Triple M’s Group Content Director chats with Peter Saxon.
“I only ever wanted to work at Triple M,” Mike Fitzpatrick tells me. I give him my most sceptical look. He ignores it and goes on, “When I was in Bathurst I would send tapes to everyone. Rob Logan, Rex Morris, Greg Smith, Guy Dobson, Mike Perso – all the guys that were program directors at the time. The only person in Australia who bothered to listen to my tape and call me was Guy.
“I’m a kid from Bathurst so why should any of them listen to me? Although, that’s often where you find the best talent. I’d been offered jobs at 4GG in Gladstone and 4CA in Cairns and I knocked them back because I only wanted to work at Triple M.
I told him, I don’t want to go to B105, it’s not Triple M. So, I knocked back my first job as an assistant program director
“I was prepared to give up on the idea of working in radio, if I couldn’t work at Triple M. So, I went to MTV instead and then Guy hired me to do midnight to dawn. I did Mid-Dawns at Triple M in Sydney for a year and then I became a floater which was a great job because you got to fill in everywhere. I worked with Denton I worked with Club Veg. I worked with Guy.
“I learnt from watching Guy and Brad in strategy meetings and Guy pulled me aside one day and said, ‘Do you really want to be an announcer?’ I said, yeah, I want to be an announcer. And he said ‘Really? Because you’ve got an aptitude to be a program director. You understand programming you get it its in your blood you’ve got a natural instinct for it, you really should think about being a program director because I’ve got a job for you at B105.’
If I was me now… the 24 year old me and I walked up to the 40 year old me now, I’d say take the job.
“I told him, I don’t want to go to B105, it’s not Triple M. So, I knocked back my first job as an assistant program director to Grant Tothill at B105 because I wanted to be at Triple M.”
Are you serious !!!?, I ask Fitzy.
It turns out he is, or at least he was, “Now it wouldn’t be as much of an issue, but when you’re 24, you’ve got a picture in your head of who you are and what you want to do. I loved Triple M and I wanted to be at Triple M and I wasn’t passionate about the Today network at the time and I guess I always believed in following your passion.
“Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with the Today network. It’s fantastic. And some of the best talent comes out of there. But I trusted my gut and my gut said no.
“If I was me now… the 24 year old me and I walked up to the 40 year old me now, I’d say take the job. But back then, I followed my passion and finally the opportunity came up for me to go to Triple M in Brisbane and be assistant program director, so I took it.
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I was APD for Dave Wilson. I was in Brisbane for seven months and then Jeff Aliss brought me to Melbourne to be assistant Content Director to Rex Morris at Triple M and do mornings. We changed the breakfast show at that time which was Timbo and Bedders – an interim show there called the morning madhouse which was Steve Bedwell, Russell Gilbert, James Brayshaw and Rachel Corbet. In the 12 weeks that it lasted, in the last couple of weeks I went into that show to anchor it.
In part two of our exclusive chat with Mike Fitzpatrick, coming in the next few days, he reveals why Triple M hit rock bottom and how it was resurrected. We also talk about the meaning of Rock.
Peter Saxon