Duo tune in to talk show audience

NEW FORMAT: The team of ECR's new night-time show, Trending Tonight, Sirshin Moodliar, left, and producer Jason McCall.

NEW FORMAT: The team of ECR's new night-time show, Trending Tonight, Sirshin Moodliar, left, and producer Jason McCall.

Published May 21, 2014

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A first for Durban’s East Coast Radio (ECR) station is the new show, Trending Tonight, which airs every Monday to Thursday from 9pm to midnight.

Presented by Sirshin Moodliar and put together by producer Jason McCall, the show follows a talk-radio format. Basically, it gets you talking and deals with today’s issues.

Tonight caught up with Moodliar and McCall to learn more about Trending Tonight and how the concept developed.

“It’s a new concept on our station and it deals with everything trendy and current. It’s definitely a vibrant show and focuses on talk. It’s not just music, it’s things people are talking about in South Africa and around the world, whether it’s a video that went viral in the US and how it’s related to South Africa. We talk about the everyday stuff people talk about. It deals with the concerns people have. And it’s highly interactive and social. So we have callers and interact with listeners over social media. We’re very excited about it.

“So ECR approached me and asked if I was keen to host the show, which I was more than willing to do. It was a big challenge because I’m used to music radio and with this, the idea is a talk show. But it is an exciting challenge. I enjoy inter-acting with celebs and so on so I’m very blessed and it’s the only show in South Africa that’s doing it,” shares Moodliar.

The show has been on air for a month so far and McCall says the response has been great, largely because of the interactive appeal: “The feedback has been amazing and it is riveting for talk radio. It focuses on something different every time. And we don’t focus on one issue. So for the first 20 minutes, we will discuss one topic and then it changes as the show goes on. But we were certainly surprised by the response. It’s phenomenal that people are paying attention and using social media to connect with us. The passive listeners are becoming active ones.”

From news to entertainment, the show is topical, relevant and controversial, if need be, and the duo touch on what people are tweeting, blogging, talking and Facebooking about on the day.

“It’s a hugely prepped show. Whatever we talk about has to do with you. You will be affected by it in some way and it affects us as South Africans. It’s talk radio with a kick and never heard before in South Africa,” says Moodliar.

• Trending Tonight on Facebook. Twitter: @IamSirshin and @JasonMcCall01.

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