A-list Confidential: Robin Bailey reflects on 97.3’s ratings rollercoaster
Robin Bailey has opened up about the 97.3FM breakfast show’s ratings bounce back, admitting it was “concerning” finishing 2020 at the bottom of the pack.
Entertainment
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Broadcaster Robin Bailey is relishing the 97.3FM breakfast show’s ratings boost, admitting she was “in a bad way” when the program took a dive last year.
Bailey rejoined the network in early 2020 alongside co-hosts Terry Hansen and Bob Gallagher – who had previously hosted the show together for 10 years before Bailey’s axing in late 2016 and Hansen’s subsequent resignation.
But the reunited trio dropped to the bottom of the pack after the Covid pandemic hit a few months later, finishing 2020 seventh in breakfast behind 4BC and placing sixth in the first three surveys this year.
The show has since rebounded in recent months, becoming the second most popular FM show behind Nova for a consecutive survey during the week – and fourth overall behind 4KQ and ABC.
“It’s always concerning. You don’t like to go down,” Bailey said.
“I think there were a lot of factors. It was a bit like building a new breakfast team. The adage in commercial radio is that it takes 18 months to two years to do that, so I think with the global pandemic, we were just getting back on our feet and, if I’m honest, personally I think I was in a pretty bad way.
“I’d only just come back, my husband had died and it was tough; then we went into lockdown and I couldn’t see my family. All of that didn’t help, but that’s called life.”
“It felt a bit like the rest of the world was going through how I was feeling anyway. It just took a bit of time to get back on our feet and that’s certainly what we’ve done – probably a little bit ahead of time.”
Last month Bailey marked two years since she lost her husband, Sean Pickwell, to cancer and she credits her long career on radio in Brisbane for helping her through.
“It’s the place I feel the most comfortable, the place where I feel most connected and after all that’s happened in the last few years it was really nice to be back with people who I knew; it was safe,” she said.
“My life is very different. I’m trying to rebuild it and I’m trying to work out my children are older and leaving home and work is the one thing I’m still so passionate about and I still really love doing it.”
97.3FM is this week celebrating its 20-year anniversary amid a changing landscape in Brisbane radio as AM continues to rival the FM dial.
In June the station also welcomed content director Allison Longhurst, who is the first female Bailey has worked with in that position in her 30 years on radio.
“The fact we do have a female content director and we are evolving and changing is super exciting, because we have to,” Bailey said.
“I think people are wanting to have different conversations. I don’t think any of us as broadcasters can sit back and go this is how we’ve always done it so therefore this is how it should be.”
GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY
Having wanted to return to an Australian project, Brisbane-born Alyssa Sutherland was instantly sold when she was offered a role on gold rush drama New Gold Mountain via Zoom from her Los Angeles home.
The only problem was a slightly overwhelming fear of horses.
“I had a bad accident on a horse a few years ago. I broke my back,” Sutherland told Confidential.
“I said to my agent, ‘Oh my God, it’s a period piece can we please make sure I don’t get up on a horse. It’ll put everyone at risk’. I didn’t think about having to see horses on set, So the biggest challenge for me was having to walk past a horse.
“I turned it into a thing where every time I had to see a horse I got a Tim Tam.”
Sutherland has lived in the US since she was 19, having won the Girlfriend Model Search from Brisbane in 1997. It launched an international modelling career that saw her shift to acting with a starring role in global series Vikings.
She returns to Australian TV in New Gold Mountain on SBS on Wednesday, filming the series in Victoria late last year.
Sutherland plays investigative journalist Belle Roberts, who overcomes the trauma of an abusive marriage and embarks on a quest for greater independence in 1850s Australia.
“I said to (director) Corrie (Chen) in one of our early conversations, when I’d only seen the first script, ‘I don’t want to be the crying girl in every scene. I’ve been that girl’,” Sutherland said.
“She replied, ‘You haven’t seen the rest of the script yet, but I don’t think Belle is going to cry at all’.”
“She was in an abusive marriage but her story doesn’t revolve around what he did. We see her after the fact … I like watching a woman charge forward with her life and gain independence.”
“It was so fulfilling for me creatively. I felt stretched as an actress.”
Sutherland is currently in New Zealand filming Evil Dead Rise, the next instalment of US horror franchise Evil Dead.
While she admits LA will remain home, she is hoping to continue taking on Australian projects.
“Covid makes things a lot trickier getting home but I love working in Australia and I am hopeful there is more of that on the horizon,” she said.
New Gold Mountain airs Wednesday at 9.30pm on SBS and SBS On Demand.
SEEING DOUBLE
As filming wrapped on Netflix biopic True Spirit last week, the film’s production team shared a series of behind the scenes images on set in Queensland.
The images, shared by Netflix’s director of family features Naketha Mattocks, showed sailor Jessica Watson helping actor Teagan Croft, who plays her in the film that will recreate her 2010 solo sailing venture.
The pair are pictured on a sailing boat with director Sarah Spillane while Croft is also shown with Oscar winner Anna Paquin, who plays Watson’s mother, cuddling koalas.
“What a summer this has been. We wrapped “True Spirit” this week! This is our team’s first biopic and a tale that will leave your jaw on the floor,” Mattocks wrote.
“I am amazed and inspired by Jessica Watson’s determination, grit and perseverance, and our global audience will be too.”
Spillane wrote “an incredible journey with some extraordinary artists, adventurers, and new forever friends”.
Meanwhile Brisbane fans should keep their eyes peeled around town with production on season two of NBC series Young Rock tipped to begin this week.
A VIRTUAL AJE
Fashion fans, get your Paypals ready.
A host of Aussie designer brands are set to drop exclusive offers when the 10-day virtual fashion festival – Vogue American Express Fashion’s Night In – returns from Wednesday.
Running until October 24, the event will include online offers and a series of shoppable virtual experiences designed to reinvigorate the retail and fashion industry.
It will begin with a Shoppable Runway on Wednesday with music mixed by duo Lastlings.
Sunshine Coast-born label Aje is among those headlining the show, having dropped their resort 22 Scent of Summer collection during the week.
“We feel that (the pandemic) has brought about more local awareness for the consumer, and that they are more willing to invest in homegrown brands,” Aje co-founder Adrian Norris said.
“The Australian and international fashion communities have been in a vulnerable position … however with restrictions lifting on the horizon, VAEFNI could not be better placed to provide a platform for consumers to invest in the creativity of Australia’s fashion industry and the local brands they love and care about.”
Designer Edwina Forest said Aje’s new collection was “escapist”.
“We designed what we imagined would be the ultimate dreamscape; an ode to long summers and that weightless surrender of how summer can make you feel,” she said.
10 QUESTIONS WITH … SHAYNA JACK
1. Who was your teen idol/ crush? Idol: Libby Trickett
2. Who are your three ideal dinner guests? If I’m allowed anyone in the world to meet – Ryan Reynolds, Carl Baron and Kendall Jenner
3. What’s your worst date experience? playing Call of Duty on PlayStation and getting stabbed in the back
4. What’s the movie that made you cry? What movie doesn’t make me cry …. Any animal film
5. Which song do you sing in the car? I sing to everything in the car
6. What’s your favourite movie or TV series you never admit to loving? Ferdinand
7. What’s the most sentimental thing you own? I have a memory box that contains lots of special items from moments in my life, such as my first senior team shirt signed by all athletes.
8. What was the last thing you Googled? Camping equipment
9. What’s your most embarrassing moment? Being photographed outside my house taking the bins out
10. What’s on your bucket list? To go to the Greece islands
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