Commercial Radio: A Whole Different Beast

My name is Joel, by the time I finish writing this article, I will be close to completing Semester 1 of my Diploma in Radio Broadcasting and Podcasting. There’ve been a lot of highlights and plenty of challenges, too many to fit into this article so I’ll keep things simple but the main takeaway is:

Commercial Radio is a whole different beast.

My journey in radio started way back in late 2023. My hometown: Ellenbrook has a local community-run station named VCA 88.5 FM. I joined them, looking to volunteer in Audio Production and Voiceover. Voice work was and still remains a deep passion for me. I wanted to be the next Matthew Mercer or Dee Bradley Baker.

I remember the first sponsorship promo I ever recorded.
It was for a company called Xcell Recruitment. It must’ve taken me five attempts to say the lines without stuttering. I had no idea how Adobe Audition worked either, so the producer had to edit the promo for me.
The first time I heard the promo on air, I couldn’t believe it was my voice.
The producer had put some multiband compression on the track to beef up my voice but it was still my voice! I was on radio, broadcasting across Ellenbrook and the City of Swan!
I then spent the next two years honing my craft, learning the ins-and-outs of Audition, learning how to script and record my voiceovers more efficiently.

At the end of 2025, I decided I wanted to do this work professionally, so I enrolled at North Metro Tafe in one of their Radio Broadcasting Courses.
I’ll be honest, I went in with a little bit of an ego. I had been working as a volunteer in radio for two years at that point.
I thought I knew everything about radio and production. I was going to ace this course!
Day one was an immediate reality check when I turned up for what I thought was an Advanced Diploma course but per my Lecturers’ advice, I was dropped back down to the Diploma instead.

It was a good call, too.
If you’d asked me 6 months ago what the difference between a Speed Break and a Talk Break was, I’d have no answer. If you’d asked me how to program a radio show on RCS Zetta (which is industry standard software by the way.) I’d stand there scratching my head.

Looking back from the tail end of Semester 1, I don’t think I’ve ever worked on anything harder in my life. Not even year 12 ATAR was this hard. I had no idea how different Commercial radio was to Community radio. Show prep is a lot more structured, talk breaks have to be concise and there’s way more paperwork than I expected!

Despite the challenges (and the hit to my ego…) I still love the radio industry and I am proud of how far I’ve come in just 6 months.

Written by: Joel Hagan