fatty’s number from the Bible, which is our Excel sheet with everyone’s number in the industry.
I thought I typed in Fatty’s number, but I accidentally wrote in Rachel Griffiths, and I sent her this text:
Hey, it’s Megan from Jonesy and Amanda. We do this segment called Mystery Footy Tipper. The guys would absolutely love to have you on, …
I thought I was texting Fatty and he replied saying, “Who is this? How’d you get my number?…”
Someone said to me that he apparently doesn’t like it unless you call him Fatty. So I texted back an apology: “Fatty. I thought it was appropriate to call you by your first name… I’m so sorry.”
The reply came back, “So now you’re calling me fatty? Is that what you get paid to do?”
I felt like I was dying and then I thought, this has to be the wrong person.
I wanted to apologise, explain that I had the wrong number but they had blocked me. Then I thought I’m going to get sacked!
Then Jenna got a message on the Jonesy and Amanda Instagram page from Rachel Griffiths saying, your producer called me fat and other stuff.
When I heard I thought, Oh, my gosh. I called Rachel Griffiths fat. She’s blocked me so I can’t explain the misunderstanding. This is horrible, the worst, I’m going to get fired.
I remember people at work were laughing because they knew it was an accident.
I thought, ‘Jonesy and Amanda are going to kill me.’ We decided to tell Jonesy on air what had happened because he really wanted Fatty Vautin and I felt too petrified to message another person called Fatty.
I went on air and I told the story, the snippet was posted on TikTok. It ended up going viral, within eight hours we had 7 million views. I think it has 7.5 million views now.
It was literally me saying, please don’t fire me. I screwed up. It was raw and authentic, the stuff that resonates with people because everyone has screwed up before and messaged the wrong person. No matter what age you are, I know my mum has messaged the wrong person and young people have messaged the wrong person. People thought it was hilarious because Fatty Vautin is a well known footy icon and Rachel Griffiths is a well known icon in film.
This was a big screw up that turned out ok. The whole segment actually got me nominated for an ACRA. It was a big turnaround.
Megan Smith realises she’s called Rachel Griffiths, Fatty.
From this experience I learnt that the best content is created when you are yourself. People want viral moments all the time but you can’t pick and choose what’s going to be viral.
Jonesy and Amanda show they are so authentic and grounded. Everyone always asks, what are Jonesy and Amanda like in real life? I say they are exactly what you hear on air, I think that’s what makes them so amazing… They’re my mentors.
11. Are there other things you’ve learned from them as mentors?
Yes, they are so humble. They are great leaders in that way. I don’t think they even realise how incredible they are, the impact they have on their listeners and the people they work with. People love them because they’re just themselves and they don’t think they’re above anyone. I think that’s because they don’t do the show for fame, they do it because they love it and they love their listeners as well.
They are great role models because they’re authentic and they’re like everyday people not affected by their fame. They’ll be out and if someone comes up, they’ll give them so much time, it’s amazing to watch. We remind them all the time that they’re icons and are loved by their audience. They create a lovely working environment, like a family.
12. Have you got some words of wisdom for others in the industry or those wishing to work in the industry?
Always be yourself.
Always be open for growth.
Have thick skin.
Don’t let anyone tell you can’t do anything.
13. How would you describe your vision for the audio media industry in the near future? What would you like to see?
Good content that keeps coming and going every day.
Continued support for local youth in community radio since that’s where I got my start in the audio media industry.
14. What role would you like to play in shaping the audio industry of the future?
Creating more authentic content that is open to listeners, as in having real chats, which Jonesy and Amanda are so good at. They can have deep and meaningful chats within the same half hour as having the biggest laughs.
I know that people relate to authenticity by opening up and that may resonate with another listener and they go, ‘I feel the same way.’ I want to continue to bring more authentic content, this is what makes great radio.
Megan Smith with Amanda and Jenna Benson.
Next week we profile a presenter with mixture of commercial and ABC experience now working in a regional radio station.
Series compiled by Serena Ahern for radioinfo.
If you have a suggestion for someone to be considered for this series, please send a note to [email protected]
Previous profiles:
Wisdom of Women in Media: Laura Bouchet, Content Director Triple M
Wisdom of Women in Media: Lauren Joyce, Chief Audience & Content Officer ARN