Mark Hitchings - Breakfast show producer at Capital East Midlands
After starting a mail campaign to get himself work experience as a 14 year old at his local radio station, Mark Hitchings has done many a mundane job to work his way up the career ladder, and it has worked. Nicknamed Brainz for reason’s only known to the few, Mark was the producer of the very successful Jo & Twiggy breakfast show on Trent Fm in Nottingham. He has won over 20 awards in radio, including 4 Sony‘s, and he is looking to add to that collection as producer of the new Twiggy and Emma breakfast show on Capital East Midlands which you can listen to if you click here.
The Pips asked him about how he started in radio and what it takes to become a successful producer.
How did you become a producer?
At the age of 14, my school made me go out and find some work experience. Well I decided I wanted to do my work experience at my local radio station which was Severn Sound in Gloucester. I started a mail campaign to get myself work experience there and ended up writing 15 letters to several departments before they eventually said yes. After that they offered me work experience again when I was 16. This time though I managed to stay on as they were looking for people to “tech op”, which is looking after and running the studio desk as a presenter does a show. I spent 2 years at Severn Sound learning the ropes, how to tech op, load audio and generally doing all the jobs that gains you loads of experience.
I then applied for a job I was under qualified for at the radio station, GWR Bristol. I didn’t get the job but because of my persistence and enthusiasm, I was offered a different role at the radio station. My main job, amongst other jobs nobody really liked doing, was to record all of the radio stations songs that were on vinyl records, into a computer database. This was long before any of the technology we use now to transfer songs from one format to another was invented. So I had to listen to EVERY song, in full, as it was being recorded into the computer. It took 9 whole months to complete the job.
I started to do other odd jobs for different radio stations within the GWR radio group, and eventually I ended up as a producer for a Friday night show that was broadcast simultaneously on different radio stations in the GWR group. I had the knowledge to train the presenter of the show, on how to use the studio equipment. That was the main reason I got the job as the producer.
After a while I received a phone call from the programme controller of Trent Fm who was seeking a producer to work with the new breakfast show, Jo and Twiggy. I took the job and rest is history.
How did you know you wanted to be a producer?
I found out I wanted to be a producer when I was a kid, and it was all down to my Atari games console. I loved the sounds it made and I had fun making them sounds do something. It was like how I now use special effect noises in content I produce for the breakfast show at Trent Fm. When I was lucky enough to find myself alone in a production studio, all I wanted to do was use the equipment to mess around and create something. I also knew I didn’t actually want to be on air, so the role of producer was ideal for me.