Rebecca Maddern: “Speaking on the radio and doing live crosses used to terrify me”

She’s hosted The Footy Show, co-hosted Australian Ninja Warrior, anchored countless TV news bulletins, presented on Weekend Today and was recently appointed Chief Sports Presenter at Seven News Melbourne.

That’s one hell of a CV. But once upon a time, Rebecca Maddern was working part-time in radio promotions whilst she went to uni, handing out stickers, chips and yes, icy cold cans of Coke.

On the latest episode of the Food Bytes with Sarah Patterson podcast being released tomorrow, ‘Bec’ as we know her talks animatedly about the live radio crosses which used to scare the living daylights out of her.

“We used to speak on the radio a little bit and oh my GOD, I used to be so terrified! I used to practise it 55 times in the car before I had to call up and record those.”

“And then, when the radio announcer used to make me go live, oh my gosh, I’d be in the car sweating!”

She credits former Nova News Director Nikole Gunn as being a driving force in her radio news journey.

Bec was part of the original Nova 100 news team (pictured above) which included Heidi Murphy, Patrina Jones and Carrie Bickmore, all of whom have gone on to make their mark in radio.

“Nikole gave me my very first job,” says Bec, who then bursts out laughing. “I don’t know what she was thinking!”

Feeling emboldened, Bec had approached Nikole to express her interest in radio news.

“She took me under her wing and trained me off her own bat,” Bec remembers.

“Those were the days when we had cassettes. I used to go home with little projects and record my voice to cassette. I would come back in, and she would listen and go through all my inflections and how I should be writing scripts for radio.”

“She really gave me my very first job, so I will be forever thankful to her, because I probably would never have got a break without that.”

Bec says hosting Channel Nine’s The Footy Show was probably the scariest thing she’s ever done in her media career.

“James Brayshaw was holding my hand. Many people won’t believe this, but Sam Newman was holding my hand. Billy Brownless, Shane Crawford … I had all of those guys holding my hand. They were so supportive.”

Bec is well used to the armchair criticism that goes hand in hand with being in the public eye.

“I’m not going to lie and say some comments don’t upset me,” she admits.

“The ones that upset me are those where I know myself that I mucked up. I’m not perfect! You make a faux pas on air or you say somebody’s name wrong … I mean, we all have those days.”

“The keyboard warriors – I would love to go to their workplace and just hover over them all day and point out all their mistakes and broadcast it to the world and then see how they feel.”

“I’m just human. We all make mistakes.”