ACRA Winners celebrate: Rosie Waterland on her ‘crazy little idea’
The annual Commercial Radio Awards were held in Melbourne on Saturday night and this year there were three new categories for podcasts.
The awards winner of the Best Radio Show Podcast was Chrissie, Sam & Browny – Chrissie Swan, Sam Pang & Jonathan Brown (Nova Entertainment).
Best Original Podcast was won by Mum Says My Memoir is a Lie – Rosie Waterland (PodcastOne SCA).
Best Original Podcast Branded was won by Modern Babies from Genea and the Nova Entertainment Podcast Team.
Rosie Waterland was thrilled with her ACRA victory for her popular podcast and posted this note to her social media:
Waaaaay back in 2016, I had this crazy little idea – if my mum was insisting that a lot of my childhood memoir, The Anti Cool Girl, wasn’t true, why not sit down together, read each chapter and then talk about what we disagreed on when it came to our shared past?
Mum incredibly generously agreed to take part, PodcastOne gave us an amazingly patient and sensitive producer, Jaime Chaux, and Mum Says My Memoir Is A Lie was born.
It took us more than six months to record all 22 episodes, sometimes taking breaks because it was just so emotionally exhausting for both of us. I then spent almost another six months listening to what we’d created and helping with the final edit of each episode, even though all I wanted to do was never listen or re-live any of it ever again.
We fought, we laughed, we talked about family memories and trauma that we’d never faced each other with before. Mum gave her side of the story, I gave mine, and we pushed forward without any promise of a neat resolution.
Mum Says My Memoir Is A Lie now has listeners all over the world, in massive numbers that I can’t even comprehend. As my big sister Rhiannon said, “Who would’ve thought our bogan family talking would be interesting?!?” (And as mum always says, “Rosanna, you’re not even that funny.”)
Read the complete post about the award-winning podcast here.
Waterland is currently a columnist for Australia’s 9Honey, and is writing her third book, which will be her first work of fiction. In 2018, she was announced as the newest ambassador for Australian underwear label Modibodi – one of the very few Size 22 models to ever front an Australian underwear campaign.
Waterland is part of a new Dan Ilić comedy night in Sydney on November 2 at Giant Dwarf that has been branded “Q&A on crack”.
Complete list of all the 2018 ACRA winners
Listen to the 22-chapter Mum Says My Podcast Is A Lie here.
Podcast platform bosses on what makes a great podcast
Commercial Radio Australia also held its annual Radio Alive conference last week and devoted several sessions to podcasting.
One session was hosted by Jaime Chaux (who Rosie Waterland mentions above), CRA’s head of digital and formerly PodcastOne content director. Chaux’s guests in the session were Southern Cross Austereo head of podcasting Grant Tothill and Nova Entertainment head of podcasting Jay Walkerden.
When it comes to pitching ideas to podcast platforms, Walkerden used Confessions Of A Twenty Something Trainwreck as a case study. Podcaster Phoebe Parsons entered her podcast into Nova’s Podquest competition. It has subsequently thrived and is now into five seasons.
Walkerden said they now host live podcast shows with audiences of around 200 people and more are planned.
When asked about what he requests from budding podcasters, Walkderden said getting an episode map of the series helps and then a test recording. He noted they have avoided true crime at present as there is so much available and it takes a long time to get it right, but he is working on a number of comedy projects.
Jaime Chaux and Grant Tothill
Southern Cross Austereo’s Grant Tothill said his team chases content that might be missing from the PodcastOne platform. “We want something that will attract an audience. We are pretty selective – from maybe 1,000 podcast pitches we might end up with five podcast series.”
When asked by Chaux about PodcastOne’s most popular genres, Tothill smiled and said he wasn’t about to reveal that in front of a room full of podcasters and audio sector executives.
Tothill then played an excerpt from one of Adam Shand’s successful true crime podcasts.
Tothill added: “We get a lot of people who pitch radio ideas – but it’s not radio. The most successful pitches are from people who have thought it all through and have an idea for each of their episodes.”
Jay Walkerden
Another podcast session at Radio Alive was hosted by Jay Mueller who is now back working with Eddie McGuire in addition to producing podcasts. Muller is one of Australian radio’s most successful producers, having spent time producing the most successful radio show in Australia – 3AW’s Breakfast with Ross & John. Mueller was later poached by McGuire when Triple M launched The Hot Breakfast. He left Triple M last year and spent time with SEN 1116 overseeing content and later producing Gerard Whateley. Mueller has returned to work with McGuire Media and JAM TV as head of development.
Mueller’s guests at his session were crime writer and podcaster Adam Shand, Nova Brisbane breakfast host Ash Bradnam and PodcastOne imaging and production guru Matt Nikolic.
Adam Shand, Jay Mueller, Ash Bradnam, Matt Nikolic
Shand talked about finding true crime stories that mainstream media had overlooked.
Bradnam played an excerpt from his Addicted podcast and spoke frankly about the recordings and how he recorded it with his wife in the room to keep him honest.
Nickolic talked about making content that you couldn’t use on radio. When it comes to crime he noted: “People like it dark and they want the detail.”
