Joe Tanti

The past three years have been full and fulfilling for Joe Tanti. Marika Azzopardi discovers things have certainly turned around.

It's been close to three years since I last interviewed Joe Tanti, during a point in his life when things weren't exactly exciting. The summer of 2005 saw him freshly redundant from a now defunct radio station, and clean out of the radio-presenting system. It was a rare time in his life. He was not on air.

I find myself interviewing Joe Tanti once again. This time his smile speaks volumes. It has taken time and patience, much courage and a couple of life's strange quirks to turn things round. The most recent surveys from Media Warehouse and Broadcasting Authority have concurred - Joe Tanti's company is the most favoured with radio listeners during the breakfast show slot - a big plus for Super One Radio, but an even greater boost for Joe Tanti himself.

"Shortly after our interview in 2005, I was offered the opportunity to host Super One's breakfast show. It was quite unexpected since I had been jobless for close to five months and it felt very strange for me to be back in a political station. Frankly, it was a challenge to break into the station initially. It took some four months for me to feel at home but I was happy to be back on air with the show and determined to make it work out well. Now I am part of the team and very happy there."

His long-winded stint of redundancy had urged him to sit back and take stock of his life, his work, his skills. It had helped him focus on what needed to be done and he started eyeing further study. "I decided to go to University and read Diplomatic Studies. I had nothing better to do and I had always wanted to study something like that. It was a big step to take at age 46, but I was all for it."

Little did he know that he would be offered the Super One post in the autumn, just after commencing University, meaning that he had to re-schedule and shake up his whole lifestyle once again. "I had reckoned on having the whole day to myself, to run back and forth to University and devour books. The challenge was not of handling the breakfast show - I had done practically all sorts of slots from night-time to drive-time to breakfast shows before. The challenge was to keep the studying going and managing to juggle both the new job and University effectively."

But manage he did, and three years down the line, he's just completed his final University exams and is looking forward to graduation come October. Joe Tanti - a diplomat. Never in his wildest dreams would he have imagined it possible, and yet it was all thanks to his losing his job that he managed to twist fate around and accomplish.

And on top of it all he is now first on both of Malta's leading media surveys - a rare feat indeed. He certainly seems to have clinched it well, since this is not the only time he placed first in the Maltese media enclaves. He was awarded Best DJ award and then Best Rock DJ at the 2003 Malta DJ Awards thanks to public acclaim. And certainly public acclaim has proved that his way of transmitting the feel-good-factor early on in the day, is a winning formula.

But is it just about quipping a couple of jokes and playing the right songs? Admittedly this deejay does manage to crack a couple of ribs and plays some of the best music in town - at least by my standards. Joe likes to insist that presenting a radio show is not just about playing music. Ultimately he considers radio presenting as a huge responsibility. "It is about having a lot of time on your hands and using it wisely to keep people in a good mood, but not only. I like to be positive and educational and fun - entertaining is a full-time job. There are two things I love about radio - it is practically everywhere and accessible to everybody, and you cannot rely on good looks or an "image" to bowl your audience. You have to know how to exude charm effectively enough to captivate the listener and allow him or her to create a 'picture' to relate to."

So before kicking off with his daily early morning stint, he has to roll up his sleeves and do some homework. He likes to watch TV stations like BBC, RAI or Sky News, scouting out news with a difference - the weird news which rarely gets mentioned.

"I think about my programme continuously. I look around for ideas, and believe me, if you look hard enough, ideas are there for the taking. Now I like to use the diary on my mobile phone to jot down hints which come to mind and which I then use as prompts on the next morning during the show. For instance, today while I was waiting for our appointment, I noticed how people still like to dress up to walk into Valletta..." And as he remembers this observation, he promptly texts the hint into his mobile and shows me how he often fills up his diary well ahead of a whole week's programmes.

As we walk out of Valletta, a couple of people stop to shake hands and greet or congratulate him. He returns greetings warmly. "Do you know them?" I ask. "No, but this happens all the time. There you go! I am happy to have placed first in these surveys. This is a journey that will pass. I've seen both Carlo Borg Bonaci and Jonathan Abel place first before me. I will move on, but for now... I'm glad it's my turn."