Nadia Mitsopolous and Mark Gibson. Photo credit: Emma Wynne
Notching up 35 years in a cut-throat industry like the media is a rarity thesedays, especially given its ever- changing landscape. But it’s an achievement being celebrated this month by not one, but two beloved presenters at ABC Radio Perth.
Breakfast host Mark Gibson and Mornings presenter Nadia Mitsopolous are more than just on-air colleagues. They’re also great mates. Mark is even godfather to Nadia’s nineteen year-old son.
Of their simultaneous 35-year anniversaries, Nadia laughs and says “Gibbo mentioned it to me a couple of weeks ago and I thought Has it really been that long?’”
On August 27th, Mark and Nadia will reflect on their combined 70 years of media experience during a special event at Perth’s Edith Cowan University, where listeners are invited to take a peek behind the scenes of their distinguished careers.
Mark’s media journey started at the West Australian Academy of Performing Arts (WAAPA).
At the age of nineteen, during his second year of studying broadcasting, he landed a job at North West Radio in Karratha, hosting his own show.
“I bluffed my way into it,” Mark recalls. “I got up there and thought: Now I have to pretend to know what I’m actually doing.”
Mark fondly remembers a studio equipped with turntables, carts, vinyl records … and a reel-to-reel machine.
“If you really wanted to put some fancy production in, you’d be splicing that tape with razor blades and sticking it together with tape. To think of how we used to do it! It was so labour intensive. But it did the job!”
Next stop for Mark was a newsroom gig at 6iX in Perth. There, he developed an enduring love of journalism.
Sending off demo tapes to newsrooms around the country, he was offered a job at Melbourne’s 3UZ, and made the big move east at the age of 21.
“Back then, 3UZ was a Macquarie News station,” says Mark. “They took their news really seriously. They competed with 3AW and 3UZ had on-the-road reporters.”
“I would spend half my week reading the news and half my week reporting on the road. And I just loved that.”
It was Mark who read the last ever news bulletin at the iconic station.
“One day, we all got marched out to the boardroom after I read the midday news and they said ‘You’ve all lost your jobs. Our newsroom is closing. We’re going to have networked news. You’re all redundant as of now.’”
Mark went on to land work at Sydney’s 2GB as a crime and court reporter, then transitioned to a TV career which would end up lasting 25 years and saw him covering the Sydney 2000 Olympics and travelling the world.
He moved back to Perth in the early 2000s. At the age of 48, he experienced redundancy for the second time.
“That was a real kick in the guts to me,” says Mark. “It was really tough to recover from initially.”
Having always loved radio, he took the opportunity to dip his toe back into the industry, filling in at 6PR.
Today, he’s in his third year of hosting Breakfast on 102.5 ABC Perth.
“I just love the connection with people, every single day. When you get to speak to people for a job and tell their stories, it’s kind of the perfect job.”
“I just absolutely adore the fact that, when you’re talking to people, it doesn’t matter where you are, people are listening – on a radio, on an app, whatever it might be thesedays – and they’re all sharing the same experience.”
About a year ago, the Breakfast show ran a campaign asking for donations of breakfast items to help the homeless. Mark says one man shared the story of how – through a series of unfortunate events – he and his family had ended up homeless.
“A listener phoned in and donated their car to help this guy get back on his feet and get back to work, which absolutely changed his life,” says Mark.
Journalism was the logical career choice for Nadia, who always loved writing and is curious by nature.
“I have such a vivid childhood memory of watching the news with my father,” Nadia says. “He devoured news. I think I fed off that a little bit.”
“One night, (then-Premier) Brian Burke comes on the news and I say to my dad “What were Brian Burke’s qualifications to become a politician?” Dad said “Well, he was actually a journalist.”
By the time her school friends had declared her ‘The person most likely to become the ‘Jana Wendt of the 90s,’ Nadia was already well on her way to a career in television.
But, as was Mark’s early radio experience, TV in the early 90s was a whole different world.
“Things were easier but harder, if that makes sense. We relied on microfiche. We all had phone books – a Yellow Pages and a White Pages on our desk. We had Telex machines. A red phone on the Chief of Staff’s desk.”
“And we had typewriters. You’d use Liquid Paper when you made a mistake.”
“There was no Google. You actually had to go out there, knock on doors and make phone calls.”
Nadia, a self-confessed political nerd, says “I’ve always enjoyed watching governments change. I’ve always got a bit of a kick out of interviewing Prime Ministers and Premiers.”
Radio gave her the opportunity to interview the musicians and bands she idolised as a child – from the Farris brothers to Toni Basil.
But the stories that mean the most to Nadia do not involve famous people.
Nadia recalls interviewing a woman whose son was killed in a car crash at the age of seventeen.
“She talked about how, for a couple of years, she’d quietly, behind the scenes, been lobbying to change a law to put some restrictions on P-platers. No-one was listening to her until she jumped on the radio and talked to us about it.”
“Suddenly, a week later, the government’s saying ‘We’re going to change the law.’“
“That’s what I think about when I go to bed at night.”
Nadia loves the intimate, conversational nature of radio.
“People have time to tell their stories, in their own words, unedited, uninterrupted. It’s a privileged position to be in, that you can that offer to somebody.”
“You do really feel like you get to know these people that you never actually meet.”
Ending up working at the same station as Mark is the icing on the cake.
“We have a giggle that we’ve now come together at the ABC,” Nadia smiles. “It’s kind of a nice way to loop our careers.”
Mark Gibson and Nadia Mitsopoulos will be speaking to Nate Byrne from ABC News Breakfast on Thursday, 27 August in a special listener event at Edith Cowan University. Registration is essential. Details here.
Main photo by Emma Wynne. Additional photos supplied.