By Darren Gilbert
Today,
you’ll find him working with the likes of Gareth Cliff and Ayre Kellman. It’s a
dream come true. And yet, it almost never happened. Rewind a few years back and
you would have found Sinclair standing in a classroom. Yes, he had wanted to be a school teacher. However,
he soon realised it wasn’t for him. “I couldn’t separate my personal life from
my work life,” admits Sinclair. “The workload never ended.”
Something
had to give. He also knew he had to find a career that would make him happy. Cue
Boston Media House and Karl
Kikillus. “Mr K as we all called him,” recalls Sinclair. “I met him at an open
day for Boston Media House and he sold me on the idea of radio. He showed me
that I could be in radio. He showed me that you didn’t have to be a celebrity
to be in radio.”
That suited Sinclair perfectly. He didn’t
want to be in the spotlight. Instead, he was set on working in the newsroom at
702. And he did everything in his power
while studying to ready himself for that. This included job shadowing one of
the newsreaders, Jacob Moshokoa, as well as emailing anyone he could to find
out how to get in. “I knew everything there was to know about
702,” he laughs.
But of course, life played out differently to
what he expected. It didn’t want Sinclair working at
702. Instead, it had him receiving an email from
CliffCentral.com co-founder, Rina
Broomberg, offering him a position. Sinclair admits the moment had him pinching
himself. “There was no chance I was going to turn her down, no matter what it
was,” he admits. “She is Rina Broomberg after all.” A year on from that email
and Sinclair hasn’t looked back.
Of
course, this is a completely
different experience to anything he’s done in the past. We are talking about
CliffCentral here. It’s uncensored; unscripted; unradio. As
much as he was taught about radio broadcasting – learning the desk; how to cut
sound; how to present a show – those skills aren’t enough.
CliffCentral
demands more.
But
instead of feeling overwhelmed, Sinclair finds himself thriving. “It’s the
perfect environment for me. I don’t like to be micromanaged and here, I am
allowed to be my own person.” Sinclair, as well as everyone else at
CliffCentral, is also encouraged to push
the boundaries. However, don’t think that this is just a license to swear or to
talk about taboo subjects freely without worrying about the BCCSA coming after
you. It is, instead, an opportunity to approach ‘radio’ from a new angle.
“Pushing
the boundaries doesn’t mean that you have to be provocative,” points out Sinclair.
“On normal radio you have a very short time where you can speak. You have to
cut to news, to adverts, to traffic. Here, if I have an hour-long show, I
literally have an hour where I can talk. That is pushing boundaries. We are not
used to turning on the radio and hearing an in-depth, hour-long interview.”
At the
same time, it’s about having real conversations with guests in a way that will
allow your listeners to relate. “We have a huge responsibility to give our
audience something worthwhile to listen to,” says Sinclair. “I constantly have
to ask myself: if I was using my phone data to listen to my show, would I be
happy?” That doesn’t mean that Sinclair measures his success solely on the
number of downloads each episode gets. However, he isn’t oblivious to the
figures either.
“I’d
rather put a good six months into my show and then take stock. Rather look at
the big picture,” says Sinclair. “I also have to remember that I am building my
own career. If I start comparing myself to Gareth Cliff, I’ll always come off
second best. I can’t compare myself to people on that level. I need to instead
stay in my own lane; focus on my own race.”
Before working at
CliffCentral, Sinclair admits he had
felt like he was done with the media industry. He had been burned and was
bitter. Radio wasn’t what he expected. However, that all changed a year ago
when he joined the Internet radio upstart. It has reignited his passion and he
knows one thing is certain: he doesn’t want to miss a thing.
Catch Jono Sinclair every
Wednesday between 11:00 and 12:00 with Sharon Dale on AnimalCentral, CliffCentral’s show
for animal lovers.