In November of last year, Triple M Sydney announced that Mark Geyer would be moving from the late afternoon slot back to the breakfast slot, four years after he hosted the program for a nine-year stretch.
The original plan was to pair him with the existing team at the time, Moonman in the Morning, which was hosted by Lawrence Mooney with Chris Page and Jess Eva, but by November, Mooney had left the station.
Geyer now leads what he calls a three-legged tripod with Page and Eva and aims to bring a smile back to Sydney radio.
Geyer spoke to Mediaweek about why he returned to the breakfast slot and what to expect from the new iteration of the show.
“I thought I was going to be working with Lawrence Mooney, Jess (Eva) and Pagey (Chris Page), and I liked that,” said Geyer. “I really was drawn to that. Obviously, that went south and didn’t eventuate but it didn’t stop my enthusiasm for working with Jess and Pagey. I have worked with Pagey before and Jess has been someone that I respect and she reminds me a lot of the female version of me.”
A vintage shot of one of the early iterations of The Grill Team. Geyer alongside Matty Johns and Gus Worland
When asked about the change of no longer having Mooney on board, Geyer admitted that it changed the direction of the show a lot, but that it also provided the current hosts with more opportunities.
“You go from a four-legged table to a three-legged tripod. When one voice is gone it means you’ve got to say more and you’ve got to come up with more content.
“Now there’s only three of us we’ve got to become that tripod and we’re equal compartments. Pagey is one of the funniest men in Sydney, he has just never had an opportunity to prove it. Pagey’s got to express himself, Jess has got some amazing stories about her upbringing and family and I am a dad of five kids who played professional sport for 20 years. Between the three of us, I’m pretty sure we can entertain Sydney.”
When asked about the content direction of the new show, Geyer had a focus on being nice and making people smile.
“We just want to be a nice show. We don’t want to create any type of fanfare about being critical of stuff, we always want to make people smile.
“We’re getting back to being relatable and we’re getting back to being something that if our kids were in the car we wouldn’t be ashamed to say it.”
Geyer also said that the show would also be more Sydney-centric while providing more sports coverage, but it won’t just be a sports program.
“It will be Sydney-centric, there definitely wasn’t much of it at all on the previous show, and I think if we tried to put the Rush Hour on the breakfast show it’d be too much sport. We’re trying to be very Sydney-centric, and rugby league is in our DNA on Triple M. Once the season starts we will have a heavy focus each day for a couple of breaks on the NRL like at the moment with the Australian Open. But it won’t be the whole show.”
When asked about how his time hosting the Rush Hour in the late afternoons has changed his approach to breakfast radio, Geyer said that he realised he didn’t need to be so gun-ho.
“I am 53 now, I’ve done that part of the media where you say stuff to get quoted and be sensationalised. Now I try and avoid doing that. When I said something on the Rush Hour that was kind of controversial I asked the producers not to blow up on the social media so it lingers around. I don’t mean to be controversial but I am honest and transparent. So if that comes across as being controversial then so be it.
“I want to do a show that is a lot different to other shows. With the Rush Hour, we had a mantra that we weren’t going to be the show that bags all the teams and bags the referees but wanted to be as much about positivity as we could be. And that’s what we need these days in these Covid times. It showed with the Australian team being kicked out of the pub for basically sitting around the table and having a chat with each other that we’ve lost our sense of humour these last couple of years, I just want to bring a smile back to people’s faces.”