Daryl has carved a highly-respected name into the annals of radio. He worked as a senior broadcaster in the highly competitive arena of commercial breakfast radio in both music and talk formats with some of the country’s biggest radio stations for over 25 years, for which he won a number of awards for both his on-air and online programming. When he hung up his headphones in August 2009 his show commanded the bulk of the audience of the biggest English-medium independent radio station in southern Africa (almost 2 million listeners). Daryl chose to leave to concentrate on his writing and to become a consultant specifically focusing on the assessment and development of key on-air talent.
This made sense, after all, he founded the country’s first online resource for radio professionals – The Edge. The original started off back in 2006 – when Facebook was still in its infancy, Twitter but a dream, and blogging needed an intimate knowledge of HTML – with the idea of providing an online repository of some of his original insights from over 25 years in radio. It was aimed primarily at those in student and community radio or at the entry stage of commercial radio, who quickly wanted to get the edge over their opposition and their colleagues – hence the name ‘The Edge’. It was brutal and uncompromising in its tone; hence it’s popularity.
However, it soon became the go-to online reference for many established radio personalities, big names in the business, many of whom were Daryl’s former colleagues or whom he knew well, who would enthuse with every update about the value The Edge offered, and how it gave them the high-voltage jolt they needed (in today’s highly-formatted radio, it’s easy for a presenter to get stuck in a rut).
And so, what started off as a bit of a hobby, and a simple collection of thoughts became a highly-structured, four-series publication of hard-hitting, no-nonsense guidelines for making radio compelling. The Edge was recently revamped, and you can find it by clicking on the image below. Note: All the work on The Edge is original; nothing is copied from anywhere else.
If you want to contact Daryl, click here; otherwise click on the image below to go to The Edge.