IN A RADIO climate where most shows will bend over backwards for their listeners, Nova’s Kate, Tim and Marty are more than happy to criticise their fans on air.
“This whole idea of the listeners being our friends ... nope,” Tim Blackwell told news.com.au.
“No, the good ones are our friends and they can come over and have a beer but the bad ones, stop ruining our show.”
That might sound harsh, but the trio’s willingness to mock callers who don’t deliver on air is just one of the reasons they’re currently the number one FM drive show across Australia.
Since 2014, Kate Ritchie, Tim Blackwell and Marty Sheargold (KTM) have built an incredibly loyal fanbase because they do things differently.
Whereas other radio shows attempt to outdo each other when they interview the latest A-list celebrity that’s in Australia, KTM choose to ignore the stars.
Instead, famous people are only invited onto the show occasionally to take on Kate in a game.
“I think what people are starting to realise is how competitive she is,” said Tim about the former Home and Away star.
“I don’t think I’m competitive at all,” Kate said, defensively.
“I think it’s the way they cut it together to make it sound like that.”
“Yeah, we’re frantically cutting up our LIVE show each day to make you sound competitive,” said Tim sarcastically.
Kate prefers to have male guests on the show, because she’s worried that if she trash talks another woman on air it might sound a little catty.
“We don’t want to call that sexist,” said Tim, before Marty added, “It’s not racist though, let’s clear that up. No one is booing on our team”.
So who is Kate’s favourite guest on the show so far?
“I like Grant Denyer,” she said, before Tim tipped her in the deep end.
“Although when we got sent a Grant Denyer bobblehead doll you said it was nice we finally got a life size figure of him.”
“That was a mistake,” admitted Kate.
As you’ve probably picked up by now, Marty and Tim quite enjoy throwing Kate under the bus.
But she was well aware it was going to be that way when she replaced Meshel Laurie on the show a couple of years ago.
“When it was Meshel, Tim and Marty, I loved the show because it wasn’t like any other show,” she said.
“It was like a little gang that you wanted to be a part of.”
And now that she’s a part of it, she’s grown to love her co-hosts even more.
“Neither of them are divas,” she said, before Marty said to a nearby staffer, “I would love a fu*king water though”.
Another point of difference is how KTM use social media to their advantage.
Pretty much every radio show has a Twitter account but in the majority of instances, posts are handled by social media managers or producers.
On KTM, Tim refuses to let anyone behind the scenes touch the show’s account.
He does it solo so that the show has the same tone online as it does on air.
“Twitter is a very safe place,” he said.
“I try and either favourite or reply to every tweet that isn’t nasty to one of us.”
But co-host Marty isn’t on board.
“I don’t do social media,” he said, “I just reckon you invite a world of hurt into your life when you find out what people really think”.
With so many strong drive shows on air at the moment, including Hamish and Andyand Hughesy and Kate, you can expect to see each show pulling out all the stops to secure new listeners.
Yesterday for example, KTM flew a bunch of their listeners up to Sydney and invited them onto a luxurious business jet while they hosted their show on board.
“We’ve been trying to do it for years,” said Marty after the successful broadcast which has only been done once before.
“It was just one bloke,” said Tim, “and one bloke isn’t really a show is it? Sorry Alan Jones”.
So what would they like to tackle next?
“We really want to do a broadcast from the Playboy Mansion,” said Marty.
“We also want to go to Oktoberfest. And I also want to go on The Ghan and take listeners for a three or four day trip on the train where we all dress up for dinner.”
“There’s also a county in America that we talk about a lot called Butts and I’d love to do a show from in Butts,” said Tim, before Kate pointed out, “Guys, we’ve just given away all of our ideas”.
So if you’d like to potentially check out Butts with Kate, Tim and Marty, tune into Nova from 4-6pm weekdays.
Not a bad way to spend a Thursday. Source: Supplied
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