Every weekday morning Mike Etheridge and Emma Chow jump behind the mic and broadcast to Western Sydney from ARN’s The Edge 96.1 and further afield on the iHeartRadio app and DAB+ station.
Mediaweek spoke to Etheridge and Chow about working through Covid, finding new content, and what Western Sydney has to offer.
Working Through Covid
With Western Sydney a hotspot for Covid-19, Etheridge and Chow have found the balance between providing relief and important information.
Chow: “There’s a lot of Covid heavy stuff that’s floating around, so we’re trying our best to keep the mood light because people don’t tune into Mike E & Emma for hard-hitting news – although we do bring them what they need to know. Our show is really an escape from all of the bad depressing stuff that’s going on in the world at the moment.”
Etheridge: “Whilst we try to keep it light and fun, we strongly believe that getting vaccinated is important. We do know that there’s a problem in Western Sydney and that is our target audience. We will talk about it on air without being preachy.”
The pair even lead by example by getting vaccinated on air earlier this year.
Etheridge: “We were really proud of doing that. We copped a little bit of hate, and that’s to be expected, but we got some private messages from people saying that we changed their minds.”
Chow: “There were a lot of people who wrote us DMs, saying ‘I was actually really on the fence about getting vaccinated, but thank you so much. It’s cleared a lot of my questions up, and now I’ve decided I’m going to get AstraZeneca,’ which to us was a huge win. Because really, aside from changing people’s minds, we just want people to consider getting the vaccination because there’s a lot of people on the fence at the moment.”
Etheridge: “Some of the comments were funny, I saw one saying there wasn’t even anything in the needle. Well, I can assure you that there was!”
Keeping It Fresh
2021 is the pair’s 10th year on air, with Etheridge and Chow even joking that their partnership is the longest relationship that they’ve ever had.
Etheridge: “Chemistry wise, I don’t believe we have to work on it at all. I know some people try and put different people in a room and try and make it work and It just doesn’t. I don’t know what it is about Emma and I, because we’re quite different people, but whenever we met it just sort of it just clicked.”
After a decade, the pair have found all sorts of ways to find new content.
Etheridge: “There is always content out there. Something as mundane as noticing something when you go shopping that was amusing, or something relatable about your personal life. It constantly comes up and you have to keep an eye on it.”
Chow: “Relatable is the word, and I think that speaks to the success of the show that we have never pretended to be anyone other than ourselves. We’ve never played characters, we know the roles that we play in terms of our dynamic and how we work on air. But we’ve always been real, and I think that that’s what people are drawn to, especially in these times. That’s what people want to see, and that’s what people want to hear.”
Broadcasting to Western Sydney
The Edge specifically targets the under 30s of Western Sydney, one of the fastest growing markets in Australia. There are a number of things that make The Edge’s target demographic unique, even when compared to the rest of Greater Sydney.
Etheridge: “They’re slightly more conservative. When people talk about under 30s quite often they think gen z and millennials that live in inner-city share houses with the cliches about avocado toast Our listeners aren’t like that, the first time they move out might be with a partner and they’ll buy a Masterton home in one of the outer suburbs. They do life stages earlier. I’m constantly amazed by talking to a listener and her age will be in brackets – it will say 21, and she’ll say something about her child.
“Also knowing that they’re not woke, they’re not your typical inner city resident studying three degrees before they move out and going to protest movements. I like to call them suburban millennials.”
Chow: “In terms of those suburban millennials not being woke, I think that it’s really important for us to set an example and inform them but not preach to them. Whether it’s gay marriage or getting the AstraZeneca jab, it’s really important for us to be informative, but not down your throat about social issues. They want to know about it, but they don’t want to be told how to live their lives in that woke way.”
For Etheridge and Chow, all the effort that The Edge puts into reaching out to Western Sydney has paid off.
Etheridge: “There are not many of us that work on the show at all compared to some other shows, and we all work really hard. I think The Edge punches above its weight, and we are really proud of it.
“We’re proud to tailor our content to our demographic and that area, because they deserve good content.”
Chow: “It’s really cool to represent that particular section of Sydney. We’re the only ones who are dedicating ourselves to them, and only to them. When they see us on the street or out, they say thank you for talking to us and talking in a real way. When you hear that feedback it makes everything that we do, and all the blood, sweat and tears we put into The Edge worth it.”