A VOICE TO REMEMBER By Melissa Walsh
H
e’s been the highest rated radio announcer in Australia and a member of 3AK’s Good Guys, rubbed shoulders with the Bee Gees, Barry Humphries, Wilbur Wilde, Derryn Hinch and a plethora of stars over the years. He began his own radio school which continues to operate till this day. This year the legend Gary Mac moved to the Mornington Peninsula with his beloved wife Joanie and talks to Peninsula Essence about the golden days of radio.
“Of course radio announcers in those days were known as music jocks or dj’s,” Mac explains as we sit surrounded by his well set up studio where photos frame the walls showing the memories of the wild times he has shared over his past forty years in the business.
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With a radio career that began in Newcastle, it was a natural progression for the well-articulated Mac to go on to bigger things very quickly, with a stint at radio stations in New Zealand and Australia in the early years. “I’d always had the desire to work in radio and I didn’t know anything about it except my parents had a large console radio which stood a couple of feet high and had all the dials at the top and big speaker down the bottom,” said Mac, who was born in New Zealand, and spent the first 18 years of his life there. “I used to lie on the floor as a kid and listen to the serials or news broadcasts and I was so curious about where this all came from and how radio worked. I knew there was a transmitter for the radio station which was out of town but always wanted to know where the radio announcers worked from.” continued next page...
June 2018