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Beveridge: Online abuse prepared me for working in broadcast

Michael BeveridgeFM radio host and former member of the Big Brother house Michael Beveridge said the advertising industry helped him hone the skills necessary to work in broadcast.

Beveridge told the Mumbrella360 Conference his experiences as a junior copywriter for an advertising agency gave him an “absolute lack of care” for abuse directed at him.

“The internet is just like a newspaper – it’s full of opinions. I had my first piece of work put up online, and shock horror, some asshole called ‘Anonymous’ told me that my work was shit, had been done before, lacked any creativity, and that my life to this point had been a waste of time,” said Beveridge.

“In retrospect, I should thank Anonymous. Even though he or she is generally a massive prick, they helped me develop an absolute lack of care for what some faceless person on the internet has to say about me.”

Beveridge, who currently co-hosts the Michael, Hayley and Burgo breakfast show on Austereo’s SAFM, said both industries are very similar.

“There’s this universally held concept that we’re all so ridiculously pretentious in [the radio] industry, which is so wide spanning. It’s this really big platform to do really great things, which is the same as advertising,” he said.

“I’ve gone from writing radio ads to reading them, looking after companies social media strategies, to looking after my own and working on tone and style guides – not just for a faceless company, but for myself, which is way harder.”

Michael Beveridge recently answered questions for Encore about breakfast radio, which he described as a “very tough” industry.

“A good friend of mine told me people will be absolute dick-holes to you, regardless of whether you’re good, you’re bad, you’re amazing, you win 50 gold lions, you are the Old Spice writers,” he said.

“All that matters is that your mum, your boss and you are happy with the work that you do.”

Sam Buckingham-Jones 

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