Video stole the radio star

By REBECCA BARRY

Clarke Gayford is worried how his chest will look on screen. "He's like, 'I'm not wearing T-shirts, I'll look like a dick," says Jaquie Brown.

"It wasn't that!" he retorts. "It was more just the cut of the T-shirt, I looked..."

"You thought you looked gay. And fat."

"The camera angle was just ... No! It wasn't ..."

"You look skinny. You're worried you won't look manly enough."

When free-to-air music channel C4 launches tomorrow night, you can bet the two main hosts won't be gushing each other's praises.

Cue C4 programme director Andrew Szusterman's spiel pronouncing Brown the "best music television presenter in the country" and Gayford, who he watched "ticking over in front of the camera. He wasn't one to waffle."

Until recently, the presenters knew each other only vaguely but have already built up a solid rapport dishing flak at one another like a verbal tennis match. Brown, who at 27 is an experienced host having worked on bFM, George FM, Channel Z and Friday night music TV show Space, knows the importance of on-screen chemistry. She had it with Hugh Sundae, lacked it with Dominic Bowden and relishes the opportunity to take a swipe at her new co-host whenever possible, referring to him as her "bitch".

Gayford, 26, is used to taking the mickey from the other side of the camera.

He produced and directed the goofy comedy Pulp Sport which he sold to Sky TV (C4 will repeat the series) and Cow TV, a Dunedin student staple. He has also hosted radio shows on the Edge and Channel Z but it wasn't until Szusterman suggested he would make a good TV presenter that he considered auditioning. Besides, he adds, "someone's got to put up with Jaquie".

Szusterman sat through more than 300 audition tapes to get this far, and ended up employing three of his former colleagues. James Coleman, host of C4 nostalgia show Flashbacks, also came from the station. But don't go thinking it's a case of workplace nepotism, Szusterman warns.

"I've always thought Channel Z's talent was a major asset and that unlike a lot of radio it wasn't all boss jock 'Hey, whoa!' It just so happens that these guys worked there but there was nothing in it. It doesn't mean C4 is going to be representative of the channel by any means."

The other five presenters came from radio backgrounds, too.

Alternative show host Camilla Martin, better known by her meteorological alias Camilla Nimbus, had a two-year stint at bFM where she would "look out the window and guess the temperature".

Rock show host Jono Pryor threw himself in at the deep end on The Rock. He was absent from the C4 launch party as he was being dragged behind a speed boat in a tyre, providing slapstick fodder for the station's weekly segment, "Do stuff to Jono".

Hip-hop show host and Aotearoa Hip-Hop Summit organiser DJ Sir-Vere is regarded as an expert in his field, and has proved his presenting worth on bFM and expired music show, MTV.

Dance show host Nick Dwyer also came from bFM and MTV and DJs drum 'n' bass regularly at Queen St's Fu Bar.

Request show host Teuila Blakely worked on Niue FM and is an actress and playwright.

C4 station manager Suzanne Wilson, who had a similar role at bFM, says the casting process was as much about finding camera-friendly characters as it was those who know their music.

They were asked what albums they had last bought, what gigs they had been to in recent weeks and what they knew about music videos.

And while they set up the channel they refused to let the gloomy deaths of Max TV and MTV — which Szusterman blames squarely on TVNZ — dampen their enthusiasm.

"We're not going out there and saying, 'Hey, here's this whole big product that's going to take over the whole channel, and implode on itself.' We're being very careful in the way we've structured it."

Even C4's stark white studio has been kept free of props because, he says, "you can't judge nothing". The channel will screen from 4pm-midnight, Sunday through Thursday, and until 1am Fridays and Saturdays. Pop music videos will run until 8pm for the "after-schoolers" followed by a combination of the specialist music shows (including a thrice-weekly New Zealand music segment) and yoof schlock hits South Park and Jackass. Viewers will be kept in the loop through text messaging but if their tastes don't match the presenters', no matter.

"It'll be fun to watch the old music videos that cost $8 million to make," says Szusterman, "and think, 'Man, that was [bad]!"'

He's confident people won't feel that way about C4, because it is based on the eternally successful MTV.

Regardless, Brown isn't letting Gayford get a big head.

"I'm just preparing him. I ring him up and just abuse him ... 'You're so ugly. You're so stink'."

Gayford sighs. "Your bum looks fat in that, stuff like that. That's what it's all about."