Welcome to JJ-365 Salutes. Over 2018 we pay tribute daily to one of “The Good Ones.” Today we are shining the light on Guy Dobson.

When I first came to the FOX in 1988 as Program Director there was still Crocodile Dundee craziness going on and we had so much fun with that. That and the advent of the smash hit band 'Men at Work' years earlier had created a bit of an infatuation about our cousins, way, way down south. Foster’s beer commercials were a plenty in Canada and we’d often tip to what we thought was their country’s biggest beer. Turns out that it was more of a north american phenom as I witnessed first hand while down under a few times that it really wasn’t well thought of ('Bat's piss mate') or consumed in the mass quantities the way we were imbibing it.

There were many Aussies and Kiwis in the west coast area and still are as it seems to be a rite of passage for those down under to come up top and work and play, especially around the world class mountains of Whistler and Blackcomb. 

I remember around that time a young lad with an Aussie accent on the other end of the phone leaving me messages and requesting a meeting. I was intrigued and in he came. He told me about his background in radio and especially the ‘presenter’ experience he had back home. I’m like what? Presenter? “Yes JJ that’s what we call the DJ’s back home.” He told me that he had tried to see a few others before coming to see me and kept hearing this from our competitors: “Sorry matey, Canadians will not accept people on the radio if they have an accent.” I thought this was ludicrous because it’s not like they weren't speaking English, and most importantly I am always on the lookout for people who sound apart from the pack. Differentiation is so key to standing out in a bombarded world. I created an opportunity for him and ‘The Weekend Guy’ took to the waves and the audience chatter went up. “Who is that Australian guy you have on the weekends? I love the different ways he says things like ‘I stopped to put petrol in my car last week’…’I opened up the boot of the car (trunk) etc.” We put him on remote broadcasts out and around including SeaFest in Vancouver which had huge crowds and many would come to see “that guy from down under.” Then there was the Unicorn Pub, semi owned by the Irish Rover guys where I believe that we had Guy presiding over ‘live’ crocodile wresting. Guy was up for anything, as they all are in Australian radio.

Guy was intrigued by the medium of radio from an early age. He came out Brisbane Australia graduating in 1983 from the Brisbane Boys' College, in the Brisbane suburb Toowong and never looked back. He had already begun his radio career at 16 doing the midnight-to-dawn shift at Gladstone AM station 4CD (now 4CC) in the early 80's in Queensland, which is approximately 550 km (340 mi) by road north of Brisbane.

Like in all small markets pretty much anywhere in the world he says: “In the formative years of radio, in terms of the content and product side, you tend to do everything from selling, to writing copy to presenting, to production, to putting the whole thing together, so as a 16-year-old your eyes are wide open straight away and your experience gets broader as you get older."

His career has led him to lofty heights. He’s been a presenter, Content Director, CEO, Consultant and now Chief Creative Officer for SCA which is the biggest radio company in Australia. He has a worldwide footprint and has been and continues to be one of the, if not THE most powerful radio broadcaster down under.

Guy and I kept in touch over the years and like myself he is a huge fan of the Big ‘Word of Mouth’ generating promotions. He was around when we created ‘The FOX ROCKS’ advertising contest. We simply told our audience that we’d rather give them our advertising money and off they went promoting us in crazy, fun and huge chat generating ways. That ended up spawning the ‘Show your us your Station X’ rage in the 80’s and 90’s. Guy and his teams have hatched heaps of those kinds of ratings rewarding and worldwide copied ideas like ‘The Secret Sound’ (The ultimate ear test) and ‘The Fugitive’ where listeners are given cryptic clues to join the hunt to find The Fugitive who had a large cash bounty on his head. First to find and identify The Fugitive won the prize money.

I was down in Australia a couple of times including in 2008 when Guy, who was Chief Content Director for Austereo, and his boss CEO Michael Anderson invited me down around the ACRA Awards, which is their version of the CMW awards in Canada, to be a speaker at the conference. While there we did a little bit of work with the Triple M crew and got to meet Mike ‘Fitzy’ Fitzpatrick, Rex Morris (congrats on the latest HUGE ratings book!) and more of the team. 

Later I was recruited by the Australian Radio Network (ARN) for the CEO position which included numerous video conferences and a trip to meet everyone in person. They were thinking at the time that a ‘product’ person was the way to go. Guy and Michael were gracious about me going for that, and it turns out I came in second as ARN blinked and decided to go with someone with a deep sales background (Clive Dickens if I recall correctly who was an excellent choice).

Just after that Austereo continued their tradition of promoting from within, elevating Guy to replace Austereo veteran CEO Michael Anderson who had decided not extend his contract (Michael is now the CEO of MediaWorks, New Zealand’s largest independent broadcaster, reaching 3.8 million Kiwis though its TV, Radio and Digital platforms). 

There were a ‘substantial’ number of mainly external candidates before settling on Guy, who had rejoined Austereo in 2005 after working with 365’er Dave Charles where Guy became the managing partner of the broadcasting consultancy ESP for three years.

In the role of CEO and he was given responsibility for running a publicly listed company, including commercial operations, ratings and revenue, sales and content, and resource management across a multidisciplinary broadcasting team. 

He was very successful in the role and then came the merger with Southern Cross Media. Following the company’s acquisition he was asked to remain in his role and his portfolio was broadened to include additional creative content responsibilities. As the Chief Creative Officer for SCA he is responsible for overseeing and road mapping the strategic and creative direction of all areas of Content – FM, Digital Radio and all Digital media. Simply put he says: “I oversee all the creative aspects of our business – everything that emanates from our speakers.” He has an excellent professional track record and is a person who has a detailed understanding of the world of radio and digital audio broadcasting, and the capacity to establish a strong internal culture capable of leveraging that expertise. There are 85 radio stations in that group which makes for a very busy gig.

I started consulting with SCA a year and a half ago and work with talented teams in a number of markets. I always appreciate the Australian creativity and ‘let’s do it’ spirit of the people I work with. They are brave, hard working, crazy creative, swift to move and ‘switched on’. And they are so all about talent and content. It’s everything!

Mike Fitzpatrick leads the Triple M network which includes the top markets. 

Triple M Sydney has just announced the new brekkie show called ‘Moon Man in the Morning’ that will feature Lawrence ‘Moonman” Mooney as the ring leader of a new comedic show that will be unlike any other on Sydney morning radio. 'Moonman' is one of this country’s most celebrated stand-up comedians, known as host of his own hilarious ABC TV show Dirty Laundry Live and winner of Best Show at The Sydney Comedy Festival in 2015. Long time solid Content Director Jamie Angel is the full leader of the pack. 

MIX in Perth is also in the Triple M tent and under the strong local leadership of Eric Erica McGee is number one in that very competitive market.

GOLD-FM on the Gold Coast is also under the Triple Brand in the Regional division headed up by Mickey Maher. Happy to say that GOLD-FM heads into the holidays with the number one brekkie show (although AJ just left) led by ACRA award winning Content Director Corey Kay.

Guy Dobson has always been about the talent and I love this innovative initiate he and his team launched a little while back at SCA. They call it ‘The Hubble Initiative’:

It’s a rotating roster on Triple M Modern Digital that provides aspiring radio personalities the opportunity to hone their craft. Hubble a talent development unit designed to discover the next generation of radio personalities.

Says Guy: “People love personality-driven radio, but to date, no one has invested the time, money and resources into developing the next generation, so we established Hubble. We have been absolutely blown away by the caliber of people we’ve discovered through Hubble.”

What do we need to do going forward? Guys says positively, “Brands will need audio more than ever in the emerging voice-controlled universe: For clients, the invention of sonic brand triggers in this ‘Hey Amazon buy me some toothpaste’ world are upon us. Brands will have to stand out in not only a visual capacity but an audio capacity as well.” 

His top newtowrking tip? “Pick up the phone and talk to people - don’t just email. Its too easy.”

365’er and former business partner Dave Charles describes Guy as such: “He is a rare radio beast! He understands all aspects of the key elements required to win in competitive radio. From research, talent to strategic and tactical content he knows how to put it all together. Not many of us in programming possess those all round skills and savvy, Guy Dobson does! He’s the ultimate radio Ninja, and all this with a wicked sense of Aussie humour.”

Guy climbed his way up from being a 16-year overnight presenter to being at the top of the heap in his profession in Australia and worldwide. He is connected, brilliant, well known, respected around the planet, creative, and is a solid & innovative leader. He constantly travels domestically and abroad looking for new ideas, acquisitions and talent.

When not doing the radio thing he is into ‘live’ sport. It’s footie, NFL and college football in particular. He might just be watching it over the Chrissy leave and possibly with a Titos Vodka in hand.

When asked about the one thing people at work don’t know about him, his answer was: “I'm an open book – everyone knows that.” True dat. Congrats on a terrific career guy. You’ve earned everything and deserve your success. Now keep making a difference! Well done Dobbo!

Thank you, Guy Dobson for being one of “The Good Ones”. Feel free to like and share Guy’s positive story. Who is the subject of tomorrow’s JJ-365 Salutes? As they say, stay tuned.

Jim JJ Johnston is the CEO, President and Chief Programmer/Talent/Content Coach for JJIMS INC. and works with talent in many different industries worldwide. He can be reached at JJ-IMS.COM.