Marty Sheargold describes himself as the Buddy Franklin of Triple M as he lands the breakfast gig
The host replacing Eddie McGuire on Triple M’s breakfast show says he’s the “Buddy Franklin” of the radio station.
Fiona Byrne
Don't miss out on the headlines from Fiona Byrne. Followed categories will be added to My News.
Meet the new Eddie McGuire, the clever comedian who is “hardwired to win” and ditched his top-rating national Drive show to take on one of radio’s most coveted spots, Triple M breakfast.
Marty Sheargold will wake up Melbourne from Monday, January 18, with his new self-titled show and will be heard nationally daily from 3pm-4pm on the Triple M network.
“I am the Buddy Franklin of Triple M,” Sheargold, 49, said of his long-term, big bucks commitment to the Melbourne breakfast shift.
“I have signed a 10-year-deal and anyone who knocks me out of that job within 10 you know has stabbed me in the back – but I might have made that up,” he said.
He is being paid “heaps, as you can imagine,” to host breakfast – and no, he has not signed on for 10 years – and feels no pressure about replacing, ‘Mr Melbourne,’ McGuire in the shift.
“I have always been hard wired to win. You don’t leave a show as successful as that one (Nova drive) to think that you could only just go OK at the next one,” Sheargold said.
“But I am certainly not the new Eddie, I don’t want to run the Collingwood Football Club, that is for sure.
“I’d like his hardcore, rusted-on listeners to enjoy what I am offering. I’d hate them to leave just because Ed has.
“I know what I am capable of and it is what I have done for nearly 20 years. If you offered me his job running Collingwood I would feel a bit of pressure, having never done it before.”
Sheargold said he left Nova’s top-rating national drive team of Tim, Kate and Marty in September as he had “lost interest in that show.”
“I left at the end of my contract so there was no mystery about that, certainly not for myself,” he said.
“I was always going. I had had enough of that show. I’d lost interest in that show and as an enjoyable experience as it was, I am at an age now where if I don’t have a tilt at something, if I didn’t really have a go at something, then I wouldn’t get another window to have a go because I am not getting any younger.
“So I could have sat there for years to be honest, but it was not what I wanted to do.
“It was the same show everyday, it had a real groundhog feel to it and it was really that I wanted an opportunity to go and build something myself.”
Sheargold said he was looking forward to being unshackled and uncensored at Triple M.
“There is not the content issues around the compromise that is involved in working in teams because you are often talking about stuff that you are not interested in but because you are compromising in that team environment you do it, and you do it with a smile, you do it with the right attitude, but after a while you go I am really not doing what I want to do here regardless of how well the show is doing,” he said.
“When you are in a group and you start saying they are a funny old family, they are Melbourne royalty, you can feel everyone else start to pull back and it is like, ‘Gee, I am really sick of being censored.’
“I am sick of saying something and someone going, ‘they are an old friend of mine’, it is like, ‘Oh, who cares,’ it is not personal.”
Of his rumoured prickly relationship with former Shebang co-host Fifi Box, Sheargold said Box was “a wonderful woman.”
“There are no issues between Fi and I,” he said. “We were like a married couple for six or seven years.
“We really established each other in the world of radio and are forever thankful for being in each other’s lives.
“They were wonderful times. She is a wonderful woman and beautiful mother by all reports. Good luck to her. “
Sheargold did however offer his opinion of Box’s new FOX FM breakfast co-host, comedian Nick Cody.
“I would not have given Nick Cody a job though, but that is not my department and it is not because he is not funny, it is because he is a redhead,” he joked.
For Sheargold, the Triple M gig is a homecoming of sorts after he started his radio career with the network 17 years ago and hosted the Shebang with Fifi Box for five years between 2003-2008.
He spent 10 years at Nova, enjoying tremendous success as co-host of the national drive shift between 2011 and 2020.
“It is a return home to me,” he said.
“I have always loved this brand and wanted to get back to this brand, so I have been able to make that happen and that is really important to me.
“Win, lose or draw, it is an opportunity I am not going to get again.”
He will be joined by Troy Ellis on the show and promises a revolving roster of mates will make regular appearances.
“I am going to do what I always do on radio and that is build the clubhouse and let people join,” he said.
“That has always served me well and if you can make the clubhouse as attractive as possible people want to be members.
“I think there will be a lot of people who come with me from various shows.
“I will certainly rotate through some friends of the show and have a better relationship with news and sport than I have had previously doing the drive shift, which isn’t as heavy on news.
‘‘Being able to be local and own the city that you live in is what is so attractive to me about the job.”
Sheargold will also return to stand-up comedy next year with a series of shows kicking off in May.
The Marty Sheargold Show will launch on Monday, January 18, 2021 on Triple M Melbourne from 6am.
Billy Brownless, and son, in the race to win
Geelong great Billy Brownless has tapped into his athletic past to become a prize contender in The Amazing Race Australia — and he’s made it a family affair.
‘Running our own race’: Jase talks radio war ratings win
Nova’s Jase and Lauren shot to the top of the breakfast show ratings less than a year after being axed from KIIS FM. Now, Jase shares the secret to their success — a tact Kyle and Jake O failed to deliver.