Studio

MAKING WAVES IN RADIO: ZM's MARK DYE

The radio industry sounds exciting when you’re listening online or in the car. ZM Drive host Mark Dye gives Hamish Barwick some helpful broadcasting advice for future radio stars. 

Twenty-three-year-old Mark Dye was only 11 when he decided broadcasting was his future. He appeared on the New Zealand version of the TV show Ready, Steady, Cook with former TV personality Kerre Woodham.


“I loved every second of it, so from that point on I thought this is what I wanted to do.”Mark talked to his aunt who had a job at RadioWorks. Its stations include The Rock and The Edge. “She jacked up a time for me to go do a tour of the building in Auckland. They told me to go to the broadcasting school in Christchurch.”

Being told at broadcasting school that he didn’t have the right voice for radio only served to make Mark even more determined to succeed. “One lady came in and air-checked me. She said I had no personality in my voice, no light and dark, and that I should probably concentrate on another avenue
of radio.”

 

Thankfully for ZM listeners, Mark chose to soldier on. “I ended up at The Edge and was getting $315 a week.” It wasn’t too bad, though, as at the time he was still living at home with his parents, in the Auckland suburb of Howick.

 His six-month internship came to an end, but when the assistant programme director left in 2006, Mark got the job because he had already learned the ropes. There are two avenues into radio for school-leavers, says Mark – broadcasting school or internships. But he cautions that there are very few new jobs at the end of them.

“Back in the early 1990s, there was a local radio station for every part of New Zealand, whereas now there is just a local breakfast show. The rest of it is networked out of Auckland.”

 

Mark’s advice is to go to broadcasting school. “That [Christchurch] degree is unreal because you learn about every avenue. You come out of that course with an in-depth knowledge of how things work and how things are going to run.”

 In September 2007, ZM shoulder-tapped Mark to come and do its night show. A year later he switched to Drive.

Mark jokes that school leavers can’t expect an easy ride. “Unfortunately, I don’t get up at 2.30pm and roll into work, go on air at 3pm and stuff comes out of my mouth.” Instead, he’s usually up at 8.30am, then in the studio from 11am researching for the show.

 He enjoys the majority of the music he programmes. “There are, of course, exceptions — Panic At The Disco, for starters! The wonderful thing about working for ZM is the playlist is constantly changing: new artists, songs and albums are discovered weekly.”Mark says, even if he didn’t work there, ZM would be his station of choice.