Mix 102.3 has long been a dominant FM voice in the Adelaide market. The breakfast teams over the years have featured great broadcasters and the current pairing of Erin Phillips and Mark “Soda” Soderstrom is no exception.
There are lots of reasons to listen to the Adelaide breakfast show. They share some great stories. Erin this week revealed her mum used to be Charlie Watts’ neighbour. Soda had a great yarn about how The Newsreader compares to modern-day TV newsrooms. He noted the similarities between his role as the sports guy at Seven News Adelaide and the TV show’s Rob Rickards (played by Stephen Peacocke).
The pair first came together for a few months during 2020 and later in the year ARN revealed that Phillips would be joining the show permanently to co-host with Soda.
Mediaweek spoke with the hosts recently for a Mediaweek Studios podcast. Erin and Soda had just come off air and onto a Zoom call with James Manning in his lockdown Sydney studio.
Erin and Soda working together for Seven covering the AFL in Adelaide
Long time friends
Erin and Soda had known each other for a long time before they did a trial period together at Mix last year.
Soda: “I’d sort of crossed paths with Erin at times when she was a teenager. She was not playing football, but basketball. They always had charity games between the two big Adelaide football teams the Crows and Port and a couple of times she played alongside her dad and some of the other Port legends. Along the way I got to interview Erin a couple of times in different scenarios. We’ve probably known each other in some capacity for 20 years.”
Erin: “I’ve known Soda because he’s such an icon here in South Australia. He covers the AFL and he’s on Seven News. I felt like I knew him from watching him on the TV every night.”
Soda: “I just have to interrupt there. There’s a very shallow gene pool in Adelaide. Erin’s a little mistaken about who’s an icon!”
Covid impact in Adelaide
Erin: “We’ve been really fortunate that it’s only twice where both of us got caught up. One time I was in a Perth hotspot when I was playing football so I had to isolate and go live from my garage. They got a caravan up the driveway eventually for me.”
Soda: “I had a 14-day isolation recently after my wife was at a hotspot. I couldn’t broadcast from the house with three kids because they were running amuck. After two days Erin organised a beautiful caravan for me. It felt like a trailer from a Hollywood set.”
First on-air partnership
Soda said before the maternity leave fill-in Erin did in 2020, they did spend some time together talking about the show.
“The one thing that I noticed straight away was that the thing about Erin is she’s had some unbelievable life experience, things that we can only ever dream of, like, having lunch with Barack Obama in the White House. But she is still the girl that Adelaide knows and one who walks around in tracky dacks at West Lakes shopping mall.
“Even when Erin was filling in, you could see that she’s very grounded, very authentic, and has a really diverse range of experiences. She is also the mum of three and the greatest female footballer I’ve ever seen. She was also part of the only Australian team that’s ever won a gold medal in basketball, the World Championships. But you’ve also got a local girl who loves South Australia, loves the regions and Port Lincoln.”
Erin and Soda with anchor the great Shane Lowe (and a drawing competition)
What happened when they went off air this year?
Soda: “It was interesting in that it was a new show. We were getting our heads around the planning processes and planning a bit further ahead. Duncan [Campbell – ARN chief content officer] gave us the chance to reset and spend some time looking at what have we learned so far. How do we put that into place, and to use a footy analogy, after we have had a bit of practice match time? How do we take that to start to make some real impact? Hopefully do some stuff that is good and that people really love.”
Secret women’s business
Breakfast radio hosts get to know intimate details about their on-air partner’s lives. These two are no exception.
“I know that Erin has seven tattoos,” said Soda. “And I discovered today that Erin has a tattoo that has something to do with Elton John.”
“I’ve got seven tattoos,” acknowledged Erin. “And yes, I can confirm one is very related to Elton.” No further details were forthcoming.
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See also: ARN hires Adelaide sports star to replace Jodie Oddy on Mix 102.3 breakfast