Natalie Peters and Erin Molan won the ACRA for the Best On Air Team in AM Radio last weekend.
It was a pivotal moment in Australian talk radio history. No female duo has ever won that award before.
“It’s incredible to think about it like that,” Natalie Peters told Steve Ahern just after winning the ACRA.
“We just get in the studio and talk, it wasn’t really until tonight that someone pointed out that there had never been a female duo…
“There have been a lot of women who have done talkback radio commercially, but we are the first to win this award.
“There’s just the two of us with no token man, it’s really special, I feel really honoured.”
Natalie Peters says she doesn’t want to big-note herself, but she does hope that her achievement will be an inspiration to other women in talk radio.
“I hope it encourages other people who are in news to swap over and try it.”
She also had a message for talk radio management:
“Just pick the best people, don’t worry if they’re men or women… if they’re the right people together and they’ve got chemistry, just pick them…
There is another advantage to having more women on air says Peters:
“Commercially, you’ve got female voices talking to female listeners potentiallty about products that wouldn’t have been advertised by a bloke.”
She confided that she had not met Erin before their first show, but then “we just clicked, it’s like relationships, sometimes it absolutely just clicks. A lot of the time we do think the same on things, we have a strong policy that we won’t make up a fake battle…
“Erin’s incredible and very genuine. She says things that make me laugh, its that chemistry, we’re lucky.”
Erin Molan was not at the ACRAs to accept her award with Natalie Peters.
Listen here for more winners speeches, recorded just after the winners received their awards.
Complete ACRAs winners list here.
My congratulations to the awardees Natalie and Erin. It is indeed great to hear womens' voices on the air. Is indeed great to know that commercial radio is recognizing their efforts. By the way I am a listener to the Natalie and Erin on 2GB weekend afternoons. I also listen to Poppy Savvakis on weekend afternoons2SM. How I listen to both programs, it is a possible task.
While I cannot comment on whether female presenters have been given awards and/or recognition for their contribution to their craft, let's not forget the women who present on the ABC such as Patricia Karvelis and Geraldine Doogue, to name a few.
Let us not also forget that pioneers of Australian radio have been women. One who comes to mind is Grace Gibson who ran a radio production company supplying radio stations nationally with radio dramas, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/gibson-grace-isabel-12534.
May I avert readers to the National Film and Sound Archive's website on pioneering radio women, https://www.nfsa.gov.au/latest/women-radio . The website also has research material.
Thus women on radio is not a new concept. It has been with us since the early days of radio. Whether there were awards or recognition for any presenter male or female in those early days, I cannot comment.
Thank you
Anthony of Belfield, which has a very large crane acting like a weather vane.