SCA’s Dave Cameron reveals new initiative

Today we talk with Dave Cameron, Content Director of Fox FM, who reveals a brand new initiative at Southern Cross Austereo.

Radio Today: So Dave, tell us about 'The Fox School of Radio'

Dave: We were talking a couple of years ago about some of the radio schools closing down and the fact that we, particularly at Fox with a lot of national shows coming out of Melbourne, were in a great position now where we can continue the career development of our regional up and comers by giving them real hands-on training.

We’ve got the national shows coming out of Melbourne, we have a great product team to get involved with and, to be honest, you can probably learn a lot in a week from being integrated into a product team like Fox and getting hands on experience with Hamish & Andy, Fifi & Jules, Matt & Jo through on-air but also through producing with planning meetings that we have. That’s kinda how it came about and 12 months down the track we’re rolling it out internally for our regional guys.

If there’s an on-air interest there’s also the opportunity to do late nights or mid-dawn shifts with airchecking.

Because it’s small numbers, we aim to do it every quarter with 5 or so people, there’s an opportunity to custom make and adapt for each person that we’re working with.

It’s a mix of sessions with talent and with our EP’s and then hands-on experience working with our shows while they’re on-air.

Radio Today: do you see this as a way of seeing what talent exists in regional SCA and how they operate in a metro environment ?

Dave: That’s the other thing. It’s one thing for them to learn, but it’s also for us to see exactly who’s out there and the skills they have.

Craig (Bruce) talks a lot about the talent pipeline (see here), and there seems to be a bit of sledging about that, but we are truly committed to getting people in and getting them learning the craft and giving them the resources to allow them to develop.

It’s unfortunate that some of the radio schools are closing down, Swinburne being the latest, which was a shame. But I guess we’ll start with training internally and, who knows, we’d love to be able to think about a day when we could potentially roll The Fox School of Radio out to externals as well.

Radio Today: training and development seems to be very high on SCA's agenda

Dave: It’s one thing to try and employ the best people, it’s another thing to continue ongoing development and training. I think that’s one thing that we’ve done really well and we’ve got right, and that’s our training and our mentor program.

At any one time we’re working with 5 or 6 shows a day. I’ve talked to Bunbury, Albury and Cairns in the last 24 hours. We’ve just got to make sure that the communication and access to our resources is open for every single content player in the company.

Radio Today: how do you find having your focus on so many different shows each day ?

Dave: It’s the most exciting part of the job. I’m as excited going to Cairns and working with Brodie & Stacey as what I am working with Hamish & Andy.

The Fox School of Radio is open to anyone working for SCA that has a bursting desire to be a killer jock, show producer or audio producer.

If you don't work for SCA, you never know, you could attend sometime in the future.