As more and more business is being done outside the office and in the confines of a café, Angela Vithoulkas had an idea.
Owner of the Sydney CBD café Vivo, Angela wanted to harness that positive and productive energy and decided to combine the world of media to give small business a platform to discuss their issues and promote themselves.
Therein was born Eagle Waves Radio, a start up radio station, broadcast live from Vivo café that offers six weekly programs featuring expert and specialist hosts across fields ranging from accounting and finance to marketing and PR.
The radio booth in the café has certainly had Angela’s customers talking. And don’t think it’s a small project. Angela has 30 staff connected to the project, producing content and getting advertising to later expand the station further than six shows.
Currently, the show is broadcast live from the café to the station’s website, and is podcast so people can listen in their own time.
Starting in September, the station already has a strong following, thanks to the niche content and the café’s traffic.
“I could see small business had an appetite for information that was relevant to them, and not delivered by a government body or any one association that might be biased,” Angela told Neos Kosmos.
The café setting has really been the station’s bread and butter.
The CBD location sees high profile CEOs grab a coffee alongside the average workers, meaning content is never lacking and remains very topical.
Angela can see that a lot of business is being done in a café setting. People have merged the office and the café – the “coffice” as Angela likes to call it – to make work seem more relaxed and less structured.
“More deals are done in a positive way over a coffee than in a board room environment,” Angela believes.
Studies have even shown that ambient noise such as in cafés actually drives productivity, so many businesses are taking note and pushing their staff to go for their coffee breaks.
That’s something the radio station plays on. In each broadcast, you can hear the café bustling about, orders being made and the city noise seeping through.
“It’s got this buzz about it, you can even hear the ambulances and firetrucks going down George Street, the clunk of the cups and if someone breaks something, you can hear all of that,” Angela says.
“You can hear a lot of Greek in the background too, if the chefs get excited.”
And for the customers that make it into the café during a broadcast, they can pick up on the best of the local finance news, all while waiting for a coffee.
Each show follows a different theme, Tuesday is Chat with Chika, a show hosted by politician Kerry Chikarovski, Wednesday looks at business health and Thursday includes a three segment show on money, start ups and technology.
For more information and to hear the show, visit www.eaglewavesradio.com.au