Andrew Bensley: “I’m rapt about where I am and what I’m doing”

Six weeks into his new role as Program Director at Melbourne’s RSN 927, high profile racing broadcaster Andrew Bensley has barely had time to sit still.

The day I pester Andrew for a chat on the Food Bytes podcast, he’s right in the thick of the Spring Racing Carnival action, attending the barrier draw for Saturday’s 5 million dollar Cox Plate.

“I’ve been here at RSN for six or seven weeks and it’s been a whirlwind, really, coming in at this time of the year,” he tells me. “We are the racing station of Victoria and I’m coming here in a completely different role.”

“I’ve been on air for most of my career and it’s a bit of a change from what I’ve been doing. But when the position came up, I thought ‘Well, it’s now or never.’”

As a young boy growing up in north east Victoria, Andrew had his heart set on a radio career.

“It was the only thing that I’ve ever wanted to do. Across the road in Wangaratta there was a beautiful couple. They weren’t related to us, but we called them Nanna and Pa. They were both into racing and they took me to race meetings around north east Victoria. That’s where the racing bug began.”

Having completed radio school, a young Andrew headed to Charleville in outback Queensland to work at the local station, 4VL.

“I needed a job and that’s where the first job opened up.”

Like many whose industry journey starts in an unfamiliar, far-flung place, young Andrew was largely fuelled by determination … and chicken schnitzels.

“I lived around the corner from six pubs.”

Andrew would go on to combine his passions of radio and racing, with a career spanning more than 40 years, including two decades spent between Sky Sports Radio and Sky Racing.

“I actually worked where I am now when it was known as 3UZ. I’ve just turned 61, and it all started at radio school when I was seventeen. It’s a career where I look back and pinch myself and think ‘How good has this been?’”

“I am rapt about where I am and what I’m doing.”

“As I said to the staff here that I look after, I made a decision to come here because I grew up listening to this signal, when it was known as 3UZ.”

“I know you can never bring back what I listened to, like Don and Bert in the mornings and Alan Lappin … it was a proud station, and I’ve come back to try and instill what we are about. Bring some happiness through the day. Let our listeners know what we are all about, and that is racing sport.”

Andrew says the thrill of live radio never gets old.

“I love coming in here, because you never know what each day will bring. It’s immediate, and that’s one thing I love about it. As you speak, you might be in a seven second delay at some times of the day, but for the majority of time on a racing station it is live.”

“We’re broadcasting racing and sport 364 days of the year at the moment, and it’s live every day.”

“I’m really excited about the next few years.”