Plymouth Sounds

Andy Ballantyne is now a recognisable voice over the airwaves in Plymouth and the south west, on the recently rebranded Heart Radio. He talks to Paul Carter about his route into radio

I’m a broadcast journalist for Heart Radio in Plymouth, which means that I’m there to get news stories, produce them, edit them, write the scripts, get the audio and make sure they’re ready to go out on air. I also do reading shifts as well, where I read news bulletins. And I’m a freelance sports commentator.

I got into the industry in a bit of a roundabout way, to be honest. I started out doing a broadcast electrical engineering degree at the University of Brighton and, after three years of studying, I realised that there was no way I’d be able to do it 24/7 because of my disability.

What I’ve got is quite hard to categorise because, as with all these things, they originally thought it was one thing but now they think it’s something else. What they call it is Blount’s Syndrome, but effectively I’m missing the radius in both my forearms, which means they’re a couple of inches shorter than normal, and I don’t have any wrist movement.

I was also born bow-legged and had to have lots of reconstructive surgery on my legs and arms.

So, I had to have a bit of a rethink to decide what I wanted to do. While I was having my rethink I was trying to keep the dream alive of doing something in broadcast engineering by doing a few studio jobs and things like that, and I was doing a bit of teaching as well.

Then one day I was in a studio doing a microphone test when someone said I should be on the other side of the microphone because I had a good radio voice.

After various mini-productions and corporate video jobs, I began doing some work with CSV Media, a voluntary group that ran projects to get people from various backgrounds into the media. Through them I got some work experience at the commercial radio station Pirate FM, which was looking for someone to cover sport in the Plymouth area, as the journalist they had knew nothing about it. I used to go in on a Friday morning, do interviews with team managers and then edit them, all on a voluntary basis, and it just grew from there. Just before the foot-and-mouth outbreak, I was given a full-time job as Plymouth’s journalist.

We’ve had to overcome difficulties but I wouldn’t say there’ve been any barriers. I’ve never been turned away or been told I can’t do anything.

ANDY BALLANTYNE: CAREER PATH

• 1997 – Left Brighton University
• 1999-2001 Gained work experience at Pirate FM doing voice-over jobs
• 2001 – Pirate FM’s sports editor and reporter
• 2005 – Spent a year in London doing freelance sports commentary
• 2006-present – Journalist for Heart FM