Smallzy: ‘Call me the underdog, but I want to host national breakfast’
After 20 years at Nova Entertainment, host of Smallzy’s Surgery, Kent ‘Smallzy’ Small, has declared he’s keen to take the next step in his career, and move to the “prime time” slot of breakfast radio.
Speaking to Mumbrella, Small said he’s lucky that he hosts Nova’s summer breakfast and winter breakfast, which gives him four weeks in the slot per year, but he would love to move on permanently one day.
“Show me the money,” he joked. “Write that in big, bold quotes – will Smallzy want breakfast? Yes, it’s prime time.”
Smallzy
He continued: “I would love one day to take that next step and be the little engine that could, be the one that is underestimated.”
While he thinks people would misjudge him, he said it would only fuel him to work harder.
“I love to be underestimated, and love to prove people wrong. It makes me hungrier, makes me fight harder for it. And the wins taste better when you do that,” he said.
Breakfast radio drives the majority of most networks’ revenue, and it is arguably the most important slot with the biggest players, and Smallzy said he understands its a big business decision to change the on air talent.
“There are a lot of people who make those decisions because it is an incredibly important decision that needs to be right, and needs to stack up,” Small said.
“This is a company of four or five hundred people – a lot of people who rely on coming to a job every day – and if we’re not putting product out that rates… I would hate to be the one responsible for that.”
When asked if he would take the Smallzy’s Surgery format to breakfast, he said he wasn’t sure.
“I think the worst decision you can ever make it say ‘we’re either going to do this, no matter what, or we’re going to do that, no matter what’,” he said. “I think everything has to be up for conversation and things needs to change and adapt.
“In 2023, just doing something because that’s the way we’ve always done something is a real quick way to finding out the audience has moved on and they’re not interested in what you have to offer anymore.
“Whatever the breakfast show that I host one day looks like, it won’t look like any of the ones that are on today,” he stressed.
“Breakfast radio is healthy competition, and, call me the underdog, but I want to host national breakfast – I believe I have the ability to, and the capacity to.”
Currently, the network doesn’t have a national host. Instead, Ben, Liam & Belle host Nova’s Melbourne breakfast slot, while Fitzy, Wippa and Kate Richie host Sydney.
Nova’s Brisbane breakfast is hosted by Ash, Luttsy & Susie O’Neill, Adelaide by Jodie and Hayesy, and Perth by Nathan, Nat & Shaun.
According to the latest GfK Radio360 survey, Nova holds 3.7% of the streaming share in Melbourne’s breakfast, and 7.3% in Sydney.
In Brisbane it has 12.8%, while in Adelaide and Perth it has 10% and 20.4%, respectively.
Keep an eye on Mumbrella for the full feature with Small this week.
Got a tip?
Lauren McNamara is a journalist at Mumbrella, covering the creative and PR beat. She joined in November 2022 as editorial assistant, after completing a Bachelor of Communications (Journalism) at UTS.
Linkedin
No thank you.
User ID not verified.
Have your say