With the Rugby League season due to kick-off on Thursday night, this also marks the return of Matty Johns to the Fox League lineup for his Thursday and Sunday night shows.
Mediaweek caught up with Johns to talk about the new season for his programs, as well as getting an update on his podcasts and radio work for SEN.
Johns was surprised to be told that this marks his tenth year at Fox League but said it is the type of job that time just flies by.
“I love it, it’s a great place to work. When your contract gets towards the end you don’t even bother negotiating, I just go to Steve (Crawley) and say I want to go again, you keen?”
When asked about what to expect from his two programs, The Late Show with Matty Johns and Sunday Night with Matty Johns, Johns said that they have a lot planned this year with the hopes that they will be less restricted by the pandemic.
“We got a lot of good stuff. That’s been the tricky thing in the last few years with Covid, on one side of things it’s hard to get players and secondly on top of that is having an audience. Fingers crossed this year it looks like we’re going to be able to, that makes a big difference.
“I’ve come up with a few things this year, which is a different way of doing things but for it to really work you want a live audience there.”
Johns said that the creative process for the shows is a free-flowing and open process with the secret being to their continued success being the chemistry between himself, Nathan Hindmarsh and Bryan Fletcher.
“Everyone just does their own thing. In the offseason, we’ll come up with new segments and I’ll just sort of sit there and go yeah that could work and yeah we’ll give it a go. Fletch comes up with ideas, Hindy even occasionally comes up with ideas. For this year, about two weeks before the shows we’re going to sit and just go through for the first time because some of the ones that I’ve come up with are a little bit more complex with the players which are dangerous for our show, trying to get a little clever, it can be very dangerous.”
One program that hasn’t been scheduled yet on Fox League for the year is Face to Face with Matty Johns. Johns said that more episodes are planned but production is restricted at the moment.
“It’s been a little bit tricky because you are trying to get people but with Covid stuff going on, until we sort of get it under control, people are reluctant but we’ll do our best.”
Radio and Podcasting
Johns said that his family podcast will continue this year as well as a new podcast with Fox League colleague Cooper Cronk.
“We will do the family podcast and when the season starts I’ll do something with Cooper Cronk, as opposed to Cooper Johns or Cooper Kupp.”
When asked about the new Triple M Sydney breakfast team which features his former co-hosts Chris Page and the returning Mark Geyer (MG), Johns said he was surprised that MG returned to the timeslot.
“Pagey keeps surviving and is still there. I never saw MG going back there though. It’s a big one going back into brekky radio. Particularly because he had that plum job at night with The Rush Hour, it was an hour, 6pm to 7pm, which he did on his ear. There’s no doubt in the next month or so, MG will be saying to himself, ‘fucking hell what have I done?'”
Johns himself is still on the radio but he said he is enjoying his much cushier role on SEN where he works the Friday morning shift.
“I really enjoy it. 9am to 12am Fridays. Because Brandy (Greg Alexander) has gone to breakfast we’re going to have Andrew Webster and we’re going to have Joey (Andrew Johns) and Denan Kemp alternating.”
The SEN show sees Johns reunited with his brother Andrew Johns, which Johns says brings back unpleasant memories.
“I forgot what he is like. We slept in the same room together for 21 years and working with him in that small studio just reminded me what a pain in the ass he is.”