Small town jocks work hard, but not for the money

They work them hard at Redwave’s Spirit Network that reaches remote communities in north western WA. In Hedland, the town in the path of last week’s Cyclone Rusty, the studios of Spirit 1026 employ just two staff, both of them announcers, flat out earning an estimated $700 a week.

For this Robbie Klitzing pulls a weekday breakfast shift that goes from 6am to 11am. The next five hours, to 4pm, is handled by Sebba Claassen. On top of that, the boys present a three hour local sports show on Saturday mornings. The rest of the programming, like many of the Pilbara region’s mining workers, is brought in from afar.

“The team at Spirit 1026 Hedland,” says Sebba, “is myself and Robbie. We have a station manager in Melbourne that is FIFO (Fly in Fly Out). Our PD is Mike Parry who’s based in Perth but regularly visits the market, Mike is a great guidance for both of us.”

Although the boys actually live in the town, neither of them are locals. Robbie hails from Shepparton while Sebba is a born and bred Melbournian. Robbie’s been in Hedland for just over a year and Sebba going on 9 months. He jokes, “If I’d conceived a child when I moved to town it would’ve be born on the day of the cyclone (haha) ironic.”

When he first landed in Hedland from Melbourne it was a huge culture shock says Sebba, “I lived a very cultured lifestyle in Melbourne, always loved my lattes and going to gigs at great music venues every second night of the week. I used to play drums in a band called the Cosmosonic Duo with my mate Nadge and we used to gig around Brunswick and Collingwood.

“But since moving to Hedland to chase my radio dream, I’ve had to leave that life in Melbourne behind. Now I have to enjoy lots of country music and XXXX beers at red sandy pubs in Port Hedland and Karratha. It’s a massive difference. Leaving my mates and family in Melbourne has been one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to deal with.

“I consider myself to be a very ambitious person, I’ve travelled all across the North America and Mexico. I know both Robbie and I would love to continue our radio journeys beyond that of the Pilbara. I would love to work in a capital city one day and maybe even take my radio skills to an English speaking station overseas, that’s always been a dream of mine,” says Sebba.

While the route to stardom on a major metro station varies, and is often shortest through stand-up comedy, many like Sebba and Robbie still take a more traditional path. Starting out in a smaller regional station (and they don’t come much smaller than Spirit 1026) they hone their skills while sending out copious air checks in the hope that a PD in a larger market will put them on the next rung up the ladder.

When the first warnings came through that their adopted Pilbara community was in the direct path of a category 4 cyclone named Rusty, Sebba and Robbie vowed to stay in the studio and broadcast 24/7, come hell or high water, until the storm had passed.

To their eternal credit, they were prepared to do the job that the highest ideals of their profession required of them – but not before contacting radioinfo, some WA news outlets and setting up a facebook page.

Who can blame them? Rusty came as a double edged opportunity to do genuine good for the community while getting their names and air check (hear below) into the marketplace.

Sebba told us, “A highlight of the past few days has been the attention that our facebook page ‘Cyclone Rusty’ has attained.We’ve had lots of media interest from GWN7 and The West Australian newspaper about our long radio marathon.”

Sebba confides that although it was a relief that the main force of the Cyclone ended up missing Hedland, it was also a bit of an anti-climax. One gets the impression the boys would rather have experienced the full adventure of a perfect storm and its aftermath.

One thing for sure, they didn’t do it for the money. Says Sebba, “We are not sure if we’ll be paid overtime as yet, or if we’ll receive TOIL (time off in lieu). We’d be happy with either as we were both on air for around 58 hours.It was an experience in itself, so any overtime we get will certainly be a bonus.”